Henry Tindell
Florida's Forgotten Coast
Florida's Forgotten Coast oral history collection includes twenty-one interviews documenting the seafood industry in Franklin County, FL, with an emphasis on Apalachicola, plus two interviews relating to tupelo honey. Original Collection Housed at Archives & Special Collections at the University of Mississippi and online at www.southernfoodways.com.
Shelley Chance
Henry Tindell is a native of Alabama. As a teenager, he went to Eastpoint to visit an aunt and, inspired by his time there, he devised a plan for what to do when he finished high school. But Henry was too eager to get on the water, so in 1963 he moved to Eastpoint and finished his senior year up the road in Carrabelle. Soon after, he began harvesting oysters and crabs and has been working on the bay ever since. In the 1980s, as imports began replacing the local hard crab business, soft-shell crabs became popular, so Henry began cultivating them. It takes a special person to work with soft-shells, though. For three months out of the year, those crabs are doted on night and day. They have to be constantly monitored to catch their molt because only a freshly molted crab can be sold as a live soft-shell. But the long nights are worth it to Henry. He figured the soft-shell business was the only area left to make a decent living off of the bay, and he welcomes the opportunity to pass on his knowledge. To Henry, the glory days of crabbing are gone, and there aren't many folks left who want to give their nights and days cultivating soft-shells. Henry may be one of the last of his kind.
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