By Bob Davidsson
The community of "Chosen" was established in 1921 as an early agricultural center on the southeast shore of Lake Okeechobee. It was created as a religious haven for a small sect of true believers known as the Church of the Brethren.
Chosen was located about one mile west of Belle Glade and east of Torry Island, near the source of the original 1913 Hillsboro Canal. It also was the site of an ancient midden and burial mound complex of Mayami Indians, dating back in time 2000 years.
The Church of the Brethren, also known as the "Dunkards," are a reformed branch of Anabaptist Protestants founded in eastern Germany in the year 1708. The common name of "Dunkards" comes from their religious requirement of total immersion in water three times during baptism.
The sect refused to take oaths of obedience to their German rulers, the established state church, or to serve in their armies. This resulted in persecution and emigration of many church members to America during the 18th century.
By the early 20th century, several Brethren congregations were established in South Florida, including in the town of Chosen.
The Chosen Indian Mound
A village midden and burial mound near Chosen, today known as the "Belle Glade Indian Mound" complex, was the easternmost town of the Mayami Indians of Lake Okeechobee. The shore of the big lake was inhabited by the tribe for nearly 5,000 years.
Villages along Lake Okeechobee are classified locally as part of the unique "Belle Glade Culture." The mound site near Chosen was firmly rooted between 200 and 600 A.D., and continued as an active inhabited village site until the Spanish Colonial Period in the 17th century.
The Mayami were a part of the regional Calusa Mound Building culture with close trade and inland navigation connections to the larger Gulf Coast tribe. Mayami villages extended from the mouth of the Kissimmee River, on the northern shore of Lake Okeechobee, south to Belle Glade. Their largest mound complex was located near Fort Center in Glades County.
Wooden artifacts and pottery recovered from the Chosen Mound are similar in design to those found at both Fort Center and Calusa Indian middens at Key Marco on Florida's west coast. The Mayami shared the resources of Lake Okeechobee, called "Lake Mayami" by the Spanish during the 16th century, with the Santaluces Indians, their neighbors along the inland sea's eastern shoreline.
The Chosen midden served as an elevated village site which kept the inhabitants dry during periodic flooding of the lake. The smaller adjacent ceremonial mound also served as a burial site for the village.
The Chosen site was excavated by a team sent from the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. The project was funded as part of the Emergency Relief Program during the Great Depression by the Civil Works Administration.
The Smithsonian's G.M. Sterling was director of the archaeological project. He was assisted by a large expedition of formerly unemployed laborers sent to unearth and explore the mound during its 1933-34 excavation.
At the time of excavation, the Chosen site was divided by a creek known as the Democrat River, named for a Glades expedition sponsored by the New Orleans Times-Democrat newspaper in the 1880s. The small river was probably used as a canoe route to Lake Okeechobee. It was later destroyed by agricultural drainage projects.
The Smithsonian team examined the circular burial mound and its dome-shaped summit. In addition to native crafts, the archaeologists found Spanish trade beads and metal fragments from St. Augustine and coastal shipwrecks.
In 1977, a house was built at the mound site. Prior to its construction, state archaeologists were able to make further excavations. Today, artifacts from the mound are cataloged and archived by the Smithsonian Institute. Other items are located in the Florida State Museum, and the Lawrence Will Museum in Belle Glade.
J.R. Leatherman's 'Chosen' Village: 1921-28
John Robert "J.R." Leatherman was born in the Cabin Run section of Mineral, West Virginia, one month before the end of the Civil War on March 13, 1865. His parents, Dan A. and Margaret Leatherman, were of German ancestry and baptized members of the Brethren of the Church.
On Jan. 2, 1881, he married Mary Sowers, and together they raised two children, Lena and Vida. J.R. Leatherman was a skilled architect and builder. He moved his family to Fairfax County, Virginia, where he built a two-story brick house with a veranda for his family near the town of Vienna. His grandfather and namesake, John, was from Virginia.
Fairfax County had a Brethren of the Church congregation of 197 members. Leatherman served as an assistant minister to Elder I.M. Nelt, and helped erect a new church and Sunday school at Dranesville, Virginia, for the 216 children in the congregation.
Shortly before the turn of the 20th century, he moved his family from Virginia to a new home in West Palm Beach. He continued his career as a builder, and used Henry Flagler's new East Coast Railroad to commute weekly from his home to three construction projects under contract in the town of Delray.
His best known building is the historic Sundy House, built in 1902 and still used today as a bed-and-breakfast restaurant. Leatherman also built the First Methodist Church on Atlantic Avenue in Delray. The sanctuary was destroyed by the 1928 hurricane, but its original rectory is still standing.
In 1903, he built and briefly resided in a house later sold to merchants William J. and Grace Cathcart in 1910. Today, it is known as the historic Cathcart House.
In the 1910 Census, recorders listed his primary residence as Delray instead of West Palm Beach. In addition to his architectural projects, Leatherman also raised fruit on a small farm outside of Delray.
Leatherman was a man of vision. For 10 years he envisioned and worked tirelessly to create a religious community supported by agriculture for his fellow Brethren of the Church along the shore of Lake Okeechobee.
According to U.S. Census documents, by 1920 the J.R. Leatherman family resided at Okeelanta in unincorporated Palm Beach County. He was joined by the family of his older brother, Isaac. He used his church connections to recruit Brethren from the Indian River Church in Wabasso and elsewhere.
The official Ministerial Lists of the annual "Brethren Family Almanac" confirm Leatherman was a church elder serving Wabasso (1899, 1902 editions), Delray (1907 edition), as well as the Vienna, Va., congregation.
In order to obtain a U.S. Post Office, the new community needed a name. Leatherman turned to the Bible for an inspiration. It came from the book of Deuteronomy 16: 1-2, which set guidelines for God's "chosen" place of worship. The rural community was postmarked as "Chosen" for the next seven years of its existence.
One enduring legend about the name states, "He (Leatherman) saw the rich soil and temperate climate and declared it to be God's 'Chosen' place."
The Chosen church was dedicated by the Brethren on May 4, 1922. Leatherman served as its first "Elder" or minister. At its peak, the church served 10 Brethren patriarchs and their families. The community also attracted merchants, fishermen and black farm laborers.
Isaac West, member of the Brethren, was a merchant and became the community's postmaster when the village received its U.S. Post Office address in 1922. Brethren Sister Bertha Albin of Kansas moved to Chosen and became the community's school teacher and secretary for six years.
The village of Chosen may have been inspired by God, but was not without its share of scandals. Community founder J.R. Leatherman was removed by the Brethren as the Elder and overseer of the church in April 1925.
He was relieved of duties as Chosen's spiritual leader for "unbecoming moral behavior." According to the accusations, Leatherman was not only a Dunkard, but also a "drunkard," who overindulged in alcohol.
During its final three years, services for the Chosen congregation were led by a traveling circuit minister or elder from the Town of Sebring's Brethren Church, established in 1916.
The Hurricane of 1928
For those who believe events on earth are directed by a supreme divinity in Heaven, then the final judgment of the community of Chosen was decreed Sept. 17, 1928 in the form of a category five hurricane.
The "Hurricane of 1928," also known as the "San Felipe Segundo" tropical storm in Puerto Rico, was the third of its kind in the summer season. It was born the first week of September, but intensified rapidly as it crossed the Windward Islands on Sept. 12, killing 1,200 residents of Guadalupe.
When it reached Puerto Rico the next day, it shredded the island with peak winds of 160 miles per hour. The massive storm killed 312, and left 500,000 islanders homeless.
On Sept.17, the hurricane hit West Palm Beach with 145 mph winds and a 10-foot storm surge along the coast. More than 1,700 coastal houses were destroyed as the storm twisted toward Lake Okeechobee.
The storm surge on the big lake formed an 18-foot wall of water, smashing weak mud dike walls, and submerging the lake communities. Witnesses say the lake was in the eye of the hurricane for nearly 30 minutes before the winds changed directions and intensified.
According to the latest 2003 estimates, more than 2,500 residents and farm workers living in the lake communites drowned in the flooding. About 35,000 people became homeless. Recovery was slow and bodies were discovered for weeks in the muddy farm fields, then burned or buried in mass graves near the lake or in West Palm Beach.
In the community of Chosen, members of the Brethren Church sought refuge in the three largest houses, and also in a packing warehouse located at the edge of town. One house was lifted off its foundations and floated into the farmland.
Pat Burke's house was used as a shelter for 19 frightened residents. Only two survived when the storm surge from Lake Okeechobee capsized the home. The 20 residents seeking refuge in Isaac West's store survived by crowding into a bathroom in the middle of the building.
The only land in Chosen which did not flood was the ancient Mayami Indian mound which rose about 10 feet above the surrounding countryside. Thirty-one fortunate residents and black farm workers survived the hurricane by holding onto thick weeds growing on the lee side of the midden. At the peak of the storm, flood waters crested two feet below the top of the mound.
Most of the homes in Chosen were swept away by the lake flooding. After the storm, bodies were stacked along the Belle Glade-Chosen Road. The town's death toll is unknown. Estimates range from less than 100 to 1,000. Many were black farm laborers.
The community of Chosen never recovered from the Hurricane of 1928. Even though the school and church were destroyed, secretary Bertha Albin tried to rally the surviving Brethren to remain in Chosen. Most chose to leave.
Chosen's sister city, Belle Glade, become home for some of the survivors. It was known as "Hillsboro" when the community organized in 1919. It incorporated as the City of Belle Glade on April 9, 1928, five months before the hurricane.
J.R. Leatherman's brother, Isaac, died in the hurricane. He remained in Chosen for a few years, remarried after of loss of his wife, and returned to West Palm Beach in 1932. He attended meetings of the Church of the Brethren congregation in Miami after the destruction of Chosen.
Leatherman died Oct. 6, 1953 in West Palm Beach. The founder of the community of Chosen, his first wife, and one of his daughters are buried in Woodlawn Cemetery. An historical marker in a sugarcane field near SR 715 and the Hillsboro Canal was erected as a sentinel of the community's past.
Today, there are about 100,000 Church of the Brethren members in the United States and Puerto Rico, with mission partners on five continents.
(c.) Davidsson. 2016.
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