Travels with AI

January 23, 2026
My travels have begun, and I haven’t even started my car. Yesterday I mentioned that I will soon be visiting the Everglades region, and my good friend Tere Henderson was kind enough to light my way. She mentioned Shadow Country by Peter Matthiessen and a real-life denizen of the Glades, Edgar J. “Bloody” Watson. My other good friend, AI, told me some more of the story.
Edgar Watson (1855-1910) was accused, but not convicted, of murder as a youth. Later, he was accused, but again not convicted, of killing the legendary female outlaw, Belle Starr.
Edgar settled in one of the most remote and lawless corners of the world, the Ten Thousand Islands area of southwest Florida, growing sugarcane and becoming an entrepreneur. Many of his neighbors at the time testified that he was hard-working and quick to anger.
It was said he killed his workers to avoid paying them, and, sure enough, some bodies washed up in the nearby rivers.
Edgar Watson gained legendary status in the Glades. Every mystery, large or small, was attributed to him, rightly or wrongly. What we do know for sure is that in October 1910, he was ambushed and shot to death by his neighbors outside Ted Smallwood’s store on Chokoloskee Island.
Did the Swamp people summarily execute a heinous murderer or was Edgar Watson just the victim of his own obsessive need to project an aggressive and unfriendly demeanor to the world? We will never know. There never was a trial.