Soon after landing at Tampa, Mr. Atzeroth commenced prospecting for a desirable place to locate. After looking about for two or three weeks, he concluded to homestead one hundred and sixty acres of land on Terraceia Island, and on the 12th day of April, 1843, accompanied by his wife, little daughter, the German physician and his dog Bonaparte, landed on the east side of the island about midway of Terraceia Bay. The hammock was so dense that the men were compelled to use their axes to clear a space on which to pitch their tent. The underbrush and vines were so thick, and the progress made by the men so slow, that Madam Joe seized an axe and assisted them. This was her first attempt at chopping and grubbing in Florida. Since that time she has become an expert at the business. When the tent was erected and dinner prepared, it was eaten with a keen relish. From that time forward Madam Joe felt new life and strength. Her torpid liver began to perform its normal functions, and she forthwith discharged the physician and destroyed his medicines. The doctor went to Key West, where he died soon afterward. Having become weary of tent-life, Madam Joe proposed to her husband the erection of a palmetto hut. Mr. Joe, as the madam always called her husband, drove the stakes for the frame and gathered the palmetto fans or branches. The madam mounted the roof and thatched it; but her work was performed so badly that the first shower of rain deluged the interior, and its inmates sought refuge under the table. The hut was subsequently re-thatched, and three of its corners made fast to trees, which prevented the wind from blowing it down. Soon after the completion of the hut, their provisions ran short, and Mr. Joe started in a canoe for Tampa to replenish them. On his return, adverse winds blew his frail craft around Shaw's Point into Palmasola Bay, and becoming bewildered, he landed at Sarasota instead of Terraceia. After being buffeted about by the wind and waves for more than a week, he finally reached home. During his absence, Madam Joe and her child had no companion save the dog Bonaparte. The panthers, wild hogs and owls made the nights hideous with their screams, growls and hootings. One night a raid was made by an owl on the chickens roosting on the trees overhanging the hut. Madam Joe seized an old musket of the Methodist persuasion, which usually went off at half-cock, with the intention of frightening away the "wild varmints," but it was unloaded. Never having loaded a musket, she was in a quandary whether to put in first the powder or the shot. Luckily, she put in the powder before the shot, and stepping to the door of the hut, discharged the musket into the tops of the trees. She put in too much powder, and like another gun we read about, it "Bore wide the mark and kicked its owner over."