Palm Beaches during the Spanish-American War: 1898

By Bob Davidsson
        A "Hiker" is the name used by soldiers of the U.S. Army infantry to describe themselves during America's conflicts at the turn of the 20th century.
        Guarding the intersection of Okeechobee Blvd. and Parker Avenue, shaded under a row of palms at the northwest corner of Howard Park in West Palm Beach, stands an eight-foot statue, commonly called "The Hiker." It stands as a memorial to the men and women who served in the armed forces or as volunteers during the Spanish-American War.
        The bronze monument, tarnished by age and the South Florida climate, depicts a foot soldier marching to battle. He wears the Army fatigues of the 1890s infantry, with knee-high boots, a supply satchel at his hip, and a Rough Rider campaign hat resting on his head. In his arms he carries a Springfield rifle used by many volunteers during the war.
        The West Palm Beach monument is one of 50 copies of a statue designed and sculpted by artist Theo Alice Ruggles Kitson (1876-1932). The Spanish-American War memorial was cast by the Gorham Manufacturing Company, and dedicated in Howard Park on Aug. 12, 1949.
        A placard placed on the memorial reads: "This monument is presented by Public Subscription to United Spanish War Veterans of Florida to commemorate the valor and patriotism of the men who served in the War with Spain, Philippines Insurrection and China Relief Expedition (Boxer Rebellion), 1898-1902."
        It is a proper setting for a memorial. There are 48 Spanish-American War veterans buried in the city's Woodlawn Cemetery. Two additional veterans rest in the Boca Raton Cemetery. Most were men who enlisted in state volunteer regiments. Just 15 were U.S. Army and Navy veterans.
        Four of the veterans buried at Woodlawn were members of the 1st Florida Volunteer Infantry, according to the Spanish-American War Centennial research site.
        The Spanish-American War began with a declaration against Spain April 25, 1898, following a mysterious explosion and sinking of the battleship "U.S.S. Maine" in Havana, Cuba. Spain was engaged in crushing the latest in a series of revolts in its colony of Cuba. The brutality of these conflicts was widely reported in the American press, contributing to America's decision to go to war.
        When war was declared, the Palm Beaches were still part of Dade County. It required less than one day of sailing for a warship under full steam to travel from Havana to the fledgling cities of Juno and West Palm Beach. While there were no battles fought on Florida's southeast coast, residents of the scattered coastal villages of Dade County lived in fear of bombardment or possible landing of troops from passing Spanish warships.
        This wartime anxiety was well deserved. The anchorage of Palm Beach was used by at least three American gun-running vessels in the years prior to the Spanish-American War. The filibustering captains transported rifles, ammunition and Cuban rebel fighters to isolated rivers and harbors along the northern coast of Cuba.

Florida Filibusters and Gun-runners to Cuba
        During the 1890s, the Palm Beaches did not have a port-of-call for ocean shipping. The Port of Palm Beach did not exist. The Jupiter and Boca Raton inlets were too shallow and treacherous for ocean vessels. Several attempts to dig a navigable Lake Worth inlet failed during the 19th century.
        Railroad tycoon Henry Flagler had a plan. He would build an anchorage, consisting of a docking pier and breakwater, extending from the island of Palm Beach eastward more than 1,000 feet out to sea. It would be directly linked to the Palm Beach spur of his new Florida East Coast Railway.
        On Sept, 25, 1895, Captain J.D. Ross received the contract from Flagler to build the platform later known as the "Breakers Pier". It was located offshore of the Palm Beach Inn which soon became the site of the Breakers Hotel.
       His ocean "port" became the terminus of Flagler's short-lived "Palm Beach-Nassau Steamship Line," established on Oct. 19, 1895. The steamer "Northampton" began passenger service to the Bahamas on Jan. 18, 1896. A U.S. Customs House opened the same day to keep a record of vessels using the new port.
        A second steamer under contract with Flagler acquired a more sinister reputation. The "Biscayne," formerly named the "J.N. Sweeny," was used as a passenger ferry to transport workers and customers of Florida East Coast Railway as it advanced down the southeast coast of Florida.
        Initially based in Lake Worth, the "Biscayne" carried passengers from Palm Beach to Fort Lauderdale in 1896, then from Fort Lauderdale to Miami as the rail service moved south. When no longer needed by the railroad as a transport, the "Biscayne" began a new career as a smuggling vessel.
        The steamship was seized twice while attempting to smuggle arms to rebellious Cubans in their fight for independence from Spain. In June 1897, the New York Times published three articles about American gun-runners. One headline screamed, "The 'Dauntless' and 'Biscayne' May Be Libeled and Their Officers Placed Under Arrest."
        The gun-runner "Dauntless" set sail from Palm Beach in October 1896, carrying four rail carloads of ammunition and medical supplies for the rebels in Cuba. A special train from Jacksonville met the "Dauntless" at the Breakers Pier where for four hours Cuban fighters and munitions were transferred to the steamer.
        The vessel was shadowed from its home port of Jacksonville by the U.S. revenue cutters "Boutwell" and "Winona". Eight hours after the "Dauntless" left Palm Beach, the pursuit was joined by U.S. Navy ships based in Key West.
        The "Dauntless" completed a safe voyage and landing on the coast of Pinar del Rio, Cuba. However, the steamer's luck ran out while carrying its fourth illegal cargo off the southeast coast of Florida.
        The "Dauntless" was overtaken by the cruiser "U.S.S. Raleigh". The "Raleigh" fired on the gun-runner when it attempted to escape. The captured vessel was turned over to the U.S. Marshal's Service.
        The "Dauntless" was one of four gun-runners based in the St. Johns River near Jacksonville. They became known as the infamous "Cuban Fleet" of American filibusters. Its sister ships were the "Commodore," "Kate Spencer" and the "Three Friends".
        The "Three Friends" was a seagoing tug built in 1895 and owned by Napoleon Bonaparte Broward, a future Florida governor; his brother, Montcalm Broward; and their friend, George DeCottes. The future Democratic governor and U.S. Senator for Florida later claimed to have made eight runs to Cuba beginning 1896 as the captain of the "Three Friends".
        A "filibuster" is defined as an American civilian who seeks to overthrow a foreign government without the consent of U.S. Congress and the President. Broward used his fame as a filibuster to gain political offices in Jacksonville and the State of Florida after the end of the Spanish-American War.
        On its maiden filibuster voyage in 1896, the "Three Friends" loaded Winchester (Model 1890) rifles, 500 pounds of dynamite, 500 machetes, and one million primer caps for ammunition. The cargo was labeled as "groceries".
        Captain Broward sailed to the Ballast Point docks in Key West, where he picked up pilot Herbert Peck to safely guide the gun-runner to Cuba. The "Three Friends" was paid $10,000 in advance per gun-running mission, with a $1,000 bonus after each voyage.
        On Dec. 13, 1896, the "Three Friends met the gun-runner "Commodore" outside the three-mile territorial waters limit of Florida. A cargo of 3,500 rifles, ammunition and a Hotchkiss gun (a light cannon) were transferred to the tug. The "Three Friends" eluded the "U.S.S. Raleigh," on patrol off the coast of Key West, and once again landed on the north coast of Cuba.
        A Spanish patrol boat spotted the "Three Friends" and opened fire on the Cuban rebels unloading the vessel. The filibusters responded by firing their Hotchkiss gun at the patrol boat to keep it at bay until the last of its cargo was safely deposited on shore.
        Upon its return to Jacksonville on Dec. 26, U.S. Customs authorities briefly impounded the "Three Friends" for violation of federal neutrality laws. Spain pressed the charges, and warned that if the tug returned to Spanish waters in Cuba, the crew would be treated as pirates. The "Three Friends" continued its gun-running missions for more than a year.
        There are two documented reports of the "Three Friends" making stops in the Palm Beaches. A U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 1897 survey of the Palm Beach anchorage states, "An inquiry of the deputy collector of Customs as to commerce of Palm Beach develops the following trade between the dates of January and November 1896: "U.S.S. "Raleigh," the tug "Martha Hale," the tug "Three Friends," and several yachts of which no records had to be kept."
        While returning from its final gun-running adventure in the winter of 1898, the "Three Friends" anchored off the coast of Manalapan to assist the beached Norwegian sailing barque "Lofthus". The tug was unable to free the shipwrecked vessel from the coastal reef, and resumed its voyage to Jacksonville.
        During the Spanish-American War, the "Three Friends" was chartered by the New York World newspaper and used as a dispatch courier to relay news stories from correspondents Stephen Crane, Richard Harding Davis and Ralph Paine from Santiago, Cuba, to the nearest newswire service in Key West.

Palm Beachers Prepare for War with Spain
        With a long history of gun-running from eastern Florida to Cuba, the scattered, undefended coastal communities had good reason to fear retaliation from Spain following the declarations of war. Fortunately, Spain was on the defensive during the short 10-month war with battles fought by land and sea in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines.
        In April 1898, Captain Enoch Root formed a militia regiment in West Palm Beach. A total of 140 local residents signed up as volunteers for the defense of the Palm Beaches. Responding to a call to arms in The Tropical Sun newspaper editorial, many households on the island of Palm Beach armed themselves with Springfield rifles to protect their homes.
        The Jan. 24, 1899 edition of the Lake Worth Daily News reported, "The signal tower near the (Palm Beach) Inn is being painted. This tower belongs to the Flagler property, but it was used last spring by the government as a signal tower when there was a threat to the possibility of a Spanish descent on the American coast."
        Residents living in the "Celestial Railroad" villages of Juno and Jupiter were surprised to see the American battleship "U.S.S. Oregon" anchored off the Jupiter Inlet on May 24, 1898. The battleship had just completed an epic 14,000-mile voyage from San Francisco, around Cape Horn, to the coast of Florida to join the war against Spain.
        According to the New York Times, once local residents overcame their initial fear, they signaled the "Oregon" and relayed news of its arrival to Washington, D.C. The "Oregon" sailed south to Key West, then joined the American fleet blockading Santiago, Cuba.
        Several U.S. Navy ships used Flagler's Palm Beach anchorage as a port-of-call during and after the Spanish-American War. This provided a temporary but welcomed boom to local businesses. Apparently, wartime censorship did not exist in 1898, because local papers gave detailed descriptions of transport cargos and troop movements.
        The Jan. 20, 1899 Lake Worth Daily News reported, "The U.S. Navy's converted yacht "Yankton" appeared off the pier for three hours on the way from Newport to Santiago, Cuba. The paymaster and crew came ashore to get newspapers and notify the Department (of War). Besides Captain Dyer, the yacht carried 100 men and seven guns. The party had dinner at the Poinciana."
        Eleven days later, the newspaper reported, "The U.S. transport "Chester" stopped at Palm Beach several hours on Sunday, and some of her officers came ashore to send dispatches. The "Chester" was bound for Havana and had on aboard a Michigan regiment of volunteers, and a few other soldiers, making 1,100 in all."
        At the southern end of Dade County, "Camp Miami" opened as a military staging area June 20, 1898, but was abandoned just six weeks later due to poor sanitary conditions. During its short life, 7,000 volunteers from Alabama, Louisiana and Texas passed through the camp en route to the war.
        Henry Flagler was a supporter of the camp. The use of his railroad to transport troops was good for business. His Miami "Royal Palm Hotel" served as an officers quarters during the war. As the war progressed, Spanish prisoners also were shipped to the Port of Miami, then distributed to camps across the country.
        Admiral George Dewey, the hero of the naval Battle of Manila Bay, attempted dock at the Breakers Pier after returning to America. Sadly, the "U.S.S. Mayflower", his flagship, could not anchor due to heavy surf. Using naval flag signals, the admiral of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet apologized and said "The sea is too rough to make a landing."
        After the end of the Spanish-American War, Flagler decided relocate his "Palm Beach-Nassau Steamship Line to Miami. By then, he had a new vision of linking the City of Miami to Key West via an "Overseas Railroad".
       His Breakers Pier was severely damaged by the 1928 hurricane, and soon after dismantled. Today, sections of the pier can still be seen when exploring the Breakers Reef, offshore of Palm Beach.
        During the 1903-04 academic year, a 30-foot, doubled-ended lifeboat was used to transport children living along the Loxahatchee River to the old Jupiter School. The boat was christened the "Maine" in honor of the battleship that sank in Havana Harbor.
        Several early pioneers claimed the lifeboat once belonged to the ill-fated battleship prior to its sinking. Whether fact or fiction, the "Maine" served the community as a school ferry, and as such became part of the early history of the Town of Jupiter.
       The gun-runner "Three Friends" resumed an honest career as a working tug boat in the Port of Jacksonville for more than 50 years after the end of the Spanish-American War. Old age and disrepair resulted in the "Three Friends" sinking into the silt of the St. Johns River in the late 1950s.     
       The Broward family and local historians were raising funds needed to save the tug as floating memorial to a bygone age in the history of Florida. They missed their opportunity by a matter of weeks.
        The year 1898 marks a turning point in the history of the United States. As a result of the Spanish-American War, the U.S. acquired Puerto Rico, Guam, the Philippines and the Navy base of Guantanamo, Cuba. The same year, the U.S. annexed the Hawaiian Islands. America became an empire.
(c.) Davidsson. 2017.
NOTE:  A related guest editorial by the author entitled "The Palm Beaches in the Age of Empire" is published in the June 15, 2017 edition of the Jupiter Courier. See additional articles below and archived in Older Posts.