PRINCE ACHILLE MURAT,aka THE CRACKER PRINCE
Tallahassee became incorporated as a city during 1825. By that time, there were hundreds of inhabitants, a school had opened, and lots of new businesses were established. Word spread quickly about the fertile soil and the large tracts of land available. Planters, mostly from Virginia and the Carolinas came to establish new plantations. One of the very first was Charles Louis Napoleon Achille Murat, prince of Naples and nephew of Napoleon Bonapaarte.
Prince Murat was in exile due to the fall of Napoleon. He stayed in New Jersey, making his way to St. Augustine. Once he learned of the land available in this area, he bought a plantation he named Lipona. It was an anagram of his former principality--Napoli. He adapted quickly to the frontier lifestyle, sleeping on a moss-filled mattress within a one-room log cabin that he built. He wore buckskins and crude homespun cloth. He learned to use a bullwhip for driving his herds of cattle, thus earning himself the title of "Cracker Prince".
He was a definite eccentric character. He never drank water, feeling it was bad for body and soul, and was only good enough for beasts. Bathing was to be avoided at all costs. He once fell into a vat of cane syrup. His servants yanked him out, thinking he was badly burned. His main concern was that now he'd have to wash.
He loved chewing tobacco, and went everywhere with a big, very shaggy dog that was basically his spitton. He courted and married Catherine Willis Gray, one of our cities most desirable young ladies. Everyone felt she had married beneath her station. After the marriage, the one room cabin was vastly expanded and became one of the social hubs for the planter class.
Murat thought he was a culinary master, and he utilized game from the woods and fields to create dishes for his guests. He tried cooking snakes, gators, turtles, bats, birds, lizaards. The turkey vulture, which he tried cooking several different ways, defeated him. If friends and neighbors heard he was planning on serving it, they would not appear at his table. Stories go that once Governor Duval arrived at Murat's after a very long ride from his plantation, only to be served a whole baked owl with the head intact! The governor frequently told the story of the only meal that looked back at him.
Murat applied for citizenship soon after arriving in this country. It took five years for naturalization, and Murat took the oath that made him a U.S. citizen in Quincy. In 1882 he was granted admission to the bar, and was appointed to a judgeship in Jefferson County in 1834.
He returned twice to Europe to try to reclaim his family fortune and title. He was not successful, and because he had mortaged part of his plantation to pay for the trip, he faced economic difficulties upon his return. He lost Lipona and had to move to a smaller plantation called Econchatti. Both of these properties were located in Jefferson County off the Old St. Augustine Trail west of Waukeenah.
He died at the age of 46, in 1847. Catherine moved to another property that was in the family, called Belle Vue. It is now ensconced at the Tallahassee Museum. Napoleon III became emperor of France, and Catherine received all of the claims that Murat had tried to recover, including the title of princess. After the Civil War, Catherine lived the remainer of her life at Belle Vue. Both she and Prince Murat were laid to rest in the old Episcopal cemetery in Tallahassee.