tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3035683275272694062024-02-08T07:03:44.792-08:00Origins & History of the Palm Beaches Palm Beaches Informationhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13028578886314418086noreply@blogger.comBlogger44125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303568327527269406.post-81695806584550726362019-02-16T07:48:00.004-08:002021-06-04T12:24:18.956-07:00Table of Contents and Introduction to Our History<strong>TABLE OF CONTENTS - History of the Palm Beaches Articles</strong><br />
<strong></strong><br />
<strong>I. The First 'Palm Beachers'</strong><br />
<ul>
<li>The Jeaga Indians of 'Aboioa': 1513. (Article Posted in Archive - July 2015)</li>
<li>Uncovering the History of the Santaluces Indians. (January 2015)</li>
<li>A History of the Tequesta Indians in Boca Raton. (June 2016)</li>
<li>Palm Beach County's Ancient Transit Networks. (February 2018)</li>
</ul>
<strong>II. Conquistadors, Pirates and Explorers</strong><br />
<ul>
<li>Navidad at Fort Santa Lucia: 1565-66. (December 2014)</li>
<li>Dutch Privateers Prowl the Treasure Coast: 1627-28. (August 2018)</li>
<li>The British Expedition to the Hobe River: 1772. (April 2018)</li>
</ul>
<strong>III. The Palm Beaches During the Seminole Wars</strong><br />
<ul>
<li>Cha-chi's Village Rests Beneath West Palm Beach. (December 2014)</li>
<li>Fort McRae: A Frontier Outpost on Lake Okeechobee. (December 2018)</li>
<li>Samuel Colt Tests New Repeating Rifles at Fort Jupiter. (January 2019)</li>
<li>The Last Campaign of Major William Lauderdale. (October 2016)</li>
<li>The U.S. Navy's Expedition to Lake Okeechobee: 1842. (April 2016)</li>
<li>Fort Jupiter During the Third Seminole War: 1855-58. (November 2018)</li>
</ul>
<strong>IV. The Civil War and the War with Spain</strong> <br />
<ul>
<li>Civil War Blockade Runners at the Jupiter Inlet. (May 2015)</li>
<li>Palm Beaches Used as Confederacy's Last Hideout. (March 2015)</li>
<li>The Palm Beaches During the Spanish-American War: 1898. (May 2017)</li>
</ul>
<strong>V. Natural History and Geography of Palm Beach County</strong><br />
<ul>
<li>The Changing Geographic Face of Palm Beach County. (August. 2017)</li>
<li>A Long and Winding History of the Hillsboro River. (November 2017)</li>
<li>Democrat River: Belle Glade's Everglades Gateway. (October 2017)</li>
<li>County's History Unearthed in Shellrock Mining Pits. (April 2018)</li>
</ul>
<strong>VI. Early Settlers and Settlements in the Palm Beaches </strong><br />
<ul>
<li>Welcome to Historic Downtown 'Figulus': 1881-93. (February 2016)</li>
<li>Pioneer Creates 'Utopia' Along Lake Okeechobee. (December 2017)</li>
<li>The Short Life and Sudden End of God's 'Chosen' City. (July 2016)</li>
<li>The Life and Times of Palm Beaches' Alligator Joe. (July 2017)</li>
<li>Mango Grove Shaped Early History of Mangonia Park. (July 2018.)</li>
<li>Glades, Lake Worth Share 'Father of Sugar's' Legacy. (January 2019) </li>
</ul>
<strong>VII. World War on the Shores of the Palm Beaches </strong><br />
<ul>
<li>'Battle of the Atlantic' Comes to the Palm Beaches. (November 2015)</li>
<li>Wartime POW's, Spy Reports in Palm Beach County. (February 2017)</li>
<li>U.S.S. Jupiter Became America's First Aircraft Carrier. (August 2015)</li>
</ul>
<strong>VIII. Landmarks and Historic Sites </strong><br />
<ul>
<li>True Tale of Captain Gus and the Old Palm Beach Pier. (December 2016)</li>
<li>John Prince's Memorial: A County Park for the People. (January 2017)</li>
<li>Local Shipwreck Site One of 17 'Museums of the Sea'. (April 2017)</li>
<li>WPB Episcopal Church Becomes Historic Landmark. (November 2018)</li>
<li>Historic WPB Medical Lab Fought Disease Epidemics. (June 2018)</li>
<li>U.S. 27: County's Highway of Sugar, Blood and Hope. (May 2018)</li>
<li>Many County Roads Honor the Famous or the Obscure. (May 2018)</li>
<li>Local Church Has Its Roots in Arctic 'Saami' Ministry. (March 1917)</li>
<li>Summer of 'Rockreation' in Palm Beach County: 1970. (Sept. 2018)</li>
</ul>
<strong>IX. Hurricanes, Monsters and Myths </strong><br />
<ul>
<li>Inside the Eye of Hurricane Cleo: 1964. (March 2016)</li>
<li>Last Voyage of the SS Inchulva Off Delray Beach. (August 2016)</li>
<li>'Muck Monster' Legend Becomes Part of Our History. (October 2016)</li>
<li>Close Encounters with Cryptid 'Skunk Apes': 1972-78, (October 2018)</li>
<li>Digging Up the Haunted History of the Palm Beaches. (September 2016)</li>
</ul>
<strong>X. Prologue </strong>(Below)<br />
<ul>
<li>Palm Beachers Adjust to Life with Their Neighbor - Donald Trump. (Below)</li>
</ul>
<br />
<strong>INTRODUCTION: The Palm Beaches Yesterday and Today</strong><br />
<strong> </strong><br />
The "Palm Beaches" is a common regional name for the communities located within the geographical borders of Palm Beach County, FL.<br />
There are seven cities that share the name "Palm Beach," as well as the coastal barrier island. The exclusive Town of Palm Beach, incorporated in April 1911, claims original title to the moniker due to the opening of a post office by that name in January 1887. However, its larger neighbor across the Lake Worth Lagoon, West Palm Beach, was actually founded 17 years earlier in November 1894.<br />
The other communities sharing the name Palm Beach are South Palm Beach, founded in 1955, North Palm Beach (1956), Palm Beach Gardens (1959), Royal Palm Beach (1959) and Palm Beach Shores (1951). The Palm Beaches also includes a Palm Springs, incorporated in 1957.<br />
To accommodate cities not sharing the name Palm Beach, such as Boca Raton, Jupiter and Wellington, a public relations guru once created the title of the "Greater Palm Beaches" to encompass the entire county. <br />
Neither greater nor lesser, the rural Everglades communities of Belle Glade, Pahokee and South Bay, located along the southeast shore of Lake Okeechobee, have always had a identity separate from the coastal Palm Beaches. They share a history as rich and diverse as their more affluent neighbors along the Atlantic coast.<br />
Palm Beach County itself was established in 1909 and is considered a youthful geographic entity in the timeline of history. However, its native American inhabitants date back nearly 7,000 years.<br />
This history of the Palm Beaches will lead the reader from the time of the Jeaga, Santaluces and Tequesta Indians forward to the present day through a series of articles profiling little-known people, places and events that shaped the region's future.<br />
The historical trail is marked and outlined for you, the reader, to follow.<br />
<strong>(c.) Davidsson. 2019.</strong><strong> </strong><br />
<br /><strong>PROLOGUE: 'Palm Beachers Adjust to Life with Their Neighbor - Donald Trump'</strong><br />
<strong></strong><br />
It is a Wednesday afternoon and local news stations make the announcement that President Donald Trump is planning a weekend visit to his "Winter White House" at the historic Mar-a-lago mansion in the Town of Palm Beach. It was schedule repeated throughout the trump presidency from November 2016 through Jan. 20, 2021.<br />
It was necessary for the White House to announce the President's travel plans in advance so Palm Beach County, the City of West Palm Beach and the Town of Palm Beach can prepare for road closures, traffic control and security prior to his arrival on Friday afternoon. After four years of presidential visits, local governments learned what to expect:<br />
* <strong>12 p.m. Friday</strong>: Security checkpoints are set up by local law enforcement agencies on the east side of the Southern Boulevard Bridge in West Palm Beach, and just north and south of Mar-a-lago on State Road A1A in Palm Beach. The checkpoints are covered by canvass pavilions to protect the officers from the relentless South Florida sun during the three-day visit.<br />
During the President's visits, the Town of Palm Beach is essentially split in two. The only north-south highway, A1A, is closed to traffic in front of Mar-a-lago. Residents living in the southern third of the island city, and all service vehicles, must cross the bridge to the mainland, drive through West Palm Beach then cross the Lake Worth Lagoon a second time at the two northern bridges.<br />
There are no national news media satellite trucks stationed inside the Mar-a-lago security zone. Reporters broadcast their reports from Howard Park in West Palm Beach and other remote locations.<br />
* <strong>4 p.m. Friday: </strong>Two small U.S. Coast Guard patrol boats, each armed with a 50-caliber machine gun in its bow, arrive from their Port of Palm Beach base and assume their stations in the lagoon along the bayside of Mar-a-lago. Offshore of the Winter White House, in the Atlantic ocean, a Coast Guard cutter is posted during presidential visits.<br />
Nautical sightseers hoping to catch a view of President Trump by sea are quickly escorted out of the area by the Coast Guard. Fishermen also are discouraged from dropping their lines too close to Mar-a-lago.<br />
* <strong>4:30 p.m. Friday: </strong>A Palm Beach Sheriff's Office (PBSO) helicopter patrols the air space over Mar-a-lago in advance of the President's arrival. It circles the area for about 30 minutes then returns to the Palm Beach International (PBI) Airport.<br />
Prior to the arrival and departure of "Air Force One," PBI is shut down. There are no commercial or general aviation flights allowed as the President's 747 jet nears the airport.<br />
After his arrival at Mar-a-lago, commercial fights are diverted northeast of the mansion and pass over downtown West Palm Beach until Air Force One departs on Sunday night. Military aircraft will intercept violators of the designated presidential air space in Palm Beach County.<br />
The election of Trump as President ended a 20-year legal battle between the owner of Mar-a-lago and Palm Beach County over the routing of commercial air traffic over his estate. The east-west takeoff and landing pattern has passed over Mar-a-lago since the days when PBI was the Morrison Army Air Corps Field during World War II.<br />
Trump filed a $100 million lawsuit against PBI and the county for damages caused by air traffic over his historic mansion. Ironically, since air traffic is not allowed over Mar-a-lago when the President is in residence, the lawsuit was voluntarily dismissed in 2016.<br />
A PBSO motorcycle officer stops at the bridge tender's station on the Southern Blvd. Bridge. The old bridge has been dismantled and is temporarily replaced by a "lift bridge" made of iron and steel until a permanent structure is built. Yachts and sailboats on the Lake Worth Lagoon must delay their passage under the bridge until after the President's arrival.<br />
* <strong>5:30 p.m. Friday: </strong>Air Force One arrives at the PBI general aviation facility on the south side of the airport. News media and a small group of Trump supporters, screened by security, greet the President at the airport.<br />
A motorcade of more than 40 local law enforcement motorcycles and patrol cars, emergency medical vehicles and Secrete Service black SUVs, one of which will carry the President, are prepared in advance for his arrival. Although Mar-a-lago now has a designated pad for Marine helicopters, convoys are used during most visits.<br />
After four years of the Trump presidency, both protestors and supporters were well aware of the President's travel route. Barricades and local law enforcement are placed at locations where crowds gather to view the motorcade and make their opinions known through a variety of signs, chants and cat-calls.<br />
The three-mile journey between PBI and Mar-a-lago is a direct route east along Southern Blvd. (S.R. 98). The highway is closed to traffic. After crossing the Southern Blvd and Bingham Island bridges, the caravan will arrive on the island of Palm Beach and enter the gate of the walled Winter White House.<br />
Prior to their arrival at Mar-a-lago, the President's motorcade passes over the "Marjorie Merriweather Post Memorial Causeway" located between the two bridges. The Post cereal heiress built Mar-a-lago between 1924-27 at a cost of $90 million in today's dollars.<br />
Mrs. Post willed the estate to the federal government as an historic site prior to her death in 1973. However, due to the high cost of its maintenance, the mansion was returned to her family in 1981. After several failed attempts to sell the property, it was obtained by Trump for less than $8 million, including the many antiques found in the mansion.<br />
The future President renovated the property by creating a private club in 1995 to finance the upkeep of the estate, complete with a 20,000-square-foot ballroom for dining and entertainment events, a new waterfront pool and tennis courts.<br />
The President's motorcade arrives safely at Mar-a-lago. Above the Winter White House, he is greeted by hundreds of black turkey vultures, winter visitors from the north, that often circle the mansion in preparation of their nightly roost on the nearby Audubon Islands Sanctuary.<br />
For two days the President is free to party with friends at the Mar-a-lago Club's "Donald J. Trump Ballroom," entertain foreign heads of state, or play golf with Tiger Woods or Jack Nicklaus at the "Trump International Golf Club" located on leased county land four miles to the west on the mainland.<br />
<strong> * 5 p.m. Sunday</strong>: The security motorcade assembles at Mar-a-lago. The President is returning to the White House in Washington, D.C. The Coast Guard vessels return to their base. Palm Beach County prepares its bill for providing security. For resident Palm Beachers, life will soon return to normal.<br />
<strong>UPDATE: </strong>President Trump changed his residency from New York to Florida in November 2019. Since Mar-a-lago was rezoned as a private club, neighbors are questioning whether the former President can use it as his permanent residency after Jan. 20 2021.<br />
<strong>(c.) Davidsson. 2020.</strong><br />
<strong></strong><br />
<strong>*NOTE: </strong>Read full-text articles below and posted by dates in the <strong>Blog Archive.</strong> Palm Beaches Informationhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13028578886314418086noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303568327527269406.post-29595300530593690062019-01-22T12:22:00.002-08:002019-07-13T05:51:26.107-07:00Glades, Lake Worth Share 'Father of Sugar's' Legacy<strong>By Bob Davidsson</strong><br />
A pioneer once known as the "Father of the Sugar Industry" in western Palm Beach County also designed and promoted the town site for what became the City of Lake Worth.<br />
Frederick Edward "F.E." Bryant (1875-1946) emigrated from England in 1894 to study American agricultural techniques. He established a dairy farm in Colorado with his brother, Harold J. Bryant.<br />
While visiting South Florida in 1909, F.E. Bryant decided to stake his future in the development of agriculture in the Everglades. He established the Palm Beach Farms Corporation with his brother to farm the rich soil in Palm Beach County.<br />
To prevent the chronic flooding of agricultural and residential lands, Bryant became a founding member of the Lake Worth Drainage District (LWDD). The LWDD was created June 15, 1915, under the authority of the Florida Legislature's 1913 General Drainage laws, with the mission of "providing improvements for the purpose of making the area habitable for both settlement and agriculture."<br />
<br />
<strong>The Bryants Design the Future of Lake Worth</strong><br />
Following the death of her husband, Samuel, pioneer landowner and former African slave Fannie James sold her holdings in what became the downtown core area of the future City of Lake Worth to the Bryants' Palm Beach Farms Company.<br />
By the time Lake Worth was incorporated in June 1913, the Bryant brothers had already created the blueprint used for future growth. In the summer of 1912, the Bryants completed a platted survey of the town. It included 55 miles of streets and 7,000 residential lots ranging from 25 to 50 feet in width.<br />
The small city lots were purposely designed as part of a sales campaign by the Bryant brothers and partner William Greenwood. In 1910, F.E. Bryant purchased large tracts of farmland in the Glades. He sold these sections of land to investors with small town plots in Lake Worth offered as a bonus incentive.<br />
The five-acre rural farm tracts sold for $250, including the 25-foot city lot incentives. The Bryant and Greenwood company promoted their development plan nationwide, and sponsored a land auction in 1912. Some of the rural tracts purchased by out-of-state investors were in submerged marshland, which in an unexpected way spurred growth in Lake Worth as new residents were forced to live in their city lots.<br />
A platted strip of land along the Lake Worth Lagoon was left undeveloped for a future park. It was named Bryant Park in honor of the early developers who promoted the City of Lake Worth.<br />
Today, Bryant Park extends about six blocks along the shore of the Intracoastal Waterway, south of Lake Avenue. The waterfront park features a covered band shell with seating, one-mile heart trail, public boat ramps, fishing pier, picnic pavilion and playground.<br />
<br />
<strong>Bryant Creates the Community of Azucar (Sugar)</strong><br />
During World War I, America experienced a shortage of sugar and was dependent on foreign sources. F.E. Bryant lobbied the U.S. Department of Agriculture to build an experimental sugarcane field station at Canal Point. It continues to serve the agricultural community today.<br />
Bryant and partner G.T. Anderson formed the Florida Sugar and Food Products Company in 1921. The same year, Bryant built the county's first sugar mill east of Pahokee.<br />
The farming entrepreneur named this first sugar plantation "Azucar" - the Spanish word for sugar. Bryant envisioned a model farming community for the mainly black sugarcane workers.<br />
He funded the Beulah Land School (founded in 1909) at Azucar through a grant from the Julius Rosenwald Foundation for the children of the African-American farm workers. The school was renamed Azucar in 1914, and became the Bryant School for grades one through eight in 1941. It closed its doors in 1966.<br />
Bryant merged his Florida Sugar and Food Products Company with the Southern Sugar Company to raise capital for his agricultural projects during the 1920s. The Southern Sugar Company, in turn, was purchased by automobile tire magnate and General Motors executive Charles Mott during the Great Depression, resulting in the creation of U.S. Sugar in April 1931.<br />
Bryant served as the superintendent of the Eastern Division of U.S. Sugar, and as a company vice president until his death in 1946.<br />
In 1934, Bryant built a white two-story mansion at Azucar that became known as the "Bryant House". It was used by family members and visiting guests of U.S. Sugar while they were in the Glades.<br />
After his death, the Bryant House changed ownership. His former mansion was badly damaged during Hurricane Wilma in 2005. The property was taken over by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 2011. The remaining ruins of the Bryant mansion were demolished on June 27, 2016.<br />
F.E. Bryant also resided with his wife, Minnie (born 1880), in the Town of Palm Beach during the 1930s and 1940s, setting a precedent for future sugar tycoons. His residence was located at 434 Sea Spray Ave. in Palm Beach.<br />
Bryant died Dec. 6, 1946 at the age of 72. U.S. Sugar renamed the unincorporated community of Azucar as "Bryant" in his honor, and placed a memorial plaque at the site.<br />
The memorial reads, "Mr. Bryant established Azucar and began the development of sugar production in the Everglades."<br />
"His foresight and courage, vision and fortitude, were largely responsible for successful development of the upper Glades," the plaque states. "His qualities as a leader and humanitarian will always be remembered by those who knew him."<br />
The "Bryant Sugar House" mill opened in the rural community in 1962. At that time, it was the largest sugarcane processing plant in the world. The Bryant mill closed in 2007.<br />
Today, the community of Bryant is one of many ghost towns in the Glades. A drive along Old Connor Road (off U.S. 98) will lead you to the skeletal remains of the sugar mill and overgrown streets that once served the homes of the sugarcane workers. <br />
<strong>(c.) Davidsson, 2019.</strong><br />
<strong>*NOTE</strong>: Article also reprinted with permission in the Feb. 6, 2019 edition of "Okeechobee News". See additional articles below and archived in <strong>Older Posts</strong>. Palm Beaches Informationhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13028578886314418086noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303568327527269406.post-67307358896984630732019-01-01T07:48:00.003-08:002019-02-12T06:41:26.590-08:00Samuel Colt Tests Repeating Rifles at Ft. Jupiter: 1838<strong>By Bob Davidsson</strong><br />
<strong> </strong>On March 11, 1838, firearms inventor and innovator Samuel Colt (1814-62) arrived at Fort Jupiter and tested his new repeating rifle amid rave reviews by its Army officers and garrison.<br />
Gen. Thomas Sidney Jesup, the Army commander in Florida, and the field officers at Fort Jupiter who tested Colt's revolutionary rapid-fire rifle, believed the new firearm could have ended the prolonged Second Seminole War (1835-42) if a contract was approved by Congress to arm the troops with the innovative weapon.<br />
It didn't happen. Instead, the Indian war dragged on for four more years to an inconclusive ending, resulting in hundreds of needless deaths, mainly caused by diseases in the subtropical climate.<br />
The missed opportunity by Congress to arm its troops with a superior weapon is even more amazing due to the fact that Army field tests and supporting correspondence from Fort Jupiter was entered into the Congressional record for the first session of the 26th Congress.<br />
Colt's production of the first "Model Ring Level" revolving cylinder repeating rifle began in 1837 at his Patent Arms Manufacturing Company factory in Patterson, N.J. It was produced in tandem with the Colt-Patterson handgun, the first commercial pistol with a revolving cylinder. The design was patented on Feb. 25, 1836 and remained in production until 1842.<br />
The eight-shot revolving cylinder in Colt's repeating rifle allowed a trained soldier to fire 16 shots in 30 seconds, as compared to a maximum of two shots fired from the standard Army musket in use during the Seminole wars.<br />
In the winter of 1838, Colt petitioned the federal government for an Army contract to mass produce his patented rifle. A seven-member military review board in Washington, D.C., gave the firearm an unfavorable ruling in March for what it cited as a "lack of durability".<br />
<br />
<strong>Samuel Colt's Field Tests at Fort Jupiter: 1838</strong><br />
Undeterred, Colt requested a second review, and immediately set sail for the Jupiter Inlet to test his unconventional weapon in field conditions at the newly built Fort Jupiter. He arrived at Fort Jupiter, the temporary headquarters of General Jesup's army, on March 11 with 100 of his new Model Ring Level rifles and several Colt-Patterson revolvers.<br />
In the 19th century biography, "Armsmear: The Home, The Arms, The Armory of Samuel Colt: A Memorial," author Henry Bernard reported, "Colt passed a hard winter among the Florida swamps and Everglades, but made the acquaintance of many officers, some of whom were lifelong friends."<br />
The field tests for Colt's repeating rifles were conducted by Captains William Thompkins, John Graham and William Fulton of the Second Dragoons regiment at Fort Jupiter. The rifles were tested for force, accuracy, penetration, celerity of fire, exposure to the weather, and safety.<br />
The Colt rifle passed all six experiments. The panel of officers sent their findings to Congress in a review entitled "The Report of the Board of Officers of the Second Dragoons for the Trial of Samuel Colt's Repeating Rifle."<br />
The report concluded, "The board would express, as their opinion, that 100 or more of these rifles, as they now are, might be placed in the hands of soldiers now to be found in the Second Regiment of Dragoons, who, when occasion offered, might be formed into one or more companies, that could be employed on some emergency with greatest efficiency."<br />
"And it is firmly the opinion of the board," the three officers reported, "that when this firearm is once introduced, and its superiority over every other weapon known, it will be universally used."<br />
General Jesup, who was stationed with his army at Fort Jupiter during the winter of 1838, was so impressed with Colt's repeating rifle that he outfitted a company of the Second Dragoons with 50 of Colt's firearms - the first used by the U.S. Army in a field of battle.<br />
The general personally authorized the purchase for $125 per rifle, or a total agreed price of $6,250. Colt also sold several of his early model Colt-Patterson revolving handguns to officers for their personal use.<br />
Sgt. P.W. Henry of the Second Dragoons was one of the noncommissioned officers using the experimental rifle at Fort Jupiter. He reported to its inventor, "When passing through Indian country, I always felt myself safer with one of your rifles in my hands, then if I was attended by a body of 10 or 15 men armed with the common musket or carbine."<br />
A leading advocate for Colt's repeating rifle was Lt. Col. William Harney of the Second Dragoons. Harney served as the garrison commander at Fort Jupiter during its construction in 1838. In a February 1839 letter to Colt, he predicted, "It is my honest opinion that no other guns than those of your invention will be used in a few years."<br />
After a company of his Second Dragoons was armed with the repeating rifles, Col. Harney overoptimistically reported, "I honestly believed but for these arms, the Indians would now be luxuriating in the Everglades."<br />
The Seminoles held captive at Fort Jupiter, following the January 1838 Battle of Loxahatchee, observed the testing of Colt's Model Ring Level rifles. They called the new weapon "great medicine."<br />
Ironically, less than two years after the repeating rifle was tested, Col. Harney allowed 14 of the weapons to fall into the hands of hostile Seminoles when his patrol was ambushed near the Caloosahatchee River while en route from Fort Brooke to Fort Myers.<br />
Col. Harney and his men were forced to flee, leaving behind the 14 Colt patent rifles obtained at Fort Jupiter, six carbines, one keg of powder and percussion caps. Fortunately for the U.S. Army, the Seminoles lacked a source of ammunition for the repeating rifles, and thus they were useless.<br />
<br />
<strong>A Castaway, Bankruptcy and His Rise to Fame and Fortune</strong><br />
<strong> </strong>Colt's return voyage from the Jupiter Inlet to Washington, D.C., in the spring of 1838 became a disaster for the inventor, his new invention, and his firearms company.<br />
In "Samuel Colt: A Memorial," biographer Henry Bernard states, "On the 10th of April 1838, while going from Fort Jupiter to St. Augustine, the vessel was delayed by head winds, and Colonel Colt with two other gentlemen and a crew of four, started from her in a small boat for the beach."<br />
"When about a mile from it," the memoir continues, "the boat swamped among the breakers. Thus he lost all his baggage, and was himself four hours in the water, until assistance came from the shore, narrowing escaping with his life."<br />
"He was at the same time so unfortunate as to lose his pocketbook, containing among other papers, a government draft belonging to the company, which occasioned much serious inconvenience and blame, a long time elapsing before it could be replaced," the narrative concludes.<br />
Colt spent the remainder of 1838 and 1839 in Washington, D.C., replacing lost documents and lobbying Congress to approve an order for his repeating rifle. In May 1840, a second board of U.S. Army officers voted unanimously in favor of an arms contract.<br />
However, before Congress could reach a decision, Colt's Patent Arms Manufacturing Company factory closed due to lack of funds. He was forced to declare bankruptcy. The New Jersey-based factory produced 1,456 revolving cylinder rifles and carbines, 462 shotguns and 2,300 revolver handguns between 1836-42, but without a government military contract, the company could not remain solvent.<br />
Due to his company's insolvency, the U.S. Commission on Military Affairs suspended further consideration of Colt's patented repeating rifles. The inventor discontinued future designs for rotating cylinder rifles, and instead reorganized his "Patents Arms Company" for the manufacture of revolving handguns, which became known as "revolvers".<br />
The new Republic of Texas placed a major order for the second generation of Colt-Patterson revolvers, which were soon adopted by the Texas Rangers. During the Mexican War (1846-48), Gen. Zachary Taylor dispatched Ranger Captain Samuel Walker to meet with Colt to discuss design improvements.<br />
The resulting Colt-Walker revolver had greater range and fire power. It was used by the elite U.S. Mounted Rifles, consisting of Texas Rangers and volunteers, throughout the remainder of the war. The battle-tested Colt revolvers earned their place in the U.S. military arsenal.<br />
During the Civil War, the Colt Patent Arms Company filled military orders for both the Union and Confederacy. His revolvers became a standard weapon for officers and cavalry troopers in both armies.<br />
When Colt died of "inflammatory rheumatism" (complications from gout) on June 10, 1862, he was one of the wealthiest men in America. His company and "Armsmear" mansion were inherited by his son.<br />
Colt firearms continued to play an important role in U.S. history after his death. The Colt Single Action Army Revolver - popularly known as the "Peacemaker" - was introduced in 1873 and continued in production until 1892. It was widely used by lawmen and Army units along America's frontier, earning the title of "The Gun That Won the West".<br />
<strong>(c.) Davidsson. 2019.</strong><br />
<strong>*NOTE: </strong>This is the third in a trilogy of local articles about the Seminole Wars. See additional articles below and archived in<strong> Older Posts.</strong> Palm Beaches Informationhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13028578886314418086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303568327527269406.post-39494761897393085522018-12-07T07:48:00.001-08:002018-12-13T04:49:26.971-08:00Fort McRae: A Frontier Outpost on Lake Okeechobee<strong>By Bob Davidsson</strong><br />
<strong> </strong>Fort McRae was a hastily built wooden frontier outpost on Lake Okeechobee serving the U.S. Army as a supply depot and reconnaissance reporting station during both the Second and Third Seminole Indian Wars.<br />
It was one of only two blockhouses built by the Army to observe movements by the Seminole tribe around the big lake. Fort McRae was established about five miles north of Port Mayaca in Martin County. Its sister outpost, Fort Center, was a stockade built 40 miles due west across the lake near the mouth of Fisheating Creek in Glades County.<br />
Based upon later 19th century reports, the ruins of Fort McRae were located on the Okeechobee Ridge, a natural barrier that formed the original shoreline of the lake. The ridge separated the lake from low marshlands to the east. A small stream entered Lake Okeechobee near the fort, according to 1838 military maps.<br />
A May 20, 1882, article published in Jacksonville's "Florida Dispatch" newspaper, entitled "Lake Okeechobee and the Caloosahatchee Canal," provided a detailed description of the topography of the land near the ruins of Fort McRae during the late 19th century.<br />
"On the east side of Lake Okeechobee is Fort McRae, the newspaper reported, "which is on the borders of the lake and inside the sawgrass, which is two miles wide. The country is low prairie, with cypress, pine and cabbage palmetto islands."<br />
"From Fort McRae, north to the mouth of the Kissimmee (River), there is a large body of hammock bays, that are immensely rich, covered with live oak, red bay, cypress and cabbage palmetto," the article concludes.<br />
The history element of the "Dupuis Natural Area Future Management Plan, 2008-13, describes Fort McRae as "little more than a rough cabbage palm trunk stockade designed to store supplies and house a small garrison to defend the supplies."<br />
In fact, there is much more to report about the history of Fort McRae and the people who built and served in the frontier outpost during two Indian wars.<br />
<br />
<strong>Fort McRae in the Second Seminole War</strong><br />
Fort McRae was built as a supply encampment during Gen. Thomas Sidney Jesup's failed winter campaign of 1837-8 to bring the Second Seminole War (1835-42) to a close. His military strategy was to trap hostile Seminoles in a pincer movement between his east coast and interior armies. The plan almost worked.<br />
As Jesup advanced south from Fort Pierce, down the Indian River to the Jupiter Inlet, a second force under the command of Col. Zachary Taylor moved south along the east bank of the Kissimmee River to the north shore of Lake Okeechobee. The Seminoles made their stand near a stream that would later be named Taylor Creek<br />
The ensuing Battle of Okeechobee was fought on Christmas Day, 1837. It was a pyrrhic victory for the U.S. Army. The federal troops and militia won the field of battle, but sustained higher casualties and allowed their hostile adversaries to escape along the eastern shore of Lake Okeechobee. <br />
Col. Taylor pursued the Seminoles as far south as the ancient Big Mound City site in western Palm Beach County before halting his offensive. Along his march, he ordered the construction of the supply depot that was christened Fort McRae.<br />
For the past 180 years there has been uncertainty and confusion about the naming of the military post. Who exactly was "McRae"? Adding to the confusion were two other military bases in Florida sharing the same name.<br />
The best known Fort McRae (or McRee) guarded the entrance to Pensacola Bay during the Civil War. For a brief period, there also was a blockhouse named Fort McRae near the Turtle Mound site in Volusia County during the Second Seminole War.<br />
No military document has been found recording the dedication of Fort McRae. Based upon the Army's tradition of naming forts in honor of fallen war heroes, it is likely the outpost was named for Major Archibald McRae of the Second Brigade, Florida Volunteers.<br />
Captain McRae of Hamilton County enlisted with the Mounted Company, Second Regiment of the East Florida Volunteers on June 20, 1837. His enlistment document stated he joined the state militia with two servants and three horses.<br />
McRae was promoted to the rank of major on July 20. His Florida Volunteers joined Col. Taylor Nov. 29 during his winter offensive. The militia officer was one of the casualties of this campaign.<br />
After the Battle of Okeechobee, the Seminoles retreated before Col. Taylor's force and eluded their pursuers in the Loxahatchee Slough. They joined several other bands west of the Jupiter Inlet in time to fight in the Battle of Loxahatchee against advance units of General Jesup's eastern army on Jan. 24, 1838.<br />
Once again the Seminoles were forced into a temporary refuge in the Loxahatchee Slough, with Col. Taylor to the west, General Jesup to the north, and a new "Military Trail" cleared to their east by Major William Lauderdale during his advance south to the New River.<br />
General Jesup offered the Seminoles enticements if they surrendered at the newly built Fort Jupiter. Medicine chief Sam Jones (Abaika) flatly refused, and slipped past the Army's tightening pincer with his followers into the sanctuary of the Everglades. However, 527 Indians, the majority women and children, surrendered at Fort Jupiter. They were transported to St. Augustine then deported to Oklahoma.<br />
In February 1838, Lt. W.G. Freeman, the officer in charge of the Seminole captives, was so concerned about the number of prisoners overflowing available facilities at Fort Jupiter that he sent 100 Indians under escort to Fort McRae. They were detained at the outpost until transports arrived to deport them.<br />
General Jesup's failure to end the conflict resulted in his reassignment in May 1838. He was replaced by none other than Zachary Taylor, who likewise failed to win the Seminole war after two years as the Army's commanding officer in Florida.<br />
Unlike Jesup, Taylor escaped the endless war with his reputation intact. He was hailed as the hero of the Battle of Okeechobee, received a promotion to the rank of general, and earned the endearing public moniker of "Old Rough and Ready." The Florida war was a stepping stone on the trail leading to his election as President of United States in 1848.<br />
As for Fort McRae, its usefulness as a supply base waned as the Army discontinued large military campaigns in favor of small raids by picked units. The post was abandoned and fell into disrepair before the end of the war in 1842.<br />
Capt. Martin Burke of the 3rd Artillery Regiment used the deserted outpost, which he described as the "old palmetto fortification" of Fort McRae, as a base of operations for three days during his September 1841 expedition to Lake Okeechobee.<br />
In February 1842, Navy Lt. John Rodgers led an expedition of 87 sailors and marines to the site of Fort McRae. Midshipman George Preble described the event in his "Diary of a Canoe Expedition into the Everglades."<br />
"At 4:30 p.m. (Feb. 22, 1842), left the Everglades," his diary states, "passed through a narrow belt of cypress swamp, hauled (the canoes) over a sandy ridge, and launched our canoes in the waters of Lake Okeechobee or Big Water."<br />
"We camped under what was once Fort Dulray (McRae)," the midshipman reported, "a cabbage tree log fortress. The lake spread before us, and to the west the sun went down, no land visible."<br />
<br />
<strong>Fort McRae in the Third Seminole War, 1855-58</strong><br />
<strong> </strong>The same year the Second Seminole War ended, Congress passed the "Armed Occupation Act of 1842" as an incentive to encourage settlers to move into the thinly populated Florida peninsula. The act granted 100 acres of unsettled land to any head of a family.<br />
Some of the grants were on land formerly occupied by the Seminole nation. The tribe was not consulted prior to the passage of the act. Many members of Congress and the Florida Legislature hoped new settlements would pressure the Seminoles to move to reservations in Oklahoma.<br />
In the months prior to the renewal of the Seminole war, the U.S. Army further pressured the Seminole and Miccosukee tribes by reactivating Forts McRae and Jupiter on the fringes of their Everglades sanctuary. The "Memoir of Lt. Col. John T. Greble," published by author Benson J. Lossim in 1870, describes the rebuilding of Fort McRae.<br />
The Memoir states, "Late in February (1855) Lt. Greble was ordered to Fort McRae, on the eastern shore of Lake Okeechobee, where a blockhouse was being built. He left Fort Myers with 10 men."<br />
"The journey by land and water was wearisome," the Memoir continues. "They went up the Caloosahatchee to Fort Thompson, thence across the wet prairie to Fisheating Creek, and down the stream into and across Lake Okeechobee, a sheet of water covering about 1,200 square miles. They had a rough and perilous voyage across it, and found inhospitable camping grounds on its margin, for dreary swamps pressed close upon its border."<br />
"They reached Fort McRae in safety and were then joined by another party detached for similar duty. The blockhouse was soon built, and the eastern shore of the lake explored and mapped," the Memoir concludes, "and Lt. Greble and his party returned by the way they went, reaching Fort Myers on the fifteenth of March."<br />
The Greble Memoir is supported by a military record entitled "A Letter from Brevet Col. John Munroe to Col. Samuel Cooper and Col. Lorenzo Thomas, Fort Brooke, July 15, 1855." The report summarizes the second expedition sent to Fort McRae for its restoration.<br />
"After having established his command at Fort Deynaud." the report states, "Major Mays will detach an officer with a party of men to construct a blockhouse upon the Fisheating Creek, near the site of old Fort Centre. Another blockhouse will also be constructed upon the east side of Lake Okeechobee and as far south as practicable."<br />
"While these operations were being carried on south of the Caloosahatchee, the military record continues, "blockhouses had been constructed near the sites of old Forts McRae and Centre by a detachment under command of Captain Allen and Lt. Vincent, 2nd Artillery, the former completed early in April and the latter in February (1855), and both were garrisoned until the season was so far advanced as to render their temporary abandonment advisable."<br />
Military posts during the Seminole wars were abandoned and reoccupied based upon the season of the year and needs of military commanders. The campaign season was fall, winter and spring. Due to diseases spread by insects, garrisons were often reassigned during the summer months.<br />
Fort Denaud, located on the Caloosahatchee River, served as the supply base for the Lake Okeechobee outposts at Forts McRae and Center. Fort Brooke, built in 1824, was the main base of operations for west coast and interior regions of Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades during the Third Seminole War. Fort McRae was supplied by boats sent from Fort Denaud.<br />
The Army sent armed surveying expeditions into the Everglades sanctuaries of the Seminole tribe. One surveying unit raided a plantation owned by Chief Billy Bowlegs, which sparked the beginning of Third Seminole War in December 1855.<br />
During the war, Fort McRae was garrisoned by a company of the Florida Mounted Volunteers. As the war progressed, the U.S. Army relied heavily on Florida militia units to man its outposts. During the seven-year Second Seminole War, for example, 6,854 Florida volunteers were activated as U.S. militia units.<br />
The Army's plan of action was to confine the Seminoles to the Everglades in South Florida by building a chain of forts, spaced about 20 miles apart, between the Jupiter Inlet and the mouth of the Caloosahatchee River. From east to west, garrisons were posted in Forts Jupiter, McRae, Shackleford, Center, Thompson, Denaud, Myers and Dulaney.<br />
Communications between its scattered Army outposts was key to the success of military operations during the Third Seminole War. The route used between Forts McRae and Jupiter is described in the April 1856 "Memoir to Accompany a Military Map of the Peninsula of Florida South of Tampa Bay," published for use by the U.S. Department of War.<br />
The 26-page report includes the following narrative: "The only continuous route between the eastern shore of Lake Okeechobee and Fort Jupiter, that has so far been traversed and reported upon, leads nearly west from Fort McRae to the General Eustis Road and along that road to the fort."<br />
Gen. Abraham Eustis (1786 - 1843) served as an Army surveyor and military mapmaker in Florida. He supervised the construction of several Florida military roads later used during the Second and Third Seminole Wars.<br />
"The old bridge at the crossing of the Lochahatchee (Loxahatchee River) being now impractical, it is necessary to ford the stream at a place a mile above. The present site of Fort Jupiter being to the east of the new road leaves the old trail to the left and crosses the creek at a point three miles south of Fort Jupiter."<br />
"The crossing is easy, and the remainder of the distance is over good country," the 1856 Memoir concludes.<br />
The U.S. Department of War declared the Third Seminole War at an end on May 8, 1858, following the surrender and deportation of Seminole leader Billy Bowlegs (Holata Micco) to Oklahoma aboard the steam ship "Grey Cloud".<br />
The Army's network of forts, including Fort McRae, were abandoned to the elements. The wooden blockhouses became the domain of termites, with their ruins erased by wildfires and the ravages of time.<br />
<strong>(c.) Davidsson, 2018.</strong><br />
<strong>*NOTE: </strong>See related article about "Fort Jupiter" below, and additional articles archived in <strong>Older Posts.</strong> Palm Beaches Informationhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13028578886314418086noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303568327527269406.post-14104855817832014892018-11-15T23:01:00.000-08:002018-12-03T09:15:12.529-08:00Fort Jupiter During the Third Seminole War, 1855-58<strong>By Bob Davidsson</strong><br />
<strong> </strong>Unrelenting heat, an overextended supply line, swarms of mosquitoes and sand flies, debilitating "Jupiter Fever," and the constant threat of Indian raids made garrison duty at Fort Jupiter one of the least popular Army postings during the Third Seminole War, 1855-58.<br />
The Army post was the second to bear the name Fort Jupiter. The original Fort Jupiter was established in 1838 following two pitched battles near the Loxahatchee River between U.S. Army and Navy units against the Seminole tribe in the Second Seminole War, 1835-42.<br />
When the "Old Fort Jupiter" was decommissioned at the end of the seven-year conflict in 1842, the Jupiter Inlet was without a military presence until Congress approved funding for a lighthouse in 1853. Lt. George G. Meade, an Army engineer, designed the brick and mortar tower and selected the site where construction began a year later.<br />
Work on the Jupiter Lighthouse was interrupted by renewed warfare between the United States and the Seminole nation on Dec. 20,1855. The direct cause of the Third Seminole War was a foolish raid on an Indian plantation by an Army surveying party deep in the Seminole's Everglades sanctuary.<br />
<br />
<strong>The Building of 'New Fort Jupiter'</strong><br />
<strong> </strong>In the months prior to the renewed hostilities, New York native Major Joseph A. Haskin and the First Artillery Regiment were stationed in Key West. Haskin received orders to sail to the Indian River Inlet with Company D and assume command of Fort Capron.<br />
Haskin was an 1839 West Point graduate. During the Mexican War, he was cited for bravery after losing his left arm in battle. Despite his disability, Haskin continued his military career until 1870, serving as the general officer in charge of artillery fortifications outside of Washington, D.C. during the Civil War.<br />
On Jan. 14, 1855, Major Haskin received a letter from Lt. Ambrose Powell "A.P." Hill reporting his observations about the best site for the construction of a second Fort Jupiter. Lt. Hill was sent from Fort Capron on a scouting mission to survey the inland water route to the Jupiter Inlet and report on the status of the old fort.<br />
He reported "Old Fort Jupiter" was "bare of timber and further away from the Jupiter bar (inlet) than the new post, which is a half a mile nearer, has a convenience of timber, good soil for gardening, loading and unloading of boats, and preferable to Old Fort Jupiter or any other location in the vicinity."<br />
After completing his mission, Lt. Hill was employed as an engineer-surveyor by the U.S. Coastal Survey from 1855-60. He joined the Confederate army a year later and served as one of General Robert E. Lee's division commanders during several of his campaigns.<br />
Major Haskin received orders from Col. Thomas Haines, assistant adjutant at the Headquarters of Troops in Fort Brooke, to sail south with Company D of the First Artillery and establish the new outpost. Its purpose was to observe the activities of Indians and provide protection to civilians during the construction of the Jupiter Lighthouse.<br />
The Feb. 2, 1855 orders for Major Haskin stated, "In accordance with instructions from the War Department, the Colonel Commander directs you to move with your command to Old Fort Jupiter, or such other point in the vicinity as you deem advisable."<br />
"It is hoped that after you arrive at Fort Jupiter," the letter concludes, "more frequent and expeditious communications may be established with you via Fort Myers and Lake Okeechobee."<br />
An advance force of three officers an 38 enlisted men arrived at the Jupiter Inlet in February 1855 to begin construction of a stockade at the site recommended by Lt. Hill. Within eight months the garrison was at full strength, and a small contingent marched across the state to supplement the Army units at Fort Myers.<br />
A field artillery company in the 19th century consisted of 100 officers and enlisted men when under full authorized strength. The actual muster rolls were often less than the maximum. A company was commanded by a captain or "brevet major" in the case of Major Haskin.<br />
During most of the 1850s, Jupiter Inlet was sealed by sandbars and closed to shipping. Both Major Haskin and lighthouse workers had to use an inland water route to reach their destination.<br />
The route used by the Fort Jupiter garrison was to sail and paddle south of Fort Capron along the Indian River to the mouth of the St. Lucie River. They then had to navigate a torturous tangle of mangroves in a shallow estuary known as "the Narrows" until reaching Hobe Sound.<br />
In April 1856, Capt. A .A. Humphries and Lt. J. C. Ives of the U.S. Army Topographical Engineers published a 26-page "Memoir to Accompany a Military Map of the Peninsula of Florida South of Tampa Bay" for use by Secretary of War Jefferson Davis and the U.S. War Department during the Third Seminole War.<br />
The document contains a descriptive profile of the Jupiter Inlet and the military paths and waterways connecting Fort Jupiter to other outposts in southern Florida and west of Lake Okeechobee. The Memoir includes the route used by Major Haskin and the U.S. Army to supply Fort Jupiter.<br />
"The Sound (Hobe Sound) is sufficiently exposed to the wind to admit the use of sails," the Memoir states, "and is in most places easily navigated by vessels of four feet draught. It extends for eight miles to Jupiter River, from the mouth of which it is about two and half miles to the site of Fort Jupiter."<br />
"The total distance from Fort Capron to Fort Jupiter is 40 miles," the Memoir continues. "The Mackinac boats sometimes employed upon this route are said to be unsuitable for the transportation of troops and supplies between the two posts; having to lay by during high winds and under most favorable circumstances requiring four days to complete the trip."<br />
"The kind of vessel recommended, as likely most serviceable, is a small sloop, not drawing over three feet in water fully loaded, and most after the pattern of the old surf boats used during the Mexican War at Vera Cruz," the Memoir concludes.<br />
<br />
<strong>Life at the Second Fort Jupiter.</strong><br />
<strong> </strong>Both the new Fort Jupiter and future Jupiter Lighthouse were built within the 9,088-acre Jupiter Military Reservation. The military zone was established during the Second Seminole War, and was located northwest of the inlet.<br />
The 1856 Military Memoir states, "Half a mile distant from the old fort, upon an eastern point made by the creek and river, is the new post, now called Fort Jupiter. Here the pine land is still more elevated and continues for five miles back; the timber coming down to the water's edge, and water itself being of sufficient depth for small boats, close to shore."<br />
"Abundance of wood, suitable for building purposes, can be conveniently obtained," the Memoir continues. "The soil is fertile. There is an excellent anchorage and a good place for loading and unloading boats, making the site at the present fort preferable to that of the old one or any other location in the vicinity."<br />
A post office was established at the fort, and a mail carrier was assigned to carry correspondence between Forts Capron and Jupiter, and south to Cape Florida.<br />
The commencement of the Third Seminole War delayed work on the Jupiter Lighthouse for three years. Lt. Meade, the chief engineer for Florida's lighthouse projects, was so concerned about the safety of his civilian workers that he petitioned the Key West Navy Base commander for arms and ammunition on Jan. 7, 1856.<br />
Just 12 days later, Meade informed the U.S. Light House Board of his decision to store supplies for the Jupiter Lighthouse on Key Biscayne and "postpone for the present the commencement of the work." He then boarded a ship in Key West and departed Florida, never to return to the Jupiter Inlet.<br />
Seven years in the future, Meade would command the U.S. Army of the Potomac at the Battle of Gettysburg, and while serving under Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, continued to lead the army during the final two years of the Civil War.<br />
The garrison at Fort Jupiter patrolled the waterways in boats between Fort Capron to the north, and south to Fort Dallas near Miami, searching the lakes and rivers along these routes for Seminole encampments.<br />
The closing of the Jupiter Inlet by sandbars in the 1850s disrupted the natural tidal flows and flushing of its estuaries. As a result, some of the waterways near the fort became stagnant. Health conditions at the outpost were poor. The problem was analyzed and reported in the 1856 Memoir.<br />
"The closing of the inlet causes the locality - at other times salubrious - to be an unhealthy one," the Memoir states, "the water on the inside of the bar thus becoming fresh, and inducing a rapid growth of vegetable matter, which decaying taints the atmosphere and engenders disease."<br />
The disease cited in the Military Memoir was called "Jupiter Fever". The ailment encompassed a number of infectious diseases spread not by "the atmosphere," but by a plague of mosquitoes and sand flies at the fort. "Jupiter Fever" may have been an outbreak of malaria or possibly yellow fever.<br />
At one point it was reported 60 of the 68 soldiers in the garrison were listed on sick call. A visiting Army surgeon in May 1855 also reported two cases of "scorbutus" (scurvy) at Fort Jupiter caused by poor diet.<br />
Due to the unhealthy conditions at Fort Jupiter, its officers and enlisted men were often rotated between Fort Jupiter and Fort Capron, where there were better medical facilities and fewer insect carriers of disease.<br />
<br />
<strong>Efforts to Open the Jupiter Inlet</strong><br />
<strong> </strong>One solution to the unhealthy conditions at Fort Jupiter was to reopen the Jupiter Inlet. The garrison attempted to dig a channel twice without success.<br />
The 1856 Military Memoir reported, "Objections exist to it (Fort Jupiter) now as a military position, from the fact that the inlet is closed, and the post rendered inaccessible from the sea to the smallest coasting vessels."<br />
According to the Memoir, the inlet stayed open until 1847, when it closed. During the year 1853 it briefly opened itself, but "remained in that condition only a short time."<br />
"In 1855, Major Haskin, First Artillery, in command of the post endeavored again to clear the channel," the Memoir reports. "Sand hills of considerable size which had accumulated were cut through, and the attempt would have doubtless been successful but for the low condition of water during an unusually dry year."<br />
"A small amount of labor expended under favorable circumstances would in all probability effortlessly open the inlet," the Military Memoir concludes, "and render the harbor one of the best upon the eastern coast. At times it has admitted vessels drawing eight feet, and the entrance is protected from north winds by a ridge of rocks."<br />
In his history of the "First Regiment of Artillery," William L. Haskin, the son of Fort Jupiter's first commander, wrote the following commentary: "The Florida war brought little glory to any unit taking part in it. The climate was an enemy more successful than the Seminoles, and its victims counted not by single files, but by platoons if not battalions."<br />
In February 1858, Lt. Charles H. Webb of Company E, First Artillery, took command at Fort Jupiter during the final months of the Third Seminole War. The conflict was declared over by the U.S. Department of War on May 8, 1858, following the deportation of tribal leader Billy Bowlegs (Holata Micco) to Oklahoma on the steamer "Gray Cloud".<br />
It is estimated less than 300 Seminole and Miccosukee Indians remained in the Everglades. Fort Jupiter was permanently evacuated a short time after the war's end.<br />
<strong>(c.) Davidsson, 2018.</strong><br />
<strong>*NOTE: </strong>This article also was published in the Nov. 29 edition of the <strong>Jupiter Courier</strong> and the Gannett/USA Today Treasure Coast Network. See additional articles archived below and in <strong>Olders Posts</strong>. Palm Beaches Informationhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13028578886314418086noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303568327527269406.post-64418233860590124032018-11-03T05:39:00.002-07:002019-01-13T15:21:57.305-08:00WPB Episcopal Church Becomes Historic Landmark<strong>By Bob Davidsson</strong><br />
<strong> </strong>For more than 100 years, the St. Patrick's Episcopal Church has served the spiritual needs of its congregation in the predominately African-American Northwest Historic District of West Palm Beach.<br />
By an ordinance unanimously passed by the West Palm Beach City Commission on Oct. 22, the church itself became a municipal landmark by its inclusion on the city's Local Register of Historic Places. The city's staff recommendation states, "For the last 90 years, the church has served the community as a beacon of religious and community support."<br />
"St. Patrick's Episcopal Church derives its significance from its architectural style, its function as a religious organization with targeted community engagement, and its importance to the Northwest District," the city's staff report concludes.<br />
<br />
<strong>Bahamian Community in the Palm Beaches</strong><br />
<strong> </strong>Bahamian settlers and their descendants have been an important element in the history of the St. Patrick's Episcopal Church from its beginning.<br />
<strong> </strong>In the late 19th century, Bahamian fishermen sailed to the Palm Beaches where they helped establish the region's early fishing industry. Camps were set up on Singer Island for use by the estimated 12 to 25 fishermen.<br />
The community was known as "Inlet City," which became an early name for a section of what is today Palm Beach Shores. The Bahamian fishermen were joined by local squatters at the impromptu settlement.<br />
A sharp decline in agricultural production in the Bahamas in the 1890s hastened an influx of Bahamian migration extending from the Palm Beaches south to the Florida Keys. White Bahamians, primarily from Eleuthera Island, settled in the Keys and Key West. Many black Bahamians migrated to the fledgling communities along Henry Flagler's Florida East Coast Railway.<br />
By the turn of the 20th century, between 75 and 100 Bahamian families formed settlements on both shores of the Lake Worth Lagoon. These included the Coconut Grove, Inlet Cove, Acrehome Park and Santry communities in the then unincorporated area north of West Palm Beach.<br />
An early nick name for Riviera Beach, incorporated in 1922, was "Conch Town". Bahamian migrants in South Florida were commonly called "Conchs" by other native Floridians. In the Florida Keys, the name became a symbol of self-identification and pride. However, in the Palm Beaches, it was considered pejorative and most residents self-identified as Bahamians.<br />
By the year 1922, an estimated 75 Bahamian families, both black and white, resided in "Conch Town," where they were employed in the thriving commercial fishing industry. Fish processing and distribution began in Riviera Beach in 1919, via the new FEC Railway, to destinations as far north as New York City. The Richardson's market, R.R. Recou & Sons and Riviera Fish Company were established in the 1920s.<br />
Bahamian migration to the Palm Beaches continued through the boom years of the 1920s, then declined during the Great Depression. The Bahamian ties to the history of the Palm Beaches were acknowledged by Riviera Beach in 2012 when it become an official sister city of Freeport on Grand Bahamas Island.<br />
As former subjects of Great Britain, many of the Bahamian settlers were members of Anglican and Episcopal parishes. They brought their religious traditions with them to the Palm Beaches.<br />
<br />
<strong>St. Patrick's Episcopal Church Established</strong><br />
<strong> </strong> The black Episcopalian congregation originally met on the island of Palm Beach as part of the Missionary District of South Florida. It was affiliated with the Bethesda-by-the-Sea Church, established in 1889. Due to segregation policies in the early 1900s, separate services were held for African-American members of the Episcopal church.<br />
The congregation's first church in West Palm Beach was built in 1921 and served the parish for seven years. The original church building was destroyed by the Hurricane of 1928.<br />
A new "Gothic Revival" style church was designed by the local architectural firm of Harvey & Clarke of West Palm Beach. It was built at its current location of 418 Sapodilla Avenue in 1929.<br />
St. Patrick Episcopal Church was one of 11 historical buildings designed by Henry Stephen Harvey and L. Philip Clarke in West Palm Beach. It would become the final project completed by the architectural firm before the company was dissolved during the Great Depression.<br />
Other local historic landmark buildings designed by Harvey & Clarke during the 1920s included the Pine Ridge Hospital, the West Palm Beach Train Station on Tamarind, the former Pennsylvania Hotel, the Comeau Building and the Alfred Comeau house.<br />
As an historic landmark, the city staff report stated the church is "associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of the city's history."<br />
St. Patrick's Episcopal Church is part of the worldwide Episcopalian Church and Anglican Communion. The Anglican/Catholic parish celebrates a high mass on Sundays, with the Rev. Canon Winston B. Joseph, rector, and the Rev. Hal O. Hurley currently officiating.<br />
In addition to meeting the spiritual needs of its congregation, for many years St. Patrick's has sponsored a Seniors Activities Center, and provides a Community Youth Program and weekly "Soup Kitchen" for those in need.<br />
<strong>(c.) Davidsson. 2018.</strong><br />
<strong>NOTE: </strong>See additional articles below and archived in <strong>Older Posts</strong>. Palm Beaches Informationhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13028578886314418086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303568327527269406.post-74554143085201824682018-10-20T05:31:00.003-07:002018-11-23T15:46:33.297-08:00Close Encounters with Cryptid 'Skunk Apes': 1972-78<strong>By Bob Davidsson</strong><br />
<strong> </strong>During the 1970s, more than a dozen sightings of the elusive "Skunk Ape," the Everglades version of the Himalayan "Yeti" and Oregon's "Sasquatch" (Bigfoot), were reported in suburban Palm Beach County.<br />
Why the legendary creature was observed in such large numbers during the decade of the 1970s is a mystery. However, not unlike the rash of reported UFO encounters in the 1960s, one Skunk Ape sighting tends to fuel the overactive imaginations of other observers.<br />
Another factor contributing to the upswing of Skunk Ape encounters was the widespread news coverage of the sightings by the Palm Beach Post, Miami Herald and especially in Lantana's National Enquirer and Weekly World News tabloids.<br />
The decade also was a period of rapid population growth in Palm Beach County, with developers creating many communities west of Military Trail and in the new Village of Wellington. Loss of natural habitat confines wildlife to smaller green spaces and increases human contacts.<br />
The Everglades Skunk Ape has many nicknames - Swamp Cabbage Man, Swampsquatch, and the Florida Bigfoot. Eyewitnesses claim the creature measures six to eight feet in height and weighs an estimated 500 pounds. It has a shaggy coat of fur ranging from rust color to dark brown.<br />
Unlike Florida's black bears, the Skunk Ape walks upright on two legs. Observers say it could move rapidly when frightened or pursued. As its name implies, the Skunk Ape is best known for its rank odor. Eyewitnesses describe the stench as a cross between a skunk and aged road kill.<br />
The Skunk Ape is classified as a "cryptid". A cryptid is "an animal where its existence or survival to the present day is disputed or unsubstantiated by the scientific community," according to the Oxford English Dictionary.<br />
As such, the Skunk Ape joins the company of such cryptid celebrities as the Loch Ness Monster, the Florida Keys Devil Men and the recently observed Lake Worth Lagoon Muck Monster.<br />
Eyewitnesses who have encountered a Skunk Ape disagree with the scientific experts. So do "crypto zoologists" - alternative pseudoscientists and adventurers whose aim it is to prove the existence of entities from the folklore records and evidence reported about the Skunk Ape.<br />
<br />
<strong>Strange Cryptid Encounters in Palm Beach County</strong><br />
In 1977 a bill was introduced in the Florida Legislature that would make it illegal to "take, possess, harm or molest anthropoids or humanoid animals." It failed to pass.<br />
Reports of Skunk Ape sightings were so common statewide in the 1970s that even our Florida lawmakers took notice. Palm Beach County had more than its share of alleged close encounters with the Everglades creature.<br />
For example, in 1972 a Skunk Ape sighting was reported in the Meadowbrook subdivision of West Palm Beach,. The same year a Pahokee resident said he and his dog fled from a "hairy eight-foot monster" in western Palm Beach County.<br />
In June 1974, farmer Buddy Sterrett reported a Skunk Ape picked up one his 110-pound hogs and attacked it. He said," It had the smell that would make the hair on the back of your head stand up."<br />
Thee months later, security guard Cary Kantor said he shot at a Skunk Ape in the Wellington construction site where he was posted. "It smelled like it had taken a bath in rotten eggs," he reported. In the autumn of 1974, a Greenacres family reported seeing strange footprints outside of their home left by the Skunk Ape.<br />
Two workers reported seeing a "seven-foot tall hairy creature" in 1977 as it was drinking from a lake at a suburban Delray Beach golf course. They notified the Palm Beach County Animal Control of their sighting. No report was filed.<br />
In 1978 a Lantana resident said he spotted a creature at 5 a.m. in his back yard. He was alerted by the barking of his dogs. The same year two Boca Raton youths reported to police "a creature resembling the notorious Skunk Ape" stalking in the woods by the Hillsboro Canal.<br />
The prestigious "Smithsonian" journal published a feature article in March 2014 entitled "On the Trail of Florida's Bigfoot." The story highlighted the "Skunk Ape Research Center," established in 1999 by Dave Shealy, an eyewitness and true believer in the Skunk Ape, near the tiny Everglades community of Ochopee.<br />
His collection of artifacts includes alleged photographs of the Skunk Ape, which many cryptid critics believe look more like a fugitive orangutan than an Everglades monster. Whether fact or fiction, the legend lives on in Florida today.<br />
<br />
<strong>Key Largo: An Island Paradise for Cryptids</strong><br />
<strong> </strong>Without question the most famous and widely investigated Skunk Ape encounter was the month-long ordeal experienced by the Charles Stoeckman family of Key Largo.<strong> </strong>Among those investigating the bazaar series of encounters were the Monroe County Sheriffs Office, the Florida Marine Patrol, a team from the Florida Technical Institute, photographers from the National Enquirer, and interested news media from Palm Beach County to Key West.<br />
The island of Key Largo forms the southeastern tip of the so-called Bermuda Triangle, which may help explain preternatural sightings of the "Devil Men," seen floating over Florida Bay prior to electrical storms, or visions of the Virgin Mary in a grotto near the St. Justin Martyr Catholic Church.<br />
One enthusiastic resident in 1978 even claimed to have discovered the lost city of Atlantis just offshore of Key Largo. However, upon close inspection at low tide, his "Atlantis" turned out to be an ancient reef of consisting of fossilized brain coral.*<br />
Charles Stoeckman, his wife, and three children lived in a home at mile marker 94.5 Oceanside on Key Largo. On July 14, 1977 Stoeckman and his son saw what he said was an eight or nine-foot tall Skunk Ape while they were collecting rare bottles in the mangroves near his home.<br />
"It had a huge head and shoulders," he later reported, "long fur all over, and he stank like a dirty wet dog. The noise he made was a high-pitched wailing."<br />
Stoeckman cleared 30 feet of brush from around his home to discourage a return visit by the Skunk Ape. It didn't work. The Skunk Ape returned for several night visits. Mrs. Stoeckman and her children fled to Homestead after seeing the creature outside her window.<br />
Responding to terrorized pleas for help were Monroe County Sheriffs Deputy Bill Haase and Sgt. Randall Chinn from the Plantation Key Substation. Florida Marine Patrol Capt. Jack Gillen also inspected the Stoeckman property. No trace of the Skunk Ape was found.<br />
Charles Stoeckman remained at his home for about a month, armed with a shotgun. He later joined his family in south Dade County.<br />
A short time after the Stoeckman encounter, four Tavernier residents formed a Skunk Ape posse. Armed with flash lights, lanterns, a camera and snake bite medication they began what a local newspaper called a "Skunk Ape Safari". The posse met at Harry Harris Park in Tavernier and followed the shoreline north to the Dove Creek Estates.<br />
As with all Skunk Ape adventures, the Everglades monster eluded its pursuers.<br />
<strong>(c.) Davidsson. 2018.</strong><br />
<strong>*NOTE: </strong>This article also was published in the Oct.31, 2018 edition of the <strong>Okeechobee News</strong>. The author of this article was a reporter for the Florida Keys Keynoter from 1977-80. See additional articles below and archived in <strong>Older Posts</strong>. Palm Beaches Informationhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13028578886314418086noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303568327527269406.post-5886331292811011852018-09-26T17:32:00.003-07:002018-10-01T06:42:56.400-07:00Summer of 'Rockreation' in Palm Beach County: 1970<strong>By Bob Davidsson</strong><br />
<strong> </strong>On Nov. 28, 1969, Palm Beach County law enforcement and pubic health agencies were stretched to the limit by the sudden arrival of more than 40,000 young people at the old Palm Beach International Speedway to attend the "First Annual (and only) Palm Beach International Music and Arts Festival."<br />
The determined Baby Boomers braved near record-cold temperatures and heavy rains to hear Iron Butterfly, Jefferson Airplane, Sly Stone, Janis Joplin and the last-minute arrival of the Rolling Stones for the three-day event.<br />
Most of the young music fans attending the festival paid the $20 entry fee. However, many opted to swim across an alligator infested canal for free access to the concert.<br />
It is estimated promoter Dave Rupp lost between $300,000 and $500,000 sponsoring the rock festival. County taxpayers picked up much of the tab for emergency Fire-Rescue medical services to treat 130 drug overdoses and 42 cases of intestinal disease caused by poor sanitation. Security and traffic control required 150 Sheriffs Office deputies.<br />
The county attempted to deny Rupp a permit to hold the music festival, but the concert promoter prevailed in an appeal. Ironically, less than six months later, the County Commission would reverse its policy by supporting summer rock concerts in several of its public parks.<br />
<br />
<strong>The Summer of 'Rockreation'</strong><br />
<strong> </strong>The lingering image of 40,000 young Baby Boomers assembled en mass at one venue left a lasting impression with county leaders. Record numbers of the post-World War II generation were attending county high schools and colleges in 1969-70.<br />
When the school year ended in June 1970, would thousands of idle but socially active young people be content with another summer of love, beaches and surfing, or would it become a season of discontent sparked by the endless Vietnam War and unresolved societal issues.<br />
The County Commission approved a unique cure for their summertime blues - "Rockreation".<br />
An editorial first published in the Palm Beach Post, then reprinted in the Boca Raton News for the benefit of south county readers on March 20, 1970, reported, "The County Commission rightly gave a boost to youth by arranging facilities for ad hoc Sunday rock concerts in county parks."<br />
"Commissioners agreed to make electricity available at some county facilities each Sunday between 1:30 and 5:30 p.m. As little as that is, at least Palm Beach County youth now have a popular form of recreation on county property."<br />
The editorial concludes, "The county has earned plus marks for its decision. Now if it could bend a little further to provide even more activities for its residents who are too old for seesaws and too young for night clubs."<br />
The loose-knit events actually began a number of weeks prior to the county's decision. Local bands got together for jam sessions at John Prince Park. The number of spectators increased weekly. Occasionally, the musicians would rent group barbecue pavilions to obtain access to electricity.<br />
The County Commission wisely codified an activity already taking place in its parks.<br />
<br />
<strong>The Violent End to 'The Peoples Park'</strong><br />
<strong> </strong>In sharp contrast to the county's policy of toleration in the use of public parks by area youths, the City of West Palm Beach cracked down on unauthorized gatherings of young people through strict enforcement of city policies.<br />
The main target of the West Palm Beach Police was a colony of Hippies and their cadre of weekend student supporters encamped at the so-called "Peoples Park".<br />
The Peoples Park was an open area at Phillips Point, fronting Flagler Drive. It was across the street from "The Hut," a favorite counter-culture eatery and gathering place during the 1960s and early 1970s.<br />
After more than a month of clashes between the Hippies and police over noise, drug use and zoning violations, on July 7, 1970 the police swept into the Peoples Park, arresting 64 young people and closing the area to public use.<br />
"Keep Off" signs were posted at the park site. The city passed an ordinance closing all city parks at 9 p.m. to prevent future gatherings of young people.<br />
In a 1978 Palm Beach Post interview, former West Palm Beach Police Chief William Barnes recalled, "The park was a damned national disgrace - pot smoking, hell raising, fornicating on the ground, bottle throwing. You name it."<br />
The editors of the Palm Beach Junior College "Beachcomber" student newspaper had a different perspective on the closing of the Peoples Park. Their lament was published in a Aug. 31, 1970 column entitled "Summertime Blues".<br />
"The violent purge in the Peoples Park at The Hut, the shutdown of the Summerfaze in Miami, the demise of live rock Sundays at John Prince Park, when will it end," the editorial stated. "When will people be allowed to gather in free assembly granted by our Constitution?"<br />
The County Commission's experiment with "Rockreation" ended with the beginning of the 1970-71 school year. While the music died, impromptu weekend gatherings (Happenings) by young people continued in the John Prince and Phil Foster parks well into the fall and winter.<br />
So ended the summer of 1970 in Palm Beach County. Today, outdoor rock concerts have become a regular feature along the West Palm Beach waterfront, at Bryant Park in Lake Worth and venues across the county.<br />
<strong>(c.) Davidsson. 2018.</strong><br />
<strong>NOTE: </strong>The author was a junior at Lake Worth High School in the summer of 1970. He attended events at John Prince and Phil Foster parks. See additional articles archived below and in <strong>Older Posts.</strong> Palm Beaches Informationhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13028578886314418086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303568327527269406.post-22801117130119113182018-08-28T17:31:00.002-07:002019-01-12T17:58:24.512-08:00Dutch Privateers Prowl the Treasure Coast: 1627-28<strong>By Bob Davidsson </strong><br />
For a period of two years in 1627-28, fleets of Dutch warships used the Jupiter and Indian River inlets as a staging area and source of provisions for raids on Spanish treasure fleets entering the Florida Straits.<br />
Although Spanish authorities in St. Augustine and Havana considered these Dutch interlopers as pirates, the squadrons of warships lurking in Florida coastal waters were not the typical freebooting buccaneers of the 17th century.<br />
In 1621 the Dutch West Indies Company (WIC) received a charter to establish colonies and promote trade in the Caribbean and Brazil. To finance their operations, the Dutch merchant-adventurers targeted Spanish and Portuguese shipping with the goal of eliminating their competition.<br />
By the year 1627, the new United Provinces of the Netherlands and the Spanish Hapsburg empire were engaged in the 59th year of the bloody Dutch War of Independence, a conflict commonly called the "80 Years' War (1568 - 1648)."<br />
The West Indies Company expanded the war to the New World by licensing privateers to prey on merchant shipping flying the flag of the unified Kingdom of Spain and Portugal (1580 - 1640). The crews of the Dutch privateers were the descendants of the "Sea Beggars," fishermen turned nautical freedom fighters defending the flooded estuaries and canals of Holland and Zeeland from Spanish invaders in the 16th century.<br />
Most of the privateers were Calvinists, adding a religious element to the conflict. The Dutch sailors held a special hatred for their Spanish Catholic opponents - a feeling shared by their adversaries in this pitiless war at sea.<br />
<br />
<strong>The Dutch Fleet Arrives in Florida</strong><br />
The directors of the West Indies Company were aware of the routes used by Spanish silver fleets from Mexico known as the "Flota," and convoys carrying the gold mined in South America annually and transported in the "Galleones" along the east coast of Florida.<br />
In the year 1598, Dutch historian John Huigehen Van Linschoten reported, "Gold and silver wherewith the Indians trafficke, they had it out of ships which fall on ground upon the Cape of Florida (Canaveral), because most of the ships lost here are lost on this said coast..."<br />
In anticipation of future raids by Dutch or English pirates, Florida Governor Luis De Rojas y Borja (1624-29) wisely recommended the establishment of a fortified sentinel station at Jupiter Inlet in his Feb. 13, 1627 "Letter from the Governor of Florida to his Majesty."<br />
"I should warn and advise your Majesty to build a fort at the bar (Jupiter Inlet)," he wrote, "at a place they call Jega (Jeaga), it being a place where vessels all come to cast anchor when they want to take on water, wood and wait for the merchant ships they wish to capture."<br />
"A fort at this place would act as an sentinel and guard against their landing and helping themselves," the concerned governor reported. "It would also be well to have it in case of vessels being wrecked upon this coast, as so many are, to be able to rescue and save the crews and passengers, who so often perish at the hands of pirates and cruel Indians..."<br />
This sage advice was ignored, at great cost and loss to the Kingdom of Spain.<br />
In the spring of 1627, Spanish Captain-General Thomas Larraspuru sighted a fleet of 13 Dutch warships in the Florida Straits while escorting a convoy of ships to Havana. He reported the Dutch withdrew as he prepared for battle near Coximer, Cuba.<br />
In fact, the Dutch privateers, under the command of Piet Heyn (1577-1629), remained in Cuban waters until July, charting Spanish trade routes and capturing prizes. Larraspuru stated 55 vessels were boarded or sunk by Dutch "pirates" in 1627.<br />
On their return voyage to Holland, the Dutch ships anchored offshore of the Indian River inlet, near the main village of the Ais Indians called "Jece". As the Dutch landed, the Indians fled their village until enticed to return by gifts offered by the privateers. <br />
The Dutch remained at the village, gathering wood and barrels of water for the long journey home. A few of the Ais villagers, loyal to the Spanish, traveled to St. Augustine to request help from Governor Rojas.<br />
It so happened that the presence of the Dutch fleet off the coast of Florida prevented the Spanish from sending the "Situado" or annual royal subsidy to St. Augustine. The subsidy supported the garrison and administration of the Florida outpost and was main source of hard currency in he colony.<br />
Governor Rojas dispatched a small frigate, also known as a "presidio boat," to Havana to inquire on the Situado's delay. The Spanish frigate discovered the 13 Dutch warships at anchor and fled north to report their presence to the governor.<br />
The report by the excited crew confirmed the story told by the friendly Ais Indians. Governor Rojas mustered a force of 150 Spaniards and 300 Indians and marched south to confront the Dutch interlopers. He was too late. The Ais told the governor that the Dutch fleet had already set sail.<br />
In his 1628 report, Governor Rojas wrote, "And they (the Indians) have come to give me the news that there were enemy on the coast. And on two occasions when they landed to obtain water, they abandoned their places and withdrew into the woods, and others came to give the report and to ask for help."<br />
<br />
<strong>Piet Heyn and the Spanish Silver Fleet</strong><br />
<strong> </strong>Encouraged by profits made in the 1627 expedition to the Florida Straits, the West Indies Company dispatched four squadrons of warships to the Caribbean in 1628. They were led by Captains Pieter Adriaanszoon Ita, Witte de With, Joost Benckert (known as the Scourge of the Portuguese), and the return of Piet Heyn.<br />
Captain Ita was the first to appear off the coast of Cuba in May 1628. The privateer captured two great galleons bound for Cuba from Honduras with 12 barges and several smaller vessels under their escort.<br />
The Spanish galleon "Nossa Senhora de Remedios" was boarded as a prize and sailed with the Dutch privateers to the southeast coast of Florida. Following the example of the 1627 fleet, Ita provisioned his ships for the voyage back to Holland.<br />
The captured "Remedios" was unfit for further sailing, so its cargo was transferred to the Dutch warships. Captain Ita scuttled the "Remedios" one mile off the Treasure Coast of Florida and set sail for home.<br />
The privateer captain arrived in Holland in September 1628. His captured cargo was valued at 1.2 million guilders.<br />
With the departure of the Dutch squadron, the governor of Cuba assumed it was safe for the annual silver fleet to make the voyage from Mexico to Spain. It was a fatal decision.<br />
On July 27, 1628, Piet Heyn gathered 31 Dutch warships near Hispaniola, including the squadrons of Witte de With and Joost Benckert, and sailed for the Florida Straits and the northern coast of Cuba. Joining the Dutch fleet was the buccaneer Moses Cohen Henriques, an exiled Portuguese Sephardic Jew wanted by the Spanish Inquisition for piracy but never caught during his 30-year illicit career at sea.<br />
Their unexpected arrival caught the Cadiz-bound silver fleet at anchor in the Bay of Matanzas, Cuba, on Sept. 9. Captain-General Juan de Benevides fled to the mainland and his fleet surrendered after just token resistance.<br />
For Piet Heyn the victory was especially sweet. It was the same Captain Benevides who was the sailing master of a ship where Heyn rowed as a captive galley slave between the years 1598 and 1602. For his cowardice and loss of the silver fleet, Benevides was imprisoned in Cuba. <br />
The 17 ships captured in Matanzas Bay yielded a silver haul valued at 11.9 million guilders. It marked the first and only time an entire Mexican silver Flota was captured intact.<br />
Piet Heyn's fleet was sighted by curious Ais and Jeaga Indians on Sept. 30 as it assembled for one last time off Florida's Treasure Coast for the voyage home. The privateers followed the Gulf Stream to Europe, arriving in Holland on Jan. 9, 1629. The Dutch fleets never returned to Florida.<br />
Ironically, Piet Heyn was allotted little time to bask in the glory of his victory. After a promotion to vice admiral, he was killed a few months later in a naval battle against his Flemish co-religionists in the service of Spain.<br />
The capture of the Spanish silver fleet financed the beginning of Holland's golden age of commerce and world colonization. However, the Dutch were never able to repeat their total victory at Matanzas Bay. Spain upgraded the quality and number of warships escorting future Flota treasure convoys to Spain.<br />
With the loss of the silver fleet, King Phillip IV could not pay his armies and many creditors in 1629-30. The Kingdom of Spain was bankrupt.<br />
<strong>(c.) Davidsson. 2018.</strong><br />
<strong>*NOTE: </strong>See additional articles below and archived in <strong>Older Posts.</strong> Palm Beaches Informationhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13028578886314418086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303568327527269406.post-25121532491752062252018-08-10T08:27:00.001-07:002018-08-14T20:02:19.448-07:00The British Expedition to the 'Hobe River': April 1772<strong>By Bob Davidsson </strong><br />
<strong> </strong>Upon his arrival as the first chief administrator of the new British colony of East Florida, Governor James Grant (1763-71) poetically described its primal coastal frontier as a "New World in a State of Nature."<br />
Nine years later, in one of his last acts before returning to England, the ailing Scottish governor authorized an expedition to explore the Indian River, and the inland estuaries between the St. Lucie Inlet and Biscayne Bay. The official report forwarded to Governor Grant includes a rare 18th century look at the Jupiter Inlet and Loxahatchee River basin, referred to as "Hobe River," during the British colonial period (1763-83),<br />
The colonial official charged with leading the expedition in the spring of 1772 was Frederick George Mulcaster (1739-97), the newly appointed Surveyor General of East Florida. He also held the rank of lieutenant in the British Army's Royal Engineers at the time of the journey.<br />
Mulcaster's orders were to examine the potential of the vast coastal wilderness for future farming and colonization. He specifically was assigned the task of evaluating the 20,000-acre tract of land acquired by William Legge, the second Earl of Dartmouth, at Biscayne Bay.<br />
<br />
<strong>The Dual Identity of Frederick George Mulcaster</strong><br />
<strong> </strong>Lt. Mulcaster was born in the year 1739. His March 12, 1739 christening was recorded at St. James church, Westminster, Middlesex, England. It lists William and Jane Mulcaster as his parents.<br />
Throughout his life, it was rumored that Mulcaster was in fact the illegitimate son of his royal namesake - Frederick, Prince of Wales, the eldest son of King George II. If the rumor was true, his half brother was none other than the future King George III of England.<br />
William Mulcaster was an officer in the household of Prince Frederick, so there was ample opportunity for a secrete liaison between his wife and the amorous Prince of Wales.<br />
The royal family refused to acknowledge Frederick Mulcaster's kinship, so any claims to royalty were judged "illegitimate". He began a career in the military as a Mulcaster instead of a member of the British Hannover dynasty when he graduated from the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich, England.<br />
The young engineer was posted to British East Florida. Governor Grant appointed him as the deputy to East Florida's first Surveyor General, William G. DeBrahm. Mulcaster married DeBrahm's daughter in 1769, and succeeded his father-in-law in 1770 as Surveyor General when Governor Grant removed him from office.<br />
Mulcaster was stationed in East Florida at the beginning of the American Revolution in 1775. East Florida remained loyal to the British crown and Mulcaster served as an officer in the British army. He would file several reports on rebel activities in Georgia and South Carolina as the war progressed.<br />
Lt. Mulcaster left the province of East Florida in March 1776 to begin active military service. He resigned his post as Surveyor General, and set sail to Charleston, South Carolina.<br />
His career in the British army continued after the American Revolution. Mulcaster retired with the rank of a major-general, a rare achievement for a "commoner" in class-conscious 18th century England.<br />
<br />
<strong>The British Expedition to South Florida</strong><br />
<strong> </strong>Lt Mulcaster began his three-month expedition at the Minorcan settlement of New Smyrna, established in 1768 near the Mosquito (Ponce de Leon) Inlet 80 miles south of St. Augustine. He was accompanied by several sailors hired to man his two vessels.<br />
The larger ship was a schooner used as the supply vessel for the expedition. Within its cargo hold were food and cooking provisions, axes, surveyor measuring chains and two horses. A smaller shallow-draft, sailing skiff also was acquired for navigating the Indian River and other tidal estuaries encountered during the journey.<br />
The Surveyor General ordered the schooner to sail south along the Atlantic coastline, then wait for a rendezvous with its smaller companion vessel at the St. Lucie Inlet. Mulcaster portaged the skiff across the narrow "Haulover" separating Mosquito Bay from the Indian River and sailed south along the 100-mile inland waterway.<br />
The two vessels reunited at "Point St. Lucea" where Mulcaster established a base camp. He left two of his men, the horses and a catch of supplies for the return journey, then sailed south along the Atlantic coast to Biscayne Bay.<br />
Lt. Mulcaster reported, "I reached the Bay of Biscayne on the 13th of March with both boats, having left my horses upon the Point of St. Lucea about a hundred miles to the northward of this bay and about 140 miles to the southward of Captain Ross's plantation."<br />
Mulcaster remained in Biscayne Bay for nearly four weeks, exploring coastal estuaries in Dade and Broward counties as far north as the mouth of the "New Hillsborough" (New) River in what is today Fort Lauderdale. He surveyed tracts of land suitable for future plantations.<br />
The Surveyor General was impressed with the region's natural abundance, and reported in his journal; "Everything carried the face of spring." With supplies running low, Mulcaster sailed north in his two vessels. The next stop in the voyage was Jupiter Inlet.<br />
"The 10th of April at 10 at night I passed the barr (at Jupiter Inlet), Mulcaster reported, "the schooner following me the day after and having a fair wind I got into Jupiter's Inlet at the mouth of the Hobe River the next afternoon."<br />
In his report, Mulcaster used the geographic names of Jupiter Inlet and the Hobe River to describe the Jupiter Narrows and Loxahatchee River. He did not call them the "Grenville Inlet and Grenville River," names that appeared on later British maps.<br />
The Surveyor General makes no mention of the Grenville plantation on the north shore of Jupiter Inlet. The brothers George and Richard Grenville acquired the site as a land grant and sent a team to survey the site in the late 1760s. The plantation project was abandoned after the death of George Grenville in 1770.<br />
In his description of the Hobe River, Mulcaster reported, "This river divides itself in three branches. The south river I examined on my way to the southward. It runs almost parallel to the sea, has fine fresh water and plenty of fish."<br />
"The middle branch I could not now examine, the Surveyor General reported, "having been away from my people and horses (at the St. Lucie Inlet) fifty days, which was longer than I expected. I was therefore anxious to get to them for fear they might suffer from want of provisions."<br />
"The north branch (Jupiter Narrows) is rather an arm of the sea, with banks and shoals which leads to the south head of the Indian River, Mulcaster recorded. "I therefore ordered the schooner to the Indian (River) Inlet and came by that way up to St. Lucea to meet me which took place, which place I arrived at the 13th (of April) at 11 at night, but the horses and people were gone."<br />
With supplies exhausted at the St. Lucie base camp, the two frightened men headed north to St. Augustine with the horses. They scratched a message with a penknife on a sable palm frond describing their plight and decision to leave.<br />
"I therefore gave up all thoughts of looking at St. Lucea," Mulcaster wrote, "which I had all along determined to strictly search and make the best of my way along the banks of the river to look for them."<br />
"I therefore set off at one-o-clock in the morning and the same day met the schooner and directed her to go to the Mosquito (inlet) and wait my arrival. I proceeded myself up the Indian River and about 50 miles south of the plantation of Capt. Ross saw a blue flag on the shore. Upon going nearer I perceived it as an Indian blanket and saw the Indians beckoning me."<br />
Relations between the British and the lower Creek nation in Florida (soon known as the Seminole) were generally cordial. Governor Grant met with 50 chieftains at Fort Picolata in November 1765 and signed a treaty allowing settlement along the St. John's and Indian rivers.<br />
Mulcaster reached "Capt. Ross's Plantation" on April 25. Capt. John Ross was resident foreman for two land grant tracts south of New Smyrna owned by London merchant William Eliott which were under cultivation as a sugar cane plantation. After a brief stay, Mulcaster sailed north to St. Augustine, completing his expedition.<br />
Lt. Gov. John Moultrie (1771-74) was serving as interim governor of the East Florida colony when Mulcaster returned. The Surveyor General forwarded a copy of his report as a letter to absentee Gov. James Grant in England on May 6, 1772. <br />
<strong>(c.) Davidsson. 2018.</strong><br />
<strong>NOTE: </strong>See additional articles below and archived in <strong>Older Posts.</strong> Palm Beaches Informationhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13028578886314418086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303568327527269406.post-69026029172344189732018-07-28T08:08:00.001-07:002018-08-02T05:22:55.751-07:00Mango Grove Shaped Early History of Mangonia Park<strong>By Bob Davidsson</strong><br />
<strong> </strong>In an effort to avoid future annexation by the neighboring City of West Palm Beach, Charles Roebuck and a delegation of neighbors living near Voss Road (Australian Avenue) petitioned the State of Florida in 1947 to incorporate a new city called "Magnolia Park".<br />
As fate would have it, the state denied the petition. Magnolia Park already was designated as an unincorporated neighborhood on the eastern shore of Lake Apopka in Orange County.<br />
As a compromise, the fledgling city was incorporated as "Mangonia Park". Within the newly named city was a largely overgrown grove of mango trees. This grove, neglected by the passage of time, became the name origin for the town - "Mangonia" or mango park.<br />
By the late 1940s, few residents remembered the origin of the mango grove or the name of the person who planted them. By tracing their roots, the early history of Mangonia Park is discovered,<br />
<br />
<strong>The Mango Grove of Rev. Elbridge Gale</strong><br />
<strong> </strong>"Mangonia" was originally the name given to 160 acres of homesteaded land by the Rev. Elbridge Gale in what is today the Northwood Hills.<br />
After a career as a professor of agriculture at Kansas State Agricultural College, Rev. Gale, a native New Englander, retired and traveled from his McPherson, Kansas, home to the mainly unsettled west shore of Lake Worth in November 1884 for the purpose of applying farming techniques learned in the academic world in South Florida's subtropical climate.<br />
Gale experimented with the creation of hybrid mangos at his Mangonia homestead. He produced the Haden mango by crossing native varieties with imported Indian mango seedlings.<br />
Between 1885 and 1890, he was joined by his wife, Elizabeth; his son, George; and daughters Ella and Hattie with their families at his Northwood Hills homestead.<br />
Hattie Gale was 16 years old and a student at Kansas State Agricultural College in 1885 when she arrived in the Palm Beaches. She taught school for three months at the "Little Red School House" which opened in March 1886. She became the first school teacher on the isle of Palm Beach.<br />
Hattie returned to Kansas to complete her college education. She became engaged to faculty member William Sanders in Manhattan, Kansas. The couple were married by her father, Rev. Gale, upon their return Palm Beaches on Aug. 24, 1890.<br />
<br />
<strong>The Short Life of 'Mangonia'</strong><br />
Rev. Gale's son, George, was a carpenter and helped his family build the first log cabin in Mangonia's Northwood Hills. The site of homestead was later designated as 29th Street by the Postal Service.<br />
George Gale cut pine logs for the cabin and hauled them from the west shore of Lake Worth. Shingles were salvaged from ship wrecks along the ocean shore of Palm Beach. The homestead was topped by a steep roof made of woven palmetto fronds.<br />
The ambitious son of Rev. Gale arrived in "Mangonia" in February 1885. He established a pineapple farm in the Northwood Hills, and was soon platting the family's land for sale as parcels in the community he hoped to incorporate as the town of "Mangonia". <br />
The creation of the City of West Palm Beach in 1894 ended the short life of the Gale family's "Mangonia" as an independent community. Most of the Gale property in the Northwood Hills was within the West Palm Beach city limits, with the remainder becoming part of Mangonia Park after 1947. <br />
Elbridge Gale continued his interest in education by serving one term as the Dade County Superintendent of Schools. Prior to the creation of Palm Beach County in 1909, Dade County encompassed a vast area from the St. Lucie Inlet south to Biscayne Bay. The town of Juno was the county seat from February 1889 through 1899 when it returned to Miami.<br />
The Dade County Board of Education was established June 27, 1885. At its organizational meeting, it consisted of a superintendent of schools and three board members.<br />
The first order of business of the Board of Education was the division of Dade County schools into four districts. District #1 included the Palm Beaches and its early schoolhouses built along the shores of Lake Worth during the 1880s and 1890s.<br />
Rev. Gale also served as the first president of the "Christian Union," a nonsectarian league of churches established in the fledgling communities along Lake Worth. The organization met in the Mangonia school, established by the Gale family.<br />
The Gale homestead and neighboring farms were purchased by the Pinewood Development Corporation in 1920. A year later the corporation platted the first phase of the "Northwood" subdivision which would become known as "Old Northwood".<br />
The founder of "Mangonia" died Nov. 4, 1907. Both Rev. Gale and his wife are buried at the Woodlawn Cemetery in West Palm Beach. Two of their children, George and Hattie, joined them at this final resting place in 1922.<br />
<strong>(c.) Davidsson. 2018.</strong><br />
<strong> NOTE</strong>: See additional articles below or archived in<strong> Older Posts. </strong> Palm Beaches Informationhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13028578886314418086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303568327527269406.post-62580343146314401142018-06-11T20:14:00.000-07:002020-03-03T13:51:43.177-08:00Historic WPB Medical Lab Fought Disease Epidemics<strong>By Bob Davidsson</strong><br />
<strong> </strong>The last great disease pandemic to impact Palm Beach County - the "Spanish Flu Epidemic of 1918-19" - resulted in draconian actions by local government to control the outbreak, and the placement of one of just three State of Florida diagnostic laboratories in West Palm Beach.<br />
<strong> </strong>At its June 4, 2018 meeting, the West Palm Beach Commission designated the 1921 neoclassical building at 415 5th Street, formerly the Florida State Board of Health (SBH) Laboratory, as a landmark on the city's Register of Historic Places.<br />
An historic marker fronting the building, currently housing the First Bank of the Palm Beaches, reads; "With the construction of the Board of Health Laboratory in 1921, Palm Beach County secured its first state building. Still considered an area of the country that was just being settled, establishing an outpost for public health was an essential component of community upbuilding for West Palm Beach."<br />
Florida was still a rural state in 1920 with a population of just 968,470. Established in 1909, the total population of Palm Beach County, which included portions of Broward and Martin counties at that time, was just 18,654.<br />
The State Board of Health was established by an act of the Florida Legislature on Feb. 29, 1889. The understaffed SBH faced major budget cuts in 1920 by populist Governor Sidney J. Catts, an ordained minister elected to state office in 1916 as head of the "Prohibition Party" ticket.<br />
It took intense lobbying efforts by the Palm Beach Post and its editor, Joe Earman, and a series of devastating outbreaks of Spanish flu, bubonic plague and dengue fever in the state, to convince the parsimonious governor of the need for a new research laboratory.<br />
The two-story SBH lab in West Palm Beach was designed by Pensacola architect Walker D. Willis as a prototype model reproduced several times across the State of Florida. The architect envisioned its neoclassical design "as a symbol of civilization" in the largely rural Sunshine State.<br />
"Constructed by E.H. Barto in 100 days at a cost of $34,700," the historic marker reads, "this landmark structure retains much of its original Bedford Limestone fenestration, St. Louis brick façade and decorative classical interior. The well-preserved interior includes extensive promenade mosaic tile, Dade Pine floors, and a wrought iron and marble central staircase."<br />
The SBH laboratory in West Palm Beach was one of three early diagnostic and treatment centers for communicable diseases in Florida. Together with its sister labs in Pensacola and Jacksonville, the local medical research center controlled the spread of diseases such as influenza, diphtheria and tuberculosis.<br />
The medical labs were hard-pressed to meet the public health needs of the state in the early 20th century. Outbreaks of malaria were endemic in the Suwannee River valley. Dengue fever ravaged Dade County in 1921, eventually spreading to Tampa Bay.<br />
In the year 1920, an unidentified ship anchored in Pensacola's harbor carrying rats infested with the bubonic plague virus. The vermin with their disease carrying fleas disembarked from the ship, spreading the "pestis" virus to rodents throughout the city. <br />
Ten residents contracted the disease and seven died before the pestilence was brought under control. The outbreak highlighted the first systematic use of state public health services to control an epidemic.<br />
<br />
<strong>Spanish Flu Epidemic in Palm Beach County, 1918-19</strong><br />
<strong> </strong>The one catastrophe that galvanized public opinion in support of statewide SBH laboratories to fight communicable diseases in Florida was the deadly arrival of the so-called "Spanish flu" in 1918.<br />
While the exact geographic origin of the influenza strain is still debated, its impact was felt worldwide. The scourge killed 50 million people, including between 500,000 and 650,000 in the United States.<br />
Close communal living conditions necessary during World War I quickly spread the flu virus from the frontline trenches to staging areas, hospitals and military bases in Europe and America. It is believed the first cases in the U.S. were at Fort Riley, Kansas, from where the virus soon infected the general population.*<br />
An estimated 4,000 residents succumbed to the Spanish flu in the thinly populated State of Florida. The first report of the epidemic reaching Florida was Sept. 27, 1918 in Key West. The disease was reported in Pensacola less than one week later. Florida's new rail systems carried the pestilence throughout the state.<br />
By the second week of October 1918, there 158 flu-related deaths in Florida. The number of confirmed Spanish flu cases in the state reached 12,944 by January 1919. Drastic steps were taken to control the epidemic in West Palm Beach and across the state.<br />
On Oct. 9, 1918, an ordinance was passed by the City of West Palm Beach to close all public meetings, schools, theaters, churches and public gatherings during the proclaimed emergency.<br />
The Palm Beach Post reported, "It was stipulated in the ordinance that there shall be no loitering in billiard halls, that barber shops shall be conducted in a strictly sanitary manner, and soda fountains shall serve drinks only in paper containers."<br />
The draconian city ordinance assessed first-time violators a $100 fine or 30 days in jail. It was not an unusual sight to see residents covering their faces with masks or handkerchiefs as they shopped downtown during the 1918-19 epidemic.<br />
The Spanish flu targeted younger victims who lacked partial immunity from earlier flu outbreaks in the 1890's. The flu arrived in two waves. The first outbreak in 1918 was more virulent and was commonly called "the three-day fever". Many flu patients died by contracting secondary pneumonia in an age when antibiotics were not available.<br />
A milder second wave of Spanish flu mutated and spread across the country in 1919. By the end of the year, the pandemic was becoming a horrible memory.<br />
<br />
<strong>Public Health Becomes a Statewide Concern</strong><br />
<strong> </strong>The SBH laboratory in West Palm Beach filled a much needed gap in medical diagnostic services in the early history of Palm Beach County. It wasn't until 1948 that Palm Beach County established a public health unit with the State of Florida providing matching funds.. <br />
Today, the Florida Department of Health in Palm Beach County, with its staff of 750 employees, provides a wide range of community services including disease prevention and control.<br />
The original SBH labs created in the 1920's have evolved into the Florida Department of Health, Bureau of Public Health Laboratories. The Jacksonville-based agency provides diagnostic screening, monitoring, research and emergency public health laboratory services to county health departments.<br />
<strong>(c.) Davidsson 2018.</strong><br />
<strong>*NOTE: </strong>The author's great aunt died in the Spanish flu epidemic. See additional articles archived below and in <strong>Older Posts.</strong> Palm Beaches Informationhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13028578886314418086noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303568327527269406.post-47289943458438634472018-05-25T08:21:00.002-07:002018-05-29T19:21:23.086-07:00Many County Roads Honor the Famous or the Obscure<strong>By Bob Davidsson </strong><br />
<strong> S</strong>ince Palm Beach County was established in 1909, the State of Florida has designated 33 roads and bridges as memorials to famous residents, the not-so-famous, and people whose names are long forgotten with the passage of time.<strong> </strong><br />
It is not just highways and bridges that are so honored by our state lawmakers. Two trails, an expressway, a turnpike, causeway, plaza and even a cable barrier system have been deemed worthy of memorial recognition by the State of Florida in Palm Beach County.<br />
Commuters driving to work on I-95 may be interested to learn their overburdened travel route is actually the "Dwight David Eisenhower Veterans Memorial Highway." By an act of the Florida Legislature (86-309), the section of I-95 (SR 9) from Miami to the Georgia line was so designated in October 1986.<br />
"Ike" isn't the only president honored. The Florida Turnpike also became the "Ronald Reagan Turnpike" from SR 821 north to its intersection with I-75 at Wildwood. The Florida Legislature passed Session Law 98-435 in 1998.<br />
The turnpike's Palm Beach Plaza was dedicated as the "Charles B. Costar Service Plaza" in 1999. Costar was a businessmen who lobbied for the creation of a highway toll system to finance the building of the Florida Turnpike.<br />
The Florida Turnpike's cable barrier in Palm Beach, St. Lucie and Miami-Dade counties was designated as the "Alexander Alden Ware Memorial Cable Barrier System" in 2005. It is named for a child who drowned when the family's car flipped into a canal.<br />
These memorial names attached to our county streets, highways and bridges are voted on and approved by the state senators and representatives we send to Tallahassee. They are introduced as house and senate bills, or as concurrent resolutions approved and placed in the Laws of Florida.<br />
The Florida Legislature has the authority to designate transportation facilities "for honorary or memorial purposes." Beginning in 1922, and with few exceptions, honorary designations "were accomplished as they are today, through an act of the Legislature," according to the Florida Senate's Committee on Transportation's 2011 Interim Report.<br />
After session laws are enacted, it is up to the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) to print and place signage for the memorial bridges or designated sections of Florida's state roads. Memorials passed before the year 1969 were the responsibility of the State Road Board, the oversight agency for the State Road Department, first established in 1915.<br />
FDOT classifies a transportation memorial by its designated name, county, state route number, U.S. route number, local street description, type of facility, dedication source and effective date. <br />
Memorial designations often overlap on the same section of road. The "Kenneth C. Mock Highway (SR 80) extends from the Henry County line to the Atlantic Ocean. However, it overlaps with the "Lawton Chiles Trail" between South Bay and West Palm Beach. <br />
Kenneth Mock was an engineer from Pahokee who spearheaded efforts to expand SR 80 to a four-lane highway in Palm Beach County. Former two-term Governor and U.S. Senator Lawton Chiles is known for walking across the State of Florida in his political campaigns. The "Lawton Chiles Trail" is the route "Walkin' Lawton" followed along the state's roads.<br />
The Dixie Highway (U.S. 1) has earned three patriotic memorial titles in Palm Beach County. It became the "Blue Star Memorial Highway" in 1957, the "Constitution Highway" in 1987, and received the additional designation as the "POW-MIA Blue Star Memorial Highway" in 1991.<br />
In May 1947, the Florida Legislature proclaimed sections of SR 80 from Henry County to West Palm Beach, and U.S. 1 south of Southern Blvd. to the Broward County line, as the "United Spanish War Veterans Memorial Highway" to honor surviving Florida volunteers who served in the Spanish-American War and Philippines conflict.<br />
Some memorial highways are named for deceased local politicians. The "Ben Sunday Memorial Highway" (SR 806), extending from the west Delray city limits to the Florida Turnpike, is named for a Palm Beach County commissioner who served in the 1950s.<br />
The "Charles Minor Expressway" was designated in 1961 as the section of U.S. 27 and SR80 between the Hendry County line and South Bay. Minor was a member of the Florida House of Representatives and Hendry County Commission.<br />
The main north-south highway in western Palm Beach County, U.S. 27 (SR 25) has acquired many common names during its 70-year history. Within Palm Beach County, it also became the "Tom and Marian Lewis Memorial Highway". The Legislature honored the former state lawmaker and his wife in 1995.<br />
The section of Alternate A1A from Donald Ross Road north to U.S. 1 in Jupiter was proclaimed the "Glynn Mayo Highway" in 1992. He was the Town of Jupiter's first police chief and served for 28 years.<br />
There also are highways honoring sporting organizations in Palm Beach County. The "Moroso Memorial Highway" is a section of SR 710 named in 1999 to honor the Palm Beach International Raceway and its former owner, Dick Moroso.<br />
The arrival of the Professional Golfers Association (PGA) in northern Palm Beach County was recognized by the Florida Legislature by selecting a portion of SR 786 in Palm Beach Gardens as the "PGA Boulevard". The designation became law on June 24, 1965.<br />
Palm Beach County's barrier island highway, SR A1A, has acquired its share of memorials. The earliest designation was the "Atlantic Beach Boulevard," so named in 1927 as the coastal highway from St. Augustine south to Miami. "North Ocean Boulevard," from Pelican Lane to Sea Road on the Palm Beach barrier island was officially cited in April 1992.<br />
The little known but much traveled "Coast to Coast Highway" was designated in 1992. It extends from Siesta Key on Florida's west coast to U.S. 1 in Riviera Beach and includes SR 710 in Palm Beach County.<br />
The Florida Legislature remembered historic Mar-a-lago and its Post cereals heiress by naming the link between SR A1A and Southern Boulevard as the "Marjorie M. Post Memorial Causeway" in 1972.<br />
<br />
<strong>Memorial Bridges in Palm Beach County</strong><br />
<strong> </strong>Below is the current list of eight memorial bridges in Palm Beach County designated by the Florida Legislature with their effective dates of dedication:<br />
<ul>
<li>Carlin White Bridge. (Name dedicated in 2007). Across the Loxahatchee River near Jupiter Inlet. He was a Jupiter pioneer who died in 2014 at age 107.</li>
<li>Haven M. Ashe Bridge. (1965.) Across the Boca Raton Inlet on A1A. He was a Boca Raton pioneer and bridge tender who worked for Florida's State Road Department.</li>
<li>Jack L. Saunders Bridge. (1980) Spans the Intracoastal Waterway on Linton Blvd., Delray Beach. He was a Delray Beach pioneer and former mayor.</li>
<li>Jerry Thomas Memorial Bridge. (1981) Also known as the Blue Heron Bridge. It spans the Intracoastal Waterway in Riviera Beach. He was a past president of the Florida Senate and candidate for governor.</li>
<li>L.E. Buie Memorial Bridge. (2004) It is the skypass bridge on U.S. 1 passing over the Port of Palm Beach. She was a resident of West Palm Beach since 1925 and a lifelong civil rights advocate.</li>
<li>Richard E. "Pete" Damon Bridge. (2005) Bridge crosses the Loxahatchee River along Alternate A1A in Jupiter. He was a bridge tender on the Alternate A1A Bridge for 20 years.</li>
<li>Riviera Memorial Bridge. (1945) Bridge crosses Lake Worth along SR A1A on Singer Island.</li>
<li>Robert A, Harris Bridge. (1970) Bridge crosses the Intracoastal Waterway at the City of Lake Worth. He was the director of the Lake Worth Chamber of Commerce from 1961-69.</li>
</ul>
Finally, the oldest highway in Palm Beach County is "Military Trail". It was originally hacked out of pinewood forests and scrub along the Atlantic Coastal Ridge in 1838 by Major William Lauderdale and his Mounted Tennessee Volunteers, with the assistance of a U.S. Army unit led by Lt. Robert Anderson.<br />
The trail connected Fort Jupiter with Fort Dallas near the current City of Miami. During the Second Seminole War it was known as "Lauderdale's Route" but was later commonly called the generic "Military Trail". <br />
Ironically, the historic route was not recognized by the Florida Legislature until March 1972. The section of the former wagon trail from SR 808 to PGA Boulevard is now a state memorial highway.<br />
<strong>(c.) Davidsson. 2018. </strong><br />
<strong>NOTE</strong>: See additional articles below and archived <strong>in Older </strong>Posts. Palm Beaches Informationhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13028578886314418086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303568327527269406.post-2600672066342335822018-05-04T06:10:00.001-07:002018-05-25T17:13:48.693-07:00U.S. 27: County's Highway of Sugar, Blood and Hope<strong>By Bob Davidsson</strong><br />
<strong> </strong>Highway U.S. 27, the westernmost federal north-south route in Palm Beach County, is a roadway with many acquired names, leading its drivers on journey through the unique transportation history of Florida.<br />
During its 84-year history, U.S. 27 (also designated SR 25) earned the nicknames of the "Backbone of Florida," the "Sugarland Highway," "Bloody 27" and the "Claude Pepper Memorial Highway."<br />
For two generations, until the completion of Florida's interstate highway grid and the opening of the Florida Turnpike as the Sunshine State Parkway, U.S. 27 was the main 1,373-mile gateway for trucking and the tourism industry connecting the Midwest to destinations within the Sunshine State.<br />
U.S. 27 begins in Fort Wayne, Ind., and meanders south through Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia. The highway first entered Florida in 1934 at the sleepy village of Havana in Gadsden County, located a few miles northwest of Tallahassee.<br />
By 1947, U.S. 27 was extended 481 miles to its final destination in Miami, where it links with highway U.S. 1 at North 36th Street, just south of "Little Havana". As a result of the common names at its Florida entry point and terminus, U.S. 27 acquired yet another moniker - the "Havana to Little Havana Highway."<br />
Due to the importance of the highway for tourism in the mid-20th century, and its use as the backbone of the state's transportation system, promoters began referring to U.S. 27 as the "Backbone of Florida." The name is an appropriate geographic description since it crosses the heartland of state in central Florida.<br />
U.S. 27 passes along the western shore of Lake Okeechobee in Glades and Hendry counties, where it briefly merges with SR 80 as it enters Palm Beach County near the City of South Bay. The federal highway parts company with SR 80 east of South Bay and heads due south through miles of sugarcane fields.<br />
A sugarcane crop valued at about $1.5 billion annually is transported on U.S. 27 in Palm Beach and Hendry counties. Many growers in the agricultural industry began calling it the "Sugarland Highway" due to its economic importance to the region.<br />
After entering the sugar harvesting center of Okeelanta in central Palm Beach County, U.S. 27 veers southeast toward Broward County. When it crosses the county line, the highway enters the Everglades and Francis S. Taylor Wildlife Management Area wetlands. <br />
As it departs the conservation area, the U.S. 27 skirts the western edge of endless miles of generic urban sprawl in southern Broward and Miami-Dade counties before turning east near Miami's international airport to its intersection with U.S. 1.<br />
Shortly after the death of former U.S. Senator and Congressman Claude Pepper, the Florida Legislature voted to honor the veteran Miami lawmaker by designating U.S. 27 as the "Claude Pepper Memorial Highway" on May 12, 1999.<br />
The session law (CS/HB 75) states, "U.S. Highway 27 in the State of Florida is hereby designated 'Claude Pepper Memorial Highway'. The Department (of Transportation) is authorized to determine appropriate intervals along U.S. 27 for the location of markers so as to inform the public of the designation."<br />
The Legislature also designated the entire length of U.S. 27 as the "Purple Heart Highway," with an effective date of July 1, 2010.<br />
Because U.S. 27 was the first roadway to be four-laned along most of its route in Florida, it also earned the unofficial title of "Florida's First Superhighway". However, over the decades one section of the so-called "Superhighway" earned a more deadly reputation in Palm Beach County as "Bloody 27".<br />
<br />
<strong>The Deadly Legacy of 'Bloody 27"</strong><br />
<strong> </strong>At 5:55 a.m. March 17, 2015, Carolina Ortiz was driving her three teenage children to their school in Miami-Dade County. Six miles south of the City of South Bay, she encountered a detached truck trailer which had separated after departing from an Okeelanta sugar mill. It loomed out of the early morning darkness and fog in her lane of traffic.<br />
While attempting to avoid the obstacle, her Ford Focus was hit by a pickup truck and oncoming tracker-trailer. Mrs. Ortiz and her three children were killed.<br />
This sad narrative, and hundreds like it, have earned highway U.S. 27 the notorious nickname of "Bloody 27".<br />
Nature, agriculture and a heavily used trucking route have conspired to make this 22-mile stretch of highway in western Palm Beach County one of the most dangerous roads in America. Early morning fog, mixed with haze from burning sugarcane fields, and numerous access roads for farm vehicles have proven a deadly combination for motorists.<br />
The speed limits on U.S. 27 vary from 30 to 65 miles per hour. Recent studies conclude most accidents occurring on U.S. 27 are caused by drivers who are careless and inattentive when entering the highway. Statistics reveal right-of-way violations account for the vast majority of serious or fatal wrecks.<br />
Adding to this bad news was a 2017 Geotab study, released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), ranking U.S. 27 in Florida as the third deadliest highway in America. The findings recorded 529 fatal crashes with 614 deaths, or a fatality rate of 2.16 deaths per million vehicles.<br />
In April 2017 newspapers across the state and nation trumpeted the grim statistics in their headlines. Forbes magazine, for example, published an article featured U.S. 27 entitled "Death Tolling: The Most Dangerous Highways in America."<br />
The NHTSA study concluded that an estimated 10 percent of fatal accidents and 17 percent of all crashes were caused by "distracted driving".<br />
<br />
<strong>U.S. 27: A New Highway of Hope</strong><br />
The main line of the Florida Turnpike was completed in stages from Wildwood to Miami in July 1964. The turnpike merged with I-75 north of Wildwood in central Florida, with I-4, I-10 and I-95 added to the interstate network about a decade later.<br />
The completion of the interstate network ended the reign of U.S. 27 as the state's main tourism access highway. U.S. 27 primarily became a road for local and regional transit, trucking and business. Trucks make up 42 percent of the vehicles using U.S. 27 in Palm Beach County.<br />
In a May 2015 report to the Florida Department of Transportation, the Florida Trucking Association stated, "As a connection to many regions of the state, and as an alternative to the heavily used interstate system, U.S. 27 is vital to Florida's trucking industry."<br />
The trucking industry in Florida provided 333,680 jobs in 2016, or one out of every 22 in the state. Industry wages paid in Florida exceeded $15.3 billion. There were 37,270 trucking companies located in Florida during 2017, most of them locally operated. Four trucking lines are currently serving South Bay. (Source: ATRI)<br />
The Glades communities of South Bay, Belle Glade and Pahokee in Palm Beach County have long sought an economic boost to supplement agriculture, sports fishing and Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail (LOST) tourism. An enhanced and expanded U.S. 27 may provide the answer.<br />
A "U.S. 27 Highway Corridor Project" outline was introduced April 21, 2017 by the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council (TCRPC). Among its objectives, the plan calls for upgrading and widening U.S. 27 to six lanes for the 72-mile section between South Bay and Miami.<br />
A corresponding "rail bypass line" would be built to handle 15 to 22 freight trains daily, providing an alternative for haulers from the Florida East Coast railway which is committed to increasing passenger service with Brightline.<br />
While unveiling of the project before the Port of Palm Beach Commission, TCRPC Executive Director Michael Busha said, "I believe it unlocks the potential the Glades have been looking for..."<br />
In essence, the $1.25 billion plan would transform the Glades communities into an intermodal transit hub for business and agriculture between Miami and the Palm Beaches. However, as with many visionary projects, the main barrier is funding.<br />
Whatever the future holds for U.S. 27, the highway with many names will continue to be the backbone of the state's transportation history.<br />
<strong>*NOTE: </strong>Read additional articles below and archived in <strong>Older Posts</strong>.<br />
<strong>(c.) Davidsson. 2018.</strong> Palm Beaches Informationhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13028578886314418086noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303568327527269406.post-44429657894439116852018-04-10T07:35:00.001-07:002019-02-27T05:35:08.204-08:00County History Unearthed in Shellrock Mining Pits<strong>By Bob Davidsson</strong><br />
<strong> </strong> Unless a home in Palm Beach County was built on the Florida Atlantic Coast Ridge, odds are its subdivision rests over landfill material excavated from one of South Florida's shellrock mining pits.<br />
Long lines of railroad cars filled limestone aggregate are often observed passing through the Palm Beaches daily as they make their trek from the Lake Belt mines, an 89-square mile area between the Everglades and suburban areas of Miami-Dade County, to four rock distribution centers located in central and northern Florida coastal cities.<br />
In its promotions, the Florida East Coast (FEC) Railway reports, "We move hundreds of thousands of aggregate carloads" to the service areas along its rail.<br />
Limestone aggregates are used to produce cement, concrete and asphalt needed to build roads, bridges, runways, homes and public facilities. Limestone, shell and dolomite are types of marine sediment deposits formed in Florida over millions of years.<br />
Limestone and its aggregates is South Florida's leading mining product. About 153 million tons of rock are mined per year for Florida construction projects or for export, according to industry estimates. <br />
The Florida Department of Transportation, a major user of shellrock aggregates, has established specifications for its use (Section 913A). It states, "Materials used for shellrock base shall be defined as naturally occurring heterogeneous deposits of limestone with embedded layers or lenses of loose and cemented shell, to include cemented sands (Calcific sandstone)."<br />
"This material shall be mined and processed in a manner that will result in a reasonably homogeneous finished product," the FDOT rule states. "Approval of mined aggregate sources shall be in accordance with Section 6-3.3."<br />
Shellrock formations vary from unconcentrated sand to loosely compressed shells. It includes "coquina" (Spanish word for small shell) formations found in Florida coastal areas from St Johns County south to the Florida Keys.<br />
Limestone excavating, commonly called "rock mining" in Florida, began in the year 1672 when King Charles II of Spain authorized the construction of the "Castillo de San Marcos" fortress in St. Augustine. Locally mined Anastasia Island coquina was cut into blocks and used to build the fortress walls and internal barracks.<br />
Today, the "Castillo" remains the oldest European masonry fortification in the United States.<br />
During the First Spanish Colonial Period (1513-1763), coquina also was the building material used for Fort Matanzas (Torre de Matanzas), guarding the southern gateway to St. Augustine in 1742, and the St. Marks garrison outpost in 1753.<br />
One of earliest companies involved in a "rock and sand hauling" business in Palm Beach County was the Rinker Materials Corp., founded by Marshall E. "Doc" Rinker (1904-1996) as the "Rinker Rock and Sand Company" in 1926. <br />
Rinker provided construction services throughout Florida, including Disney World and Epcot. The West Palm Beach-based company was valued at $515 million when it was sold to CSR Ltd. in 1988. The company was the largest producer of ready-mix concrete in Florida at the time of its sale. CEMEX acquired the Rinker Group in 2007.<br />
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is the oversight agency responsible for evaluating ecological impacts and the restoration of mining sites. According to the DEP, there are currently six licensed mining sites in unincorporated Palm Beach County:<br />
<ul>
<li>Palm Beach Aggregates mine and expansion sites located west of the Acreage near S.R 7.</li>
<li>Stewart Mining Industries - Palm Beach County Mines, northwest of the Palm Beach Aggregates.</li>
<li>Fine Stone Mine - Gilbert Pit, south of the Martin-Palm Beach County line near Lake Okeechobee.</li>
<li>U.S. Sugar Corp. - Lake Harbor Quarry in western Palm Beach County, south of Lake Okeechobee.</li>
<li>Bergeron Sand, Rock and Aggregate's Florida Rock Quarry in western Palm Beach County.</li>
<li>CEMEX Construction Materials - South Bay Quarry, located west of the Loxahatchee Refuge.</li>
</ul>
Palm Beach Aggregates (PBA), the largest active mining operation, broke ground in 1993. The 3,000-acre site in Loxahatchee mines about 100 acres annually for fill material used in construction.<br />
PBA mining operations include the 2,200-acre C-51 Reservoir which stores 61,000 acre feet of water available for use as a water supply, storm water storage and flood control. Broward County and five municipalities have expressed interest in the mining reservoir as a future water source.<br />
<br />
<strong>The History of Okeeheelee's 'Shellrock Pits'</strong><br />
The name origin of Okeeheelee Park supposedly derives from the Miccosukee word "Okee-hee-the," which translates to "pretty waters, quiet waters, or good waters" depending on what information source is used.<br />
In truth, when the original 90-acre rock mining site was acquired by the State of Florida in 1973 for $7 million, then traded to Palm Beach County in a land swap, the waters were neither pretty, quiet nor good. The lakes were deserted shellrock pits flooded by seasonal rain.<br />
There is no record of native American villages at Okeeheelee. Historically, the site consisted pineland scrub forest, not pretty waters.<br />
The rock pits at Okeeheelee were strip mines used by construction companies during the high noon of mining in Palm Beach County during the 1950s and 1960s, a period when county production rivaled Dade's "Lake Belt".<br />
According to the 1968 "Mineral Producers in Florida' report, there were nine limestone and crushed rock mines in Palm Beach County operated by Belle Glade Rock Company, Douglas Shell Pit near Haverhill, Gorham Construction Company on Skees Road, MacArthur Gardens Construction Company in Palm Beach Gardens, Rubin Construction Company west of Florida Turnpike in West Palm Beach, the Chasten Powell site near Lantana Road, P.C. Smith Company, Inc. of West Palm Beach, and the W.R. Grace Company's Boca Raton vermiculite plant.<br />
The rock mine at Okeeheelee was owned by the Cleary Brothers Construction Company of West Palm Beach. The Cleary Brothers - President and CEO James E., Vice President John B. and Treasurer-Secretary Dennis - incorporated their architectural and construction engineering firm March 8, 1937.<br />
In its Florida articles of incorporation, Cleary Brothers detailed the company's mission: "To conduct and carry on the business of building and contracts for the purpose of building, erecting, altering, repairing in connection with all classes of buildings...and the laying out and construction of roads, avenues, docks, slips, sewers, bridges, walls, canals, railroads, airports, power plants and generally all classes of buildings."<br />
The Okeeheelee rock aggregate provided the raw material for an impressive list of Florida projects completed by Cleary Brothers Construction throughout Florida. In Palm Beach County, the Cleary Brothers were contracted to build the East Camino Real Bridge in 1939, the 540-foot Boca Raton Inlet Bridge in 1963, and a replacement span for the first Flagler Memorial Bridge in 1965.<br />
During World War II, Cleary Brothers were contracted for projects at Morrison Field in West Palm Beach, and the Homestead Air Force Base in 1942. Other state contracts included the 180-foot Sebastian Inlet Bridge in 1965, the St. Lucie Canal locks for the Lake Okeechobee Cross-State Canal project n 1968, and the conversion of several Flagler railroad spans into the Overseas Highway in the Florida Keys.<br />
The Cleary Brothers rock mine also provided landfill material for the 3,860-acre Lyons Farm site in Broward County. Coral Ridge Properties converted the infilled farmland to the planned community of Coral Springs, incorporated on July 10, 1963.<br />
Today, Okeeheelee is a 1,702-acre regional park operated by Palm Beach County. Where there were once rock mining pits, the county provides a water skiing course, 14 athletic fields, eight tennis courts, a golf course and a dog park. A nature center with trails opened in 1992.<br />
<br />
<strong>Prehistoric 'Monsters' Emerge from Rock Mining Pit</strong><br />
In 1969 a dragline operator digging a drainage canal at the P.C. Smith Shellrock Company quarry, known as the "West Palm Beach Site," made an unusual discovery. Florida Atlantic University was contacted by the mine operator and told they had a "bag of bones" collected at the mine site.<br />
The "bag of bones" turned out to be the fossils of several species of extinct giant mammals that once roamed Palm Beach County. Archaeologist Howard Converse was tasked with identifying and removing the bones from the rock pit in March 1969. He was assisted by local college students and volunteers.<br />
The West Palm Beach Site was a commercial shell quarry located seven miles west of the city's downtown in what is today the Golden Lakes community.<br />
The rock miners had accidently unearthed an ancient riverbed which had attracted the prehistoric animals to the site 20,000 years ago during the late Pleistocene Epoch. During their two-month excavation, the scientific team recovered 600 identified specimens, currently housed in the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville.<br />
The fossil remains include bison, giant capybara, dire wolves, and three species of ancient cousins of the elephant - the Colombian mammoth, American mastodon and gomphothere, an extinct species of tapir.<br />
Perhaps the best preserved fossilized artifact found in Palm Beach County was the partial skeleton of a 12,000-year-old mastodon nicknamed "Suzie". It was displayed for many years at the South Florida Science Center. <br />
South Florida's rock mines have long been the targets of conservationists and other critics who question their impacts on the Florida Aquifer and future water supply. Without the use of the rock mining industry's aggregates, however, the infrastructure of the county - roads, housing, masonry buildings, airports - would not exist.<br />
Rocking mining was and remains an important part of the county's history.<br />
<strong>(c.) Davidsson. 2018.</strong><br />
<strong>NOTE: </strong>Article summary and notice also was printed in <strong>The (Belle Glade) Sun</strong>. Read additional articles below and archived in <strong>Older Posts. </strong> Palm Beaches Informationhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13028578886314418086noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303568327527269406.post-37173450960536861712018-02-03T14:36:00.002-08:002020-10-08T17:46:48.754-07:00Palm Beach County's Ancient 'Transit Networks'<strong>By Bob Davidsson</strong><br />
<strong> </strong>Centuries before the paving of I-95 and the Dixie Highway, or the building of Henry Flagler's FEC Railway, and even before the clearing of the Military Trail in 1838, Palm Beach County had an ancient transportation network used by its four native American nations.<br />
The original inhabitants of Florida did not live in isolated villages. The peninsula's natural waterways served as trade routes providing interconnectivity between tribes from the mouth of the St. John's River south to the Florida Keys.<br />
Evidence of inter-tribal commerce is apparent from the excavated burial mounds and village middens scattered throughout the county, from Lake Okeechobee northeast to the Jupiter Inlet and south to the Hillsboro River.<br />
Pottery shards and artifacts produced by the distant Timuqua Indians of northeast Florida are found in local mounds. So are artifacts from the Calusa Mound Building culture of southwest Florida, as well as beads and metal trade items from Spain's lonely outpost of St. Augustine during the First Spanish Colonial Period (1513-1763).<br />
The native inhabitants of Palm Beach County - the Jeaga, Tequesta, Santaluces and Maymi nations - established permanent villages about 3,000 years ago. Their place of origin is unknown.<br />
Spanish and English captives observed the tribes were able to communicate and perhaps shared a common root language unrelated to their Timuquan and Muskogean-speaking neighbors to the north. One recent theory is the South Florida tribes were late arrivals on the peninsula from beyond the sea.<br />
In theory, these seafarers followed in the wake of the Taino and Carib tribes in their journey from the north coast of South America, slowly island-hopping their way up the Caribbean island chain to Cuba and the Bahamas, until reaching their final destination in Florida.<br />
Recent genetic research conducted by a team led by University of Copenhagen scientists revealed a DNA sampling from the remains of a Lucayan-Taino inhabitant of Eleuthera island in the Bahamas was traced back to the Arawakan culture of northern South America. Future DNA testing of South Florida's native American inhabitants may one day solve the mystery of their place of origin too.<br />
The Florida Straits were not a barrier to these ancient nautical travelers. During most of the Spanish Colonial Period, Tequesta and Calusa sailors made the 106-mile voyage from the Florida Keys to Cuba in large dugout canoes to obtain trade goods in Havana.<br />
Whatever the origins of Palm Beach County's original inhabitants, upon arrival they adapted well to their new environment and fully utilized its natural resources and waterways.<br />
<br />
<strong>Ancient Trade Routes and Waterways</strong><br />
<strong> </strong>The opening of Florida's Intracoastal Waterway in 1912 was hailed in Tallahassee as a milestone in the history of Florida. The protected inland waterway provided vessels with an unimpeded passage from Miami to Jacksonville by dredging canals between existing coastal lagoons.<br />
Florida's original inhabitants used the same network of lagoons for trade and communications between tribes. From north to south the system of lagoons are the Tolomato in Duval County, the Matanzas River of St. Johns County, the Halifax River of Volusia County, and Brevard County's Mosquito Lagoon, Indian River Bay and the 120-mile Indian River Itself.<br />
The Indian River merges with the St. Lucie at Sewell's Point, with one branch continuing south into Martin County, where after passing through a shallow maze of mangroves, it met the Jupiter Narrows west of Jupiter Island at Hobe Sound.<br />
South of the Jupiter Inlet, the ancient Loxahatchee River portage was dredged to form a canal linked to Little Lake Worth and the 20-mile Lake Worth Lagoon. A second canal was dredged in the early 20th century to connect Lake Worth to the Spanish River, Lake Boca and the mouth of the Hillsboro River.<br />
Completing the coastal waterway were the Hillsboro Inlet and New River estuaries in Broward, connected by the Stranahan River to the northern end of Biscayne Bay near the Dade County line. This southern coastal route connected Tequesta villages located in modern Dade, Broward and southern Palm Beach counties.<br />
In the year 1575, Florida Lieutenant Governor Juan Lopez de Velasco reported, "The River Ais (Indian River) is at 27 degrees north. It is a small one that only boats (barcos) can enter. And from it up to Cape Canaveral the coast runs north-south until the cove of the same cape, which takes a turn to the northeast. The coast is clear and anchorable, although there is no port along its length."<br />
The Ais nation were masters of the Indian River (Rio de Ais), controlling the coastal trade routes from Cape Canaveral south to the St. Lucie River. Shipwrecked captive Jonathan Dickinson reported the "Cacique of Ais" was the head of his village and "commander of the northern part of this coast."<br />
The Spanish named Indian River Bay "Laguna de Ais" on their charts. The Mosquito Lagoon was called "Laguna de Surruque," - the name for the northern branch of Ais tribe on Cape Canaveral. The portage haulover connecting the two bays was known as "Potopotoya" in the native Ais dialect.<br />
The caciques of Ais, located in their main village of "Jece," described as hidden among the mangroves on the Indian River barrier island, negotiated treaties and trade agreements with the eastern branch of the Timuqua tribe, located north of Ponce de Leon (Mosquito) Inlet.<br />
The Ais leaders also formed alliances with the linguistically related Mayaca tribe to the west, and with their smaller Santaluces and Jeaga neighbors to the south through marriage agreements.<br />
The primary vessels used in trade by the coastal tribes were dugout canoes made from local slash pines and other conifers. Native craftsmen stripped the bark from the logs and carved indented passenger compartments in the center using stone tools and fire. Iron axes from the Spanish were rare but highly valued for this work.<br />
Some of the larger canoes were seaworthy and could hold up to 30 persons. To haul freight or for ceremonial displays of power, the coastal tribes would lash two canoes to create a catamaran with a raised center platform. <br />
In his 1697 journal, Dickinson described one such vessel during a visit of the Cacique of Ais to obtain tribute from the Jeaga Indians at their main village of Hobe (Hoe-bay), located on the south shore of Jupiter Inlet.<br />
"We all drew down to waterside to receive him," the shipwrecked merchant wrote. "We perceived he came in state, having two canoes lashed together with poles athwart from the one to the other, making a platform, which being covered with a mat, on it stood a chest which was belonging to us. Upon the chest he sat cross-legged, being newly painted in red, his men with poles setting the canoes unto the shore."<br />
The Jupiter Inlet and the Loxahatchee River estuary appeared on early Spanish maps as the "Rio Jobe." Jeaga villages were located on both shores of the inlet, as well as Jupiter Island to the north and Singer Island to the south.<br />
The Spanish also were aware of the long body of water south of the Jupiter Inlet today named Lake Worth in honor of William Jenkins Worth, the U.S. Army commander who brought the Second Seminole War to close. It appeared on Spanish 17th century navigation charts as the "Rio Jeaga," or occasionally as the "Laguna de Gega," located "five leagues south of the Rio Jobe".<br />
In his 1575 "Memoirs," Hernando de Escalante Fontenada, a hostage of the Calusa tribe, identified Palm Beach as "Jeaga Island". He recounted the ill-fated expedition of Lucas Vasquez d'Allyon (1475-1526) to establish a colony in the Carolinas. Fontenada's information source were Indians from the "Island of Yeaga" who had encountered Allyon's fleet of six ships.<br />
One of Allyon's ship captains was Pedro de Quexo, an Hispaniola slave merchant who prowled the southeast coast of Florida from Cape Canaveral to the Florida Keys during the 1520s. This early slave trade left a legacy of hostility between the coastal tribes and Spain which would cost the lives of hundreds of shipwrecked seaman.<br />
No friend of the coastal tribes, Spanish Governor Pedro Menendez Marques gave the following testimony in 1573: "This witness knows that Cacique Jega, who is on the coast of the Bahamas Channel, slew 25 Spanish men and one woman with child, and these same Indians captured a mother with two daughters, young maidens, and a little boy and one sailor, which this witness saw in the power of the cacique they call Ais who is the father-in-law of said Jega."<br />
The discoverer of Florida, Juan Ponce de Leon, was himself forced to repel an attack by resident Jeaga Indians when he entered their Jupiter Inlet (Rio de la Cruz) in search of water for his ships.<br />
The captain of Ponce de Leon's flagship, the "Santa Maria de Consolacion," was an infamous Hispaniola slave trader named Juan Bono de Quejo, known to early Spanish missionaries as "Juan the Bad". Bono may have been aware of the Florida peninsula in advance of Ponce de Leon's 1513 voyage of discovery from his prior slave raids in the Bahamas.<br />
The inland waterway of Lake Worth was veiled from roving conquistadors, slavers and pirates by the barrier island made of Anastasia coquina limestone covered with sand and thick subtropical vegetation. <br />
After the besieged Spanish outpost of Santa Lucia, located north of Jupiter Inlet, was abandoned in March 1566, there was no further effort to colonize the Palm Beaches. (See "<strong>Navidad at Fort Santa Lucia: 1565</strong>" archived in Older Posts.)<br />
The principal village of "Jeaga," the namesake for the tribe, is known to archeologists as the Rivera Beach Mound Complex. A long fish-shaped mound 150 feet wide and 10 feet high was once located near the current site of the Port of Palm Beach.<br />
Directly opposite of the village of Jeaga on Singer Island was the so-called "Palm Beach Inlet Midden". Jeaga village sites dotted both shores of Lake Worth. The largest, located in the Town of Palm Beach, was the Guest Mound.<br />
The Guest Mound was 18 feet high and 100 feet in width. It featured a village on its summit visible from the sea. The site may be the village of "Abaioa" described by 16th century Spanish Royal Historian Antonio de Herrera in his history of Ponce de Leon's voyage of discovery in May 1513.<br />
Herrera reported, "They came upon and anchored behind a cape close to the village named Abaioa. All this coast, from Punta de Arrafices until this Cabo de Corrientes (Cape of Currents), runs north-south to the southeast, and the water is clear with a depth of six fathoms."<br />
The Jeaga villages along Lake Worth were part of a self-contained coastal riverine environment providing all the food sources and natural resources needed by the inhabitants. It was bordered by the ocean to the east and the Atlantic Coast Ridge to the west, which also marked the beginning of the Everglades.<br />
The mainland villages, such as the Littlefield Mound site in West Palm Beach, may have been used seasonally for hunting and fishing in the chain-of-lakes west of the ridge line. Before it was destroyed by 20th century development, the village site was 500 feet long and stood about six feet above the surrounding ground surface.<br />
The best example of seasonal use of village sites was the Boynton Inlet Mound, located by the ocean at the southern end of Lake Worth, and its corresponding western Boynton Mounds Complex, adjacent to the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge.<br />
The Boynton Mounds site is the farthest inland of the Jeaga villages, nearly 20 miles west of its companion village on the coast. Its location within the Everglades had a dual purpose. Not only was the site used for seasonal hunting and gathering, but as a terminus on a trade route leading to Palm Beach County's ancient transportation hub at Big Mound City.<br />
<br />
<strong>The Ancient 'Intermodal Transit Center' of the Palm Beaches</strong><br />
Big Mound City is the largest native American earthwork in southeast Florida. The 143-acre site is 10 miles east of Canal Point within the J.W. Corbett Wildlife Management Area. Due to its unique historical value, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.<br />
The huge archaeological site consists 23 mounds, including the Big Gopher Mound. The largest mound is 220 feet in diameter and is elevated 25 feet above the surrounding marshes and pineland forest. Extending from the mound are causeways used during periods of flooding.<br />
Archaeologists surmise Big Mound City was originally part of the Belle Glade Mound culture and was occupied for about 800 years. During the Spanish Colonial Period, the city was within the territory of the Santaluces tribe (also referred to as the Guacata in early Spanish records).<br />
In his Memoirs, Fontenada wrote, "They (the Calusa) are masters of a large district of country, as far as a town they call Guacata, on the Lake of Mayaimi (Okeechobee), which is called Mayaimi because it is very large."<br />
Big Mound City was strategically placed where three ancient trade routes meet. From the west, the Calusa delegations traveled up the Caloosahatchee River to the Maymi villages along the western and southern shores of Lake Okeechobee, and then east to Big Mound City.<br />
The Ortona earthworks in Glades County were designed by the Maymi Indians and their ancestors to expedite trade from the west coast of Florida to Lake Okeechobee. It included one of the longest native American canal networks in the nation, used to bypass the rapids of the Caloosahatchee River.<br />
A second inland trade route was used by the Mayaca tribe which controlled both the headwaters of the St. John's River and the Kissimmee River in central Florida. The Mayaca paddled down the Kissimmee River to Lake Okeechobee, then followed the eastern shore of the lake to Big Mound City.<br />
The current township of Port Mayaca, located on the eastern shore of Lake Okeechobee in Martin County, is near the last known village site of Mayaca nation in the 1740s.<br />
Big Mound City was sited on a section of land where the Everglades marshes of Lake Okeechobee met the higher pinewood flats. From this point, seasonal flood waters flowed east into the Hungryland and Loxahatchee sloughs, and drained into the Loxahatchee River basin.<br />
This was the route used by the Santaluces and Jeaga Indians to trade with tribes in central Florida and Gulf Coast. The Loxahatchee trade route connected the Jupiter Inlet to Big Mound City and Lake Okeechobee. This watery trail continued to be used by the Seminole tribe until the end of the 19th century.<br />
On early Palm Beach County maps, the Hungryland Slough is listed as the "West Prong of the Loxahatchee Marsh." An Indian midden was recently discovered in a hammock island located in the southwest section of the slough. It is believed the midden was used as a camp site for ancient travelers poling their canoes between Big Mound City and the east coast.<br />
The Big Blue Mound, located within the City of Wellington's Big Blue Forest Preserve, served the same purpose for Jeaga traders traveling from coastal villages west to Big Mound City and Lake Okeechobee. The Jeaga used the same network of sloughs as their Santaluces neighbors to the north to reach the trading center.<br />
The transportation routes were used for trade between tribes, and also to pay tribute to more powerful neighbors. In his description of the Lake Okeechobee Indians, Fontenada wrote, "They are subjects of Carlos (chief of the Calusa tribe), and pay him tribute of all things I have before mentioned, food and roots, the skins of deer and other articles."<br />
Treasures recovered from Spanish shipwrecks by the coastal tribes also were distributed through the trade network. "These things Carlos divided with the caciques of Ais, Jeaga, Guacata, Mayajuaco and Mayaca," Fontaneda reported in his Memoirs, "and he took what pleased him, or the best part." <br />
Big Mound City was abandoned shortly after 1650, the age-tested date of the most recent artifacts unearthed by archaeologists. Ironically, native American traders traveling to the city from Florida's interconnected waterways probably hastened the city's demise.<br />
The native nations of Florida had no immunity to diseases introduced from Europe. Beginning in the year 1519 disease epidemics swept the state. The viral and bacterial scourges included bubonic plague, measles, malaria, cholera, typhoid, pertussis, and the deadliest of all - smallpox.<br />
Unknowing traders carried the diseases from St. Augustine down the network of lagoons, infecting in turn the Ais, Santaluces, Jeaga and Tequesta tribes. A failed attempt by Ponce de Leon to colonized Charlotte Harbor in 1521, and again by Governor Pedro Menendez in the 1570s, also introduced diseases to the southwest coast.<br />
The powerful Calusa tribe was decimated and adopted an isolationist policy, cutting its commercial and political ties with the interior of the state. Likewise, the Maymi and Santaluces villages near Lake Okeechobee suffered depopulation ranging from 25 to 50 percent.<br />
Florida's southeastern coastal tribes, from Cape Canaveral south to the Florida Keys, numbered about 48,800 in the year 1520, according to a 2004 U.S. Department of the Interior estimate. By the year 1700, less than 5,000 native Americans remained along the entire eastern coast of Spanish Florida.<br />
The great trade center of Big Mound City regressed into a state of steady decline due to the depopulation of its trading partners. By the beginning of Queen Anne's War (1702-13), Big Mound City was already a ghost town. <br />
The remaining tribal remnants in South Florida became the easy targets of British slave raids from South Carolina. Beginning in 1703, slave hunters used Florida's long-established commercial routes for their illicit trade.<br />
<br />
<strong>Ancient Trails Reopen for Hikers</strong><br />
Two new hiking trails follow the ancient trade routes used the by Santaluces and Jeaga tribes. The 63-mile "Ocean to Lake Okeechobee Hiking Trail" begins at Hobe Sound in Martin County, passing through Jonathan Dickinson State Park to the Corbett Wildlife Area and the Dupuis Management Area, and ending at the Okeechobee Scenic Trailhead near Canal Point.<br />
The "Jeaga Wilderness Trail" heads west from Palm Beach County's Riverbend Park on the Loxahatchee River, entering the Loxahatchee Slough and Hungryland Sough Natural Areas before joining the route of the "Ocean to Lake Okeechobee Hiking Trail.<br />
<strong>(c.) Davidsson. 2018.</strong><br />
<strong>NOTE: </strong>Article reprinted in the March 23, 2018 edition of the Okeechobee News. See additional articles below and archived in <strong>Older Posts.</strong> Palm Beaches Informationhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13028578886314418086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303568327527269406.post-63576030016412042682017-12-19T09:28:00.002-08:002019-01-12T18:00:46.538-08:00Pioneer Creates 'Utopia' Along Lake Okeechobee<strong>By Bob Davidsson</strong><br />
'Utopia" is an imaginary place where everything is perfect in this literary land of idealism. One pioneer discovered his Utopia on the eastern shore of Lake Okeechobee.<br />
The idea of a model society was the creation of English humanist Sir Thomas More (1478-1535). His Utopia is located on a fictional island somewhere off the coast of America.<br />
In the 500 years since "Utopia" was first published in 1516, many persons have attempted to form secular or religious "utopias" based upon More's communal philosophy. These include about 40 self-styled "utopian" communities established in the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries.<br />
Clifford Joseph Clements founded his Utopia on the northeast shore of Lake Okeechobee in the year 1897. He was born May 29, 1870 in Petersburg, VA. Clifford was the son of Joseph and Mary Clements, and was raised in Fauquier County.<br />
As a young single man seeking a new life and adventures, Clements traveled to the sparsely populated frontier of Lake Okeechobee in the 1890s. He supported himself as a hunter and guide.<br />
Clements found the marshes and pinewood forests near the lake were a hunter's paradise. He established a hunting retreat named Utopia on the shore of the big lake, between the Lettuce and Cypress creeks. Today, the deserted site is located near the intersection of U.S. 441 and S.R. 15-A.<br />
In the year 1897, Dade County encompassed a vast area of southeast Florida extending from Cape Florida, north to the St. Lucie River, and west Lake Okeechobee's Eagle Bay. It included what is today Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Martin and southern Okeechobee counties.<br />
Clements was one of the first Euro-Americans to settle on east shore of the lake. His neighbors in the 1890s were the Cow Creek band of the Seminole nation.<br />
About 30 Seminole families, under the leadership of Chief Tallahassee and Captain Tom Tiger (Tustenugee), survived military campaigns and forced deportations by the U.S. Army during the Second and Third Seminole Wars. They settled along the upper Kissimmee River valley.<br />
Encroaching ranches and farms forced the Cow Creek band to move southeast between Lake Okeechobee and the east coast of Florida. Their totem clans established several family encampments. Inhabited areas included the high ground near Indiantown, the Hungryland Slough and Big Mound City in western Palm Beach County.<br />
Clements shared these hunting grounds with the Seminole tribe without incident. However, it was not hunting that sustained and attracted settlers to his Utopia, but a commercial fishery on Lake Okeechobee.<br />
<br />
<strong>A Fishing Community on the Big Lake</strong><br />
<strong> </strong>On April 25, 1900, Clements married Adeline Raulerson (1882-1959) at a ceremony held in Osceola County. They raised two children in the fledgling community of Utopia.<br />
Adeline was a daughter of Okeechobee pioneers Peter and Louisiana Raulerson. The Raulersons became the first settlers along Taylor Creek. They arrived from Basinger about one year before Clements established Utopia.<br />
The site of the Raulerson's Taylor Creek community of Tantie became incorporated as Okeechobee City two decades later. Utopia was located about 10 miles southeast of Tantie. Both communities owed their early success to the commercial fishing industry and the timely coming of the railroad to ship their catches to northern markets.<br />
Commercial fishing began in the year 1898 at Taylor Creek. It soon became the center of the fishing industry along the northern and eastern shores of the lake.<br />
At the turn of the 20th century, overnight seine nets and trotlines were still legal and used to catch crappies (speck), bluegills and the mainstay of Okeechobee fishing - catfish. Distribution was limited to regional markets in South Florida due to lack of rapid transport.<br />
The coming the railroad in early 1915 was a needed boast to both the Okeechobee fishing industry and the local agriculture-based economy in general. In February 1911, the Florida East Coast (FEC) Railway began work on the Okeechobee Branch of its Kissimmee Valley Extension.<br />
The Okeechobee Branch was the last great extension of the late Henry Flagler's FEC Railway. The 122-mile rail line connected New Smyrna Beach on the east coast to Okeechobee City with the intent of opening new markets in the state's heartland. The railway would soon connect lake communities to coastal Palm Beach County by linking with the Atlantic Coast Line (Seaboard) Railroad.<br />
At the request of the local fishing industry, by June 1915 a railroad spur connected Taylor Creek to the FEC Railway. Ice houses and loading docks were built to preserve the aquatic harvest from Lake Okeechobee fishermen. Refrigerated rail cars transported their catches to northern markets.<br />
Lake Okeechobee is the major freshwater fishery in South Florida. Historically, an average of 4 million pounds of fish and turtles, valued at $6.3 million, were harvested annually, according to the U.S. Department of the Interior.<br />
In the year 1909, greater Dade County was reduced by half with the creation of Palm Beach County. Utopia became Palm Beach County Precinct 8, when administration of the unincorporated community transferred from Miami to West Palm Beach.<br />
A total of 14 families were reported as residents of the county's Precinct 8 in the 1915 edition of R.L. Polk's West Palm Beach City Directory. Most early settlers lived in palmetto palm shacks near the lake.<br />
The two-story "Clements General Store" was built by the founder of Utopia to serve the growing community. It became the contracted post office in 1908, with Clements serving as its postmaster.<br />
The Palm Beach County School Board authorized the construction of a wooden schoolhouse for Utopia in 1912. Building materials were transported up the Caloosahatchee River from Fort Myers, then shipped across Lake Okeechobee to Utopia. <br />
Clements, the self-taught community leader, made sure students received a proper utopian education by also serving as the school's headmaster and teacher.<br />
Utopia became a Census Designated Place (CDP) in 1920. The Census revealed Utopia had population of 49 residents recorded under 11 family names. A total of 12 adults listed their occupation as fishermen. All residents surveyed in the 1920 Census reported their race as white.<br />
<br />
<strong>The Most Unusual Election of 1917</strong><br />
In the year 1917, residents living north of Lake Okeechobee successfully petitioned the Florida Legislature to create a new county out of portions of Palm Beach, St. Lucie and Osceola counties. The new county was born on Aug. 17, 1917, with Okeechobee City as its county seat.<br />
There was some disagreement as to whether the community of Utopia would remain within Palm Beach County (as Precinct 8) or join Okeechobee County as the new Precinct 5. Palm Beach County ordered a special election for Aug. 7, 1917 to determine the future of Utopia.<br />
Utopia was tied economically to the fishery warehouses and railroad connections in Okeechobee County. West Palm Beach was a half day journey in 1917. Okeechobee City was accessible by boat or carriage in less than two hours. The voters decided to join Okeechobee County.<br />
It may not have been a wise decision. The population slowly declined during the 1920s. The post office closed in 1921. The school was boarded up and abandoned in 1925. Then came the "Hurricane of 1928".<br />
The Sept. 16 Category 5 hurricane devastated lakeside villages with storm surge and flooding. While most of the estimated 2,800-plus deaths were caused by the collapse of dikes along the southern shore of Lake Okeechobee, the community of Utopia was not spared. <br />
About 30 lives were lost in Okeechobee County during the hurricane. Since Okeechobee City is located inland from the lake, most of these deaths were in shoreline fishing villages like Utopia.<br />
The tropical storm also was a disaster for the commercial fishery. Millions of fish were swept out of the lake by storm surge and flooding. Commercial fishing was disrupted until fish stocks could recover.<br />
The community of Utopia did not recover. Utopia was removed after 1930 as a Census Designated Place. The community does not appear on the U.S. Department of the Interior's 1932 Geological Survey map.<br />
The founder of Utopia, Clifford Clements, closed his store and moved to Pinellas County. He died Feb. 14, 1939 and was put to rest at Cycadia Cemetery in Tarpon Springs.<br />
His wife, Adeline, became the head of household and lived to May 25, 1959. She is buried in Okeechobee's Evergreen Cemetery. Near her gravesite is a Florida Historical Marker honoring her pioneer parents, Peter and Louisiana Raulerson.<br />
Today, many ghost towns founded with utopian dreams of paradise are scattered across America. Lake Okeechobee's Utopia became one of these memories from the past.<br />
<strong>(c.) Davidsson. 2017. </strong><br />
<strong>*NOTE</strong>: A print version of this article was published in the Dec. 28 edition of the Okeechobee News. Read also<strong> "God's 'Chosen' City on Lake Okeechobee"</strong> archived in <strong>Older Posts. </strong> Palm Beaches Informationhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13028578886314418086noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303568327527269406.post-67166092880084751322017-11-30T08:54:00.002-08:002018-02-20T15:55:01.252-08:00A Long and Winding History of the Hillsboro River<strong>By Bob Davidsson</strong><br />
The Hillsboro River was a small stream with a long history as a natural boundary between native American tribes, and years later as the border between Palm Beach and Broward counties after the waterway was converted into a Lake Okeechobee flood control canal.<br />
The legacy of its namesake, Wills Hill (1718-93), the Viscount and later Earl of Hillsborough from 1742 until his death, looms large on geographic maps of Florida. The Hillsboro River and Hillsboro Inlet, a few miles to its south in Broward County, are named in his honor. So are Hillsborough County and the Hillsborough River on the west coast. <br />
During Florida's British Colonial Period (1763-83) the Indian River (Rio de Ais) also appeared on maps as the South Hillsborough River for more than 20 years. The list of place names is quite impressive for a British politician and Ulster Irish peer who never set foot in America.<br />
So, who was Wills Hill and why is he so honored in the State of Florida? <br />
Hill was born into a family of minor nobility in England. He was the son of Trevor Hill, the first Viscount Hillsborough. Hillsborough town and castle in Ulster were named for its leading family. Wills Hill inherited his father's title of Viscount Hillsborough in 1742 and became Earl of Hillsborough in 1751. His peerage as the First Marquis of Downshire was granted in 1789.<br />
He was a career politician who served in Parliament, and was appointed First Lord of the Royal Council of Trade and Foreign Plantations from 1763 to 1767. He also served as the British Secretary of State for the American Colonies from 1768-72, and Secretary of State for the Southern Colonies(1779-82) during the American Revolution.<br />
Hill was an associate and political ally of Richard Grenville, the Second Earl Temple, and his younger brother, Prime Minister George Grenville (1763-65). The Prime Minister sponsored his appointment to the Council of Trade. <br />
As British Secretary of State, in turn, Hill approved land grants to the Grenville brothers in Brevard County and the Jupiter (Grenville) Inlet plantation. Hillsborough's own land grant in South Florida was undeveloped and reverted to Spain during the Second Spanish Colonial Period in 1783.<br />
It was a British civil engineer named Charles Blacker Vignoles (1793-1875) who is credited with naming South Florida's Hillsboro River in honor of the Earl of Hillsborough. When Florida became a U.S. territory in 1821, the town of St. Augustine hired Vignoles as the city engineer.*<br />
Vignoles published a book in 1823 entitled "Observations on the Floridas" in which a stream called Hillsboro River appeared on a map for the first time. The name was gradually accepted during the 19th century.<br />
His 1823 map shows a river with many twists and turns flowing from northwest to southeast before ending at the coast. Vignoles compiled and drew his "Map of Florida" from "various actual surveys and observations," according to his book.<br />
<br />
<strong>Natural History of the Hillsboro River</strong><br />
<strong> </strong>Prior to the year 1911, the Hillsboro River was a freshwater stream originating in the marshlands of western Boca Raton. It meandered through what is today Deerfield Beach and Boca Raton until emptying into the coastal channel now known as the Intracoastal Waterway.<br />
Early settlers reported the banks of the river were covered with dense vines and saw palmettos. It was shaded by wild fig trees, cabbage palms and stands of pine trees. It was a shallow stream which varied in depth depending on the season.<br />
The 1891 edition of "The Handbook of Florida" provides a description of the Hillsboro River and connecting waterways as it would have been seen by early pioneers. The text was published just 20 years before the river was dredged and became a canal.<br />
"From Lake Worth Inlet south for 30 miles to Hillsboro Inlet the beach is unbroken," the handbook reports. "About halfway, however, is the Orange House of Refuge (at Delray Beach) where shelter, food and water may be obtained."<br />
"Five miles south of this the headwaters of the Hillsboro River unite a few hundred yards from the beach, forming a little lake about three feet deep," the report continues. "One-half mile further is Lake Wyman, four or five feet deep, and with a connecting channel navigable for small boats to Lake Boca Ratone or the Hillsboro River."<br />
Pioneers living along the south bank of the river in a community then known as "Hillsboro" were amazed by the abundance of wildlife. The numerous deer viewed near the river became the inspiration for Broward County's northernmost community - Deerfield Beach.<br />
It was this source of game for hunting, and a reliable source of potable water, that attracted native Americans to Hillsboro River centuries before the arrival of Juan Ponce de Leon and Spanish colonists in Florida. The inhabitants living near the Hillsboro River when Ponce de Leon's three naos sailed offshore in April 1513 were members of the Tequesta (or Tekesta) tribe.<br />
The Tequesta were a hunter-gatherer society utilizing both plant and animal resources from the sea and rivers leading into the Everglades. Archaeologists have discovered a Tequesta village site near the Boca Raton Inlet which used resources found in nearby Hillsboro River.<br />
The so-called "Boca Raton Inlet Complex" consisted of three middens made of shell and black earth, and a sand burial mound. By analyzing artifacts from the mound, experts believe the village was occupied from about the year 750 A.D. until the 18th century.<br />
Many inexact colonial maps printed from the 16th to the 18th centuries gave the Boca Raton Inlet and adjacent waterways the generic name of Rio Seco (Dry River). The name generally applies to Lake Boca Raton, the Spanish River to the north and the Hillsboro River to the south. Boca Raton Inlet, located at the mouth of Lake Boca, was often closed by sandbars during the colonial period.<br />
These water sources marked the northern border of the Tequesta. The coastal tribe extended south to the Florida Keys. The tribe is named for its main village of Tekesta, located near Biscayne Bay. North of Highland Beach was the domain of their neighbors, the Jeaga Indians of central and northern Palm Beach County.<br />
Both tribes were weakened by introduced diseases from Europe and Africa, and destroyed by slave raiders during Queen Anne's War, 1702-13. The few survivors were shipped to the safety of Cuba by Spain.<br />
During the 18th century, members of the Lower Creek tribe entered Florida, merged with remnant bands of Indians after Queen Anne's War, to create the new Seminole nation. By the time of the Second Seminole War (1835-42), the tribe was using camps along the Hillsboro River for hunting and fishing.<br />
On Nov. 5, 1841, Captain Richard A. Wade embarked with a force of 60 men in 12 dugout canoes from Fort Lauderdale. His destination was the Hillsboro Inlet and the river system along the future Palm Beach-Broward border.<br />
The expedition's journal states, "We proceeded by inland passage to the northward, coming out in the bay at Hillsborough Inlet, and in such a manner canoes were concealed from view of an Indian, whom I there discovered fishing on the northern point of the inlet."<br />
The frightened Indian was captured and coerced to lead the soldiers to his encampment, about 15 miles to the north on the Hillsboro River. The camp was surrounded and assaulted, resulting in the capture of 20 Seminoles and the deaths of eight, killed while trying to escape.<br />
The final military action in the Second Seminole War was along the Hillsboro River. Navy Lt. John McLaughlin sailed two shallow-draft boats assigned to the "Mosquito Fleet," the "Flirt" and "Wave," to the mouth of the river in May 1842.<br />
Military records report he "gave chase" to two Indians up the Hillsboro River to the head of Snake Creek where "fields of sugar cane, corn and bananas were in cultivation."<br />
President John Tyler ended the war with a cease-fire on May 10, 1842. Tyler's Department of War estimated about 240 Seminoles remained in South Florida, of which only 80 were capable of bearing arms.<br />
It was agriculture that lured settlers to both shores of the Hillsboro River in the late 19th century. Henry Flagler's Florida East Coast Railway crossed the river in 1895, opening new markets for farmers and merchants. <br />
The first wooden plank bridge was built across the Hillsboro River in 1905, linking settlers of the future communities of Boca Raton and Deerfield. It was about this time that some residents and politicians began to view the river and the wetlands that nourished it as an impediment to growth.<br />
<br />
<strong>The Dredging of the Hillsboro Canal</strong><br />
<strong> </strong>When the Florida Legislature approved the creation of Palm Beach County in 1909, it was nearly twice its current size. It included northern Broward County, Martin County and the southern third of Okeechobee County.<br />
It was an era when business and agricultural interests were pressuring lawmakers in Tallahassee to drain the Everglades and open more of the rich soil beneath for farming. In response, the Everglades Drainage District was created in 1905.<br />
The guiding document for this project was the State of Florida's "Report on the Drainage of the Everglades, Florida," drafted in 1909, the year Palm Beach County was established, by engineer J.O. Wright. After its publication, Wright was selected to head the Drainage District.<br />
The plan was to dredge a series of water control canals linking Lake Okeechobee to the coastal New, Hillsboro, and St. Lucie rivers, as well as Lake Worth. The outflow canals would direct water from Lake Okeechobee and western farm lands to the coast and help prevent seasonal flooding.<br />
The Hillsboro Canal was selected as one of the Drainage District's primary projects. Work on the 45-mile canal began in 1911 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. It became fully operational with new locks by 1914.<br />
The Florida Legislature created the Palm Beach Drainage and Highway District (Laws of Florida No. 7976) in 1919 and granted it the powers to "construct roadways, canals, ditches, drains, dikes, reservoirs and other works of reclamation, improvement, convenience and benefits for land embraced in said district."<br />
The new Hillsboro Canal was "embraced" within the special district's range lines. The Florida Legislature appointed J.L. Holmberg, J.B. Jefferies of Miami, and T.T. Reese of West Palm Beach to the original Board of Supervisors. Today, the South Florida Water Management District maintains the canal.<br />
The Hillsboro River was straightened and became the G-08 canal. The wetlands in western Boca Raton that served as its watershed were drained and replaced by a flow originating in Lake Okeechobee. Farmers were soon growing pole beans, bell peppers and tomatoes west of Boca Raton.<br />
The Hillsboro Canal begins at the Lake Okeechobee S-2 water control station in South Bay. The agricultural community that was established a few miles east of the canal was known as "Hillsboro". In the year 1918, it was incorporated as the new City of Belle Glade.<br />
After discharging from Lake Okeechobee, canal water follows a southeast path to the southern border of the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge, then moves parallel to the Loxahatchee Road, until turning due east to the coast at U.S. 441.<br />
When the new Broward County was created in April 1915, the Hillsboro Canal became the dividing line between the two counties. Water control station S-39A directs part of Hillsboro's water into Broward's Conservation Area No. 2 via the L-36 canal.<br />
The remainder of the flow continues east to control station G-56, west of Military Trail, which manages water releases to the Intracoastal Waterway. As the Hillsboro Canal nears U.S. One, its course twists south, then north before the main channel enters the Intracoastal after passing Deerfield Island Park.<br />
Beginning in 2001, canal water also was diverted from the Loxahatchee Refuge to a new Wetland Stormwater Treatment Area (STA-2), and then released into Conservation Area No. 2.<br />
The Hillsboro Canal varies in width from 70 to 160 feet. Its average depth is eight feet. It is noted for the steep coral rock banks along its course. The easternmost 10 miles are navigable by pleasure and fishing boats, but requires dredging to remove silt.<br />
The Florida East Coast Canal (Intracoastal Waterway) from Jacksonville to Biscayne Bay was completed in 1912, a year after work began on the Hillsboro Canal. The two waterways are connected, and for several years Glades farmers hauled their produce by barge down the Hillsboro Canal to coastal markets along the Intracoastal or for transport on the FEC Railway.<br />
Today, the Hillsboro Canal is flanked by farms, housing tracts and parks. Recreational fishing is its main public use, as it was back in the days when it was still a wild river.<br />
Wills Hill's 96-acre Hillsborough Castle and Gardens is today the official residence of the British Royal Family during visits to Northern Ireland. It was acquired from Hill's 20th century heirs in 1922. It is a working government palace and home of the British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.<br />
<strong>(c.) Davidsson, 2017.</strong><br />
<strong>*NOTE: </strong>"Hillsboro" is the second of two articles about the county's ghost rivers which no longer exist. See additional articles below and archived in <strong>Older Posts</strong>. Palm Beaches Informationhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13028578886314418086noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303568327527269406.post-78096186208813375122017-10-27T06:58:00.001-07:002019-01-28T08:45:00.490-08:00'Democrat River': Belle Glade's Everglades Gateway<strong>By Bob Davidsson</strong><br />
The late 19th century was the last great age of exploration. It was an era when newspaper publishers not only reported sensational adventures in faraway lands, but sponsored expeditions to Africa, the Arctic and other unexplored regions to beat the competition.<br />
The best known of these journalistic expeditions was the dispatching of Henry Morton Stanley by the New York Herald to find and "rescue" missing missionary-explorer Dr. David Livingston from the unknown depths of central Africa in 1871.<br />
Not to be outdone by their northern rival publications, the editors of the newly merged New Orleans Times-Democrat newspaper (1881-1914) decided to launch two expeditions to the mysterious and poorly charted inland sea known as Lake Okeechobee. It was hoped journal reports from the expeditions would increase national readership, while new outlets to the sea would be discovered for future economic development.<br />
Times-Democrat correspondents kept journals of the expeditions. Their articles were printed in installments in the newspaper. A summary editorial entitled "North and South Through the Everglades in 1883" was published in the Jan. 6, 1884 edition of the newspaper.<br />
The editorial summarized, "These articles in the Times-Democrat introduce the whole country to Florida, and a general desire we felt to know more about this country and particularly about the Everglades."<br />
The Lake Okeechobee expeditions were led by Major A.P. Williams. The journalist-explorers sailed from New Orleans to the cattle town of Punta Rassa on Florida's west coast. Both expeditions then paddled up the Caloosahatchee River to Lake Okeechobee. <br />
The first expedition sailed north and explored the Kissimmee River to its source. It was followed by a second journey to the southern shore of Lake Okeechobee in November 1883. The explorers searched for a water gateway that would lead them through the Everglades to Florida Bay and the Gulf of Mexico.<br />
Their waterway of choice was christened the "Democrat River" in honor of their newspaper. The river led not to the sea, but into the heart of the Everglades.<br />
<br />
<strong>Life Along the Democrat River, 700 to 1883 A.D.</strong><br />
<strong> </strong>For more than 1,000 years, from 700 A.D. until Queen Anne's War in 1702, the Democrat River flowed through a complex of native American village mounds and burial middens, located just west of Belle Glade. <br />
The main 10-foot high habitation mound of the Belle Glade complex, measuring 300 feet by 450 feet in width, was located between the two main branches of the Democrat River. Opposite the main mound, 100 yards north of the eastern river channel, was a smaller circular midden used for tribal burials.<br />
The Belle Glade mounds were first excavated in the 1930s by a federal archaeological team sponsored by the WPA program. Two smaller sites called the Vinegar Bend and Democrat River mounds were later discovered and examined.<br />
The habitation mounds provided refuge for villagers during seasonal flooding and hurricane storm surges on Lake Okeechobee. The Democrat River served as a natural buffer that channeled overflow from the lake into the Everglades.<br />
When the 1928 hurricane hit Lake Okeechobee, there were no barrier marshes remaining to absorb the surging water. Mud dikes along the shoreline collapsed, sending a 10-foot wall of water into the farming communities. Thirty lucky residents survived by clinging to the top of the ancient Indian mound. About 3,000 of their neighbors drowned.<br />
Europeans called the native inhabitants along the Democrat River the Maymi Indians. They were in fact the easternmost branch of the Calusa mound building culture, living along the southern and western coasts of Lake Okeechobee. Their neighbors to the east, the Santaluces tribe, extended north of Canal Point along the eastern shore of the big lake.<br />
The Democrat River provided easy access to Lake Okeechobee for their dugout canoes. It also offered a route for food resources found in the Everglades to the south.<br />
By the time of the Times-Democrat expedition, the original Maymi inhabitants were long gone, the victims of introduced diseases and slave raids from South Carolina. The Seminole tribe did not establish a permanent village along the river.<br />
In their journal, expedition members made no mention of Indian mounds in the area. By the year 1883, the mounds would have been covered by thick vegetation and could have been mistaken for natural hillocks.<br />
<br />
<strong>The Democrat River and Everglades Expedition</strong><br />
<strong> </strong>The second Times-Democrat expedition was once again led by Major Williams. The 12 explorers included two retired U.S. Army officers, a newspaper correspondent, and Louisiana and Florida boatmen of white, black and mixed-race origins.<br />
The expedition was provisioned by two bateaus of French-Canadian (Cajun) design with retractable sails used for voyages on the lake. Small "skiffs" and canoes, with names like the "Susie B" and the "Daisy W," completed the small flotilla.<br />
After leaving their main camp near the Caloosahatchee River portage site, the expedition sailed southeast along the lake shore, where they discovered many small outlets from Lake Okeechobee. They were explored and called "dead rivers" due to their short lengths and dead ends.<br />
When they entered a channel near Rita Island, the Times-Democrat journal recorded, "The river at its mouth is 100 yards wide, the depth of which being about eight feet. To say that our little party was overjoyed would poorly express it. We do not go 100 yards before we hear exclamations from members of our party in praise of the beautiful scenery which greeted the eye on every side."<br />
Soon their joy would turn to frustration. The journal states, "After going about a mile, we find impenetrable swamp which surrounds us. After going (another) half a mile, we find we are no longer in any stream but hindered by dark, sluggish water. The roots of trees form a barrier."<br />
"The river on which we encamped last night we have named the Rita River," the journal continues, "and the one on which we are now encamped and will use as a means of reaching the Everglades we name in honor of the journal we represent, the Times-Democrat River."<br />
The expedition reached the Democrat River on Nov. 10. After several failed attempts to find a navigable river south of Lake Okeechobee, Major Williams decided to follow the course of the Democrat River because it was found to be "larger than the others." <br />
The journal entry reported, "It was determined to ascent it as far as possible and from its source to start into the swamp."<br />
The explorers paddled up both branches of the Democrat River. The smaller branch flowed east for several miles before "dispersing into sawgrass". The larger western river branch led the flotilla south through a pond apple forest.<br />
Using its skiffs and canoes, the expedition followed the southern river channel to its end. Once again, the explorers faced a sea of sawgrass. They encountered the seemingly endless Everglades River of Grass (Pay-ho-kee).<br />
The expedition pushed and pulled their boats southwest through the Everglades for nearly 90 miles. November was the beginning of the dry season, so fires were set by the boat crews to remove thick barriers of vegetation.<br />
Several days into their ordeal, their provision bateau, the "Queen Anne," began leaking badly after it was dragged across sharp limestone rocks. It was soon abandoned. Eventually, the tired explorers reached the Shark River on Florida's southwest coast and drifted with the tide to the Gulf of Mexico.<br />
<br />
<strong>The Aftermath of the Expedition</strong><br />
<strong> </strong>In its 1884 editorial journal summary, the Times-Democrat staff concluded, "It has set at rest all questions about the Everglades, which has found to be much different from what was imagined. The sawgrass extends 100 miles instead of ten."<br />
"As to the question of building a telegraph line through this country - a matter to which Western Union has been anxious to solve - Major Williams reports that this is impossible and not to be thought of."<br />
"As to the possibility of draining the Everglades," the Times-Democrat editorial continues, "Major Williams reports adversely. He can see no hope or possibility of redeeming the greater portion of the region, which must remain a swamp forever."<br />
The findings of the Times-Democrat expedition were soon proven wrong. After the turn of 20th century, immigrant farmers rushed to western Palm Beach County to grow beans, corn, peppers, tomatoes and sugarcane in the rich black muck of the Everglades.<br />
The pioneer farmers saw little practical use for the freshwater estuary known as the Democrat River. The marshes were drained and the river became an agricultural drainage ditch. After the surrounding communities of Chosen and Hillsboro (Belle Glade) were established, there was no need for the canal. The former Democrat River estuary became places of commerce, housing and agricultural land.<br />
In its rather self-serving conclusion, the Times-Democrat journal report stated, "Such is the story of our expedition. It has accomplished all that it was organized to do. It was the first party of white men to go through the Everglades, and it solved all the problems of that mysterious region."<br />
The Times-Democrat ceased publication on April 5, 1914. It merged with the rival New Orleans Picayune and became the "Times-Picayune". Under this front page mast, the newspaper continues publication today.<br />
<strong><strong><strong>(c.) Davidsson. 2017.</strong></strong></strong><br />
<strong>NOTE: </strong>"Democrat River" is the first of two articles about the county's ghost rivers which no longer exist. The article was reprinted in the Feb. 28 "Lake Worth City Limits" newsletter. Read additional articles archived in <strong>Older Posts</strong>. Palm Beaches Informationhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13028578886314418086noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303568327527269406.post-40232685512456185052017-08-05T08:08:00.001-07:002017-08-18T05:52:27.373-07:00The Changing Geographic Face of Palm Beach County<strong>By Bob Davidsson</strong><br />
The borders of Palm Beach County have been fluid and ever-changing during the past 500 years of its geographical history. They ebb and flow, expand and contract, like the tides of the Atlantic Ocean that today forms the 40-mile eastern boundary of the county.<br />
The Atlantic connects the northern and southern waterways that form natural boundary landmarks at the Jupiter and Boca Raton Inlets. To the west, Lake Okeechobee and its southward flowing Everglades River of Grass has long been the western historical border for the Palm Beaches.<br />
At the time of European discovery of Florida in 1513, the land that is today called Palm Beach County was divided into four tribal areas of settlement by the native American Jeaga, Tequesta, Santaluces and Maymi Indians. Jeaga villages and mound sites were centered along the Rio Hobe (Jupiter Inlet and the Loxahatchee estuary) and extended north along Jupiter Island, and south on both shores of the Rio Jeaga (Lake Worth Lagoon) and the freshwater chain of lakes to the west.<br />
The Tequesta (Tekesta) were their coastal neighbors to the south. Their villages were centered near sources of fresh water at the Spanish and Hillsboro rivers, south of Highland Beach. The Santaluces tribe, and its Maymi neighbors to the southwest, shared the eastern shore of Lake Okeechobee.<br />
The interior of Palm Beach County was an area of sawgrass, hammocks and swamps used jointly by the four tribes for hunting and gathering, but remained an unsettled wilderness. The Seminole tribe, which entered Palm Beach County in the 18th century, called the county's core - "The Hungry Land".<br />
Spanish administrators in St. Augustine divided the colony of Florida into "provincias" (provinces) during the 16th century. They corresponded with territories controlled by native tribes. Small outposts, with military garrisons and Jesuit priests, were established in the provinces of Tekesta, Carlos (Calusa) and Ais during the brief period of South Florida settlement from 1565-72.<br />
The Province of Ais extended from Cape Canaveral to Jupiter Inlet. During the winter of 1565-66, a small military fort called "Santa Lucia" was hurriedly built north of the inlet. Captain Juan Velez de Medrano, its commander, also held the royal title of "Lieutenant Governor of the Province of Ais".<br />
The governor's Jeaga, Santaluces and Ais "subjects" revolted and went to war. The Santa Lucia outpost was besieged for nearly six months. The starving Spanish garrison mutinied, captured a supply ship and fled the Province of Ais in March 1566. Governor Velez sailed out of the Jupiter Inlet in chains.<br />
The Spanish learned their lesson well. Horror stories about the fate of Santa Lucia spread to Cuba and Spain, and no further efforts were made to establish a colony in the Palm Beaches.<br />
<br />
<strong>'The British Are Coming' and Going</strong><br />
Near the end of the "French and Indian War (1754-63)," the British captured the city of Havana, Cuba, from Spain. The Spanish valued the city so highly that they traded their entire colony of Florida to Great Britain to get it back during peace negotiations.<br />
The British ruled Florida for 20 years, from 1763 until the end of American Revolution in 1783, when it reverted to America's ally, Spain. Florida was divided into to two English colonies, with the panhandle forming West Florida, and the peninsula becoming East Florida.<br />
On Nov. 18, 1765, East Florida Gov. James Grant met with 50 chieftains of the Lower Creek (soon to be Seminole) nation for a two-day "Indian Congress" at Fort Picolata on the St. Johns River. The resulting "Treaty of Picolata" established the "Indian Boundary" extending from the west bank of the St. Johns River south to the east shore of Lake Okeechobee and ending at Cape Sable.<br />
The treaty opened eastern coastal areas to British settlement. The territory west of the "Indian Boundary" remained exclusively under native American control.<br />
The uninhabited Palm Beaches fell under the jurisdiction of East Florida, with its administrative capital of St. Augustine. To promote European settlement, large land grants were sold to wealthy British peers and merchant adventurers.<br />
Two wealthy land speculators were the brothers Grenville. Sir Richard Grenville, the eldest, held the title of the second Lord Temple. Younger brother George was a former British Prime Minister (of Stamp Act fame), a Tory Party politician and member of Parliament.<br />
The Grenville brothers purchased huge tracts of land along the St. Johns and Halifax rivers, using the Mosquito (Ponce de Leon) Inlet as a port. Lord Temple served as the front man, with his politician brother acting as a silent partner. Part of their land grant was used by their merchant partners to promote Greek and Minorcan immigration to Florida in the 1760s at the New Smyrna settlement.<br />
A brief side venture of the Grenville brothers was a land grant at Jupiter Inlet. In the late 1760s, a preliminary surveying party was sent to the north shore of the inlet to examine and explore the region as a future plantation site. The project was still-born when George Grenville died in November 1770, at the age of 58. His legacy was the name "Grenville Inlet" which appeared on English maps for the remainder of the British Colonial Period. <br />
The Grenville Land Grant was awarded to St. Augustine clerk and civil servant Eusebio Gomez for his service to the colony during the second Spanish Colonial Period (1783- 1821). The Jupiter Island grant would remain in the disputed control of his family for most of 19th century.<br />
<br />
<strong>Welcome to Mosquito County</strong><br />
<strong> </strong>After Florida was purchased from Spain for the bargain price of $5 million, a new U.S. territory was established in 1821. Similar to the division of East and West Florida during the period of British rule, the new territory was divided into two counties - Escambia in the panhandle, and St. Johns County for the remainder of the peninsula.<br />
The unsettled Palm Beaches remained part of St. Johns County, with St. Augustine as the county seat, until Dec. 29, 1824 when it became part of the newly created "Mosquito County".<br />
"Los Musquitos" was a common name given to the southeastern coastal region of Florida during the second Spanish Colonial Period. The Spanish name reappeared as Mosquito County from 1824-44. <br />
The Palm Beaches formed the southern border of Mosquito County for 20 years. The first county seat was "John Burch's House" near Ormond Beach. Later it was moved to New Smyrna from 1835-43.<br />
The 1830 U.S. Census reported a total of 733 resident living in Mosquito County. However, the 1840 Census, taken at the height of the Second Seminole War, noted no white inhabitants living outside of New Smyrna, with the exception of civilians within the military posts of Fort Jupiter and Fort Pierce.<br />
Concerned that a name like Mosquito County would discourage future settlement, the Florida Legislature passed a bill in 1841 to rebrand the region as "Leigh Reed County," in honor of one of its members. The governor opposed such political hubris and refused to sign the bill. Its name remained Mosquito County for three more years.<br />
<br />
<strong>Within St. Lucia, Brevard and Dade Counties</strong><br />
"St. Lucia County" was created on March 14, 1844, the same year Mosquito County disappeared from Florida maps. It was named for the 16th century outpost of Santa Lucia and the nearby St. Lucia (St. Lucie) River. <br />
St. Lucia predated modern St. Lucie County by 60 years and was three times its size, extending from Brevard County to southeastern Palm Beach County. Its first county seat was the rural community of "Susanna," located near the army post of Fort Pierce. It later moved to Titusville.<br />
On Jan. 6, 1855, St. Lucia joined Mosquito on the short list of ghost counties that disappeared without a trace from 19th century maps. St. Lucia was renamed Brevard County, and its borders advanced south to the Dade County line.<br />
The Palm Beaches were part of Brevard County during the Civil War. The Jupiter Lighthouse became the region's first permanent building a few years prior to the conflict. Although the lighthouse was deactivated during the war, Jupiter Inlet, like many other waterways in Brevard County, was used by Confederate blockade-running ships during most of the war.<br />
The county boundaries of southeastern Florida were realigned again by the Florida Legislature in 1874. Dade County advanced northward to the St Lucie Inlet, while the geographical jurisdiction of Brevard County was reduced. <br />
The Palm Beaches became part of this greater Dade County. It contained the future Broward, Palm Beach, Martin and Okeechobee counties. The huge size of the county, the second largest in Florida, created regional tensions in an era of poor transportation and communication services between its scattered coastal communities of settlers.<br />
A referendum was held Feb. 19, 1889 to determine the future county seat of Dade County. Northern settlers won the election and for the next 10 years the county seat was relocated from from Miami-Lemon City to Juno.<br />
<br />
<strong>The Birth of Palm Beach County</strong><br />
A year after the arrival of Henry Flagler's Florida East Coast Railway, the county seat of Dade County returned to Miami in 1899. The old regional north-south resentment returned as population growth and economic power in the Palm Beaches outpaced Miami. <br />
About 60 percent of tax revenue came from the northern half of the county, but infrastructure and government services did not keep pace. A committee of leading citizens met in West Palm Beach to consider the creation of a separate county.<br />
A lobbying team was sent to Tallahassee during the 1907 session of the Florida Legislature. A bill for "Division of Dade County" passed the Florida Senate, but failed in House of Representatives by a 39-21 vote.<br />
The Palm Beaches used its political power to elect a Legislative delegation that favored county division. The "Division of Dade County" bill passed both houses of the Florida Legislature, and was signed into law on April 30,1909. Palm Beach County was born on July 1, 1909, with West Palm Beach as the county seat.<br />
In addition to the Palm Beaches, the new county included the northern half of Broward County, Martin County and the southern third of Okeechobee County. Palm Beach County had a population of just 5,300, according to 1910 U.S. Census.<br />
As the population of South Florida grew, the Legislature approved petitions for creation of three new counties at the expense of Palm Beach County. Broward County was established on April 30, 1915 out of sections of Dade and Palm Beach counties.<br />
The Legislature approved the creation of Okeechobee County on May 8, 1917. It was carved out of lands formerly part of St. Lucie, Osceola and Palm Beach counties. Palm Beach County lost the northern coastal section of Lake Okeechobee.<br />
Martin County, named for a former governor, was established on May 30, 1925. With the creation of Broward and Martin counties, the Jupiter Inlet estuaries and the Hillsboro Canal formed Palm Beach County's northern and southern borders.<br />
<br />
<strong>Palm Beach County Loses 'The Wedge'</strong><br />
<strong> </strong>One final adjustment to the boundaries of Palm Beach County was the result of a political decision made by the Board of County Commissioners in 2009. "The Wedge" was an isolated 2,000-acre tract of county land south of the Hillsboro Canal, and served by Broward County's Loxahatchee Road. <br />
Residential development of "The Wedge" required new roads and services by Palm Beach County. The Commission majority opted to give up the land to Broward County with the approval of the Florida Legislature. The City of Parkland annexed most of "The Wedge" in 2015.<br />
The current boundaries of Palm Beach County are described and codified in geographical detail in the 2017 edition of the Florida Statutes (Chapter 7.50). The descriptions of the county's submerged lands (F.S. 258.39) and coastal reefs (F.S. 403.93345) also are recorded in the Statutes.<br />
As proven by its past, the future size and shape of Palm Beach County will be revised as needed by the will of its citizens, its local elected officials and lawmakers in the Florida Legislature.<br />
<strong>(c.) Davidsson. 2017.</strong><br />
<strong>NOTE</strong>: See additional articles below and archived in <strong>Older </strong>Posts. Palm Beaches Informationhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13028578886314418086noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303568327527269406.post-89203173969908642402017-07-05T17:25:00.000-07:002017-07-06T20:15:13.645-07:00The Life and Times of Palm Beach's 'Alligator Joe'<strong>By Bob Davidsson</strong><br />
The highlight of the 1907 winter social season on the isle of Palm Beach was not a grand ball at Henry Flagler's decade-old Royal Poinciana Hotel, nor the annual motor yacht races on Lake Worth. No, the season's big event, attracting hundreds of Palm Beachers and visiting socialites to the oceanfront, was a wrestling match between burly, 300-pound "Alligator Joe" Frazier and a 12-foot Florida saltwater crocodile.<br />
Newspapers from West Palm Beach to New York City published eyewitness accounts of the "Man vs. Reptile" showdown in Flagler's upscale resort community.<br />
The March 3, 1907 New York Times reported, "He (Alligator Joe) towed a crocodile weighing 200 pounds well out into the Atlantic Ocean. Frazier released it, then made a quick jump landing stomach down on the creature's back."<br />
"Over and over they went," the narrative continues, "like boys wrestling. Gradually, (Joe) worked the reptile to a steep bank. A rope was thrown to him. Keeping the crocodile underwater, he tied the cord around its long snout in two places."<br />
"It was dragged ashore," the article concludes. "The reptile toward the end looked totally fagged, but (Alligator Joe) Frazier showed no exhaustion."<br />
A life-long reptile show promoter and entertainer, Alligator Joe (born Warren Frazee) knew there was little chance of losing life or limbs from the encounter with the huge reptile. Unlike its aggressive African, Australian and Central American cousins, the Florida crocodile was a relatively docile opponent.<br />
Alligator Joe learned this fact months before, when he promoted and staged a match between a Florida crocodile and an American alligator before a raucous crowd of farmers and Flagler's railroad workers on the Card Sound Road south of Miami. The alligator quickly mauled its Everglades reptilian neighbor.<br />
Alligator Joe was the owner-operator of the "Florida Alligator Farm". It was located one mile south of the Royal Poinciana Hotel, on the west end of what became Worth Avenue where it meets the Lake Worth Lagoon. Bicycle-powered wicker carts were used to transport wealthy visitors to "Alligator Joe's," as it was commonly called, along a pathway known as the "Jungle Trail Road".<br />
He opened his reptile park as a tourist attraction in the year 1900, offering guests twice weekly gator wrestling performances during the winter seasons. In addition to hundreds of "gators and crocs," the reptile farm featured turtles, manatees and native birds.<br />
Alligator Joe was a showman who excelled in self-promotion. During his performances, he created the false image of a "half-breed - half Indian, half Mexican and half cavalier." He perfected the role of a frontier hunter (which in truth he was), complete with a feigned Seminole accent.<br />
To complete the stage persona, he wore a bushy walrus mustache, a cowboy field hat, khaki clothing, and often a carried a resolver at his side to protect fearful guests from his reptiles. In truth, no one ever reported the showman using the handgun in defense.<br />
Alligator Joe was the exact opposite of Palm Beach's well-bred and educated resident socialites, and that was his public appeal.<br />
<br />
<strong>The Haves and Have-Nots of Early Palm Beach</strong><br />
<strong> </strong>Throughout its 106-year history, the Town of Palm Beach has always been an island of dreams - a place of the haves and have-not, the wealthy and the working poor, the servants and the served, or as they were known in 1907, the home of the Old Guard and their fawning want-to-be Monkey Set.<br />
The Old Guard included the resort community's founder, Henry Flagler, and wealthy landholding scions such as the Binghams, the Munyons and the Bradleys. Flagler built the Royal Poinciana Hotel and the Palm Beach Inn (the Breakers) on the ocean, then connected his resorts by rail and sea to the Florida East Coast Railway and the Palm Beach-Nassau Cruise Line in the 1890s.<br />
While Flagler had the vision, and paid talented architects and engineers to design his hotels and mansion, it was mainly African-American labor in the neighboring Palm Beach community of "Styx" that poured the concrete and swept the floors in his architectural monuments.<br />
An estimated 2,000 resident-renters lived in the shantytown community of Styx from the 1890s until their eviction in 1912. They were the island community's have-nots. Styx was located literally "in the sticks," north of the Royal Poinciana Hotel near what is today Sunset and Sunrise Avenues along North County Road.<br />
Lacking the basic public services of electricity, plumbing and waste disposal, entering Styx was like crossing from Mount Olympus into Hades. The brothers John and Colonel E.R. Bradley purchased the Styx property in 1910, and in 1912 ordered the remaining renters and squatters to leave their land within two months.<br />
Most of the African-American residents moved to northwest West Palm Beach, or to the new planned black subdivision of Pleasant City, established in 1905 north of Lake Mangonia. What remained of Styx was cleared and burned to create the new island subdivision of Floral Park.<br />
In January 1911, the City of West Palm Beach petitioned its legislative delegation to pass a bill in the Florida Legislature allowing the annexation of the wealthy island community of Palm Beach. In response, the power brokers in the unincorporated township called for a referendum to establish Palm Beach County's second city.<br />
A total of 35 white male voters went to the polls and created the Town of Palm Beach on April 17, 1911. Under Florida law, women could not vote in 1911, and the black residents of Styx were not given an opportunity to cast their ballots at the Palm Beach Hotel. The first mayor and town council reflected the race and goals of the voters.<br />
Within the Palm Beach social caste system, Alligator Joe was a "have-not" who aspired to become a member of the "Monkey Set" through hard work and the limited upward mobility of that bygone age.<br />
<br />
<strong>The Life Story of Warren 'Alligator Joe' Frazee</strong><br />
<strong> </strong>Warren was born the second son of Randolph and Anna B. Frazee, March 1, 1873, in Jacksonville, FL. Warren and his brother James were raised in the Mayport section of the city, where his father worked as a steamboat watchman, bartender and farmer to support his family.<br />
A defining moment in his young life took place in 1887 when 13-year-old Warren visited a "Sub-Tropical Exposition" in Jacksonville. A huge reptile known as "The Alligator Joe (also Joe or Old Joe)" arrived from Polk County and was penned in Jacksonville's Waterworks Park until its death in 1904.<br />
Warren became a trapper and hunter of reptiles. By the time of his arrival in the Palm Beaches, he had assumed the moniker of "Alligator Joe" Frazier, and in 1897 began offering wealthy visitors hunting adventures in the Everglades.<br />
The Feb. 18, 1898 edition of the Miami News reported, "In 1898, he took Sir Edward and Lady Colbrooke of England on a hunt for alligators. He successfully bagged one more than 11 feet long and was paid $25 for his service. The animal was taken to a taxidermist where it was stuffed, mounted and shipped to England."<br />
The same year, the Everglades entrepreneur gathered 2,900 alligator eggs and shipped them to northern markets. He also acted as an informal agent for local Seminole Indians, gathering 600 alligator hides from the tribe and reselling them at E.L. Brady & Co. in downtown Miami.<br />
During the summer off-seasons, Alligator Joe collected a menagerie of reptiles, with his featured manatee, and shipped them north by rail as a traveling live exhibit of Florida wildlife for gawking crowds whom had never seen such creatures. Occasionally, he hired Seminoles for his gator wrestling shows.<br />
One of his stops was Dreamland Park on Coney Island, N.Y., where he created a sub-tropical version of the Florida Everglades on the island. Other cities on his summer alligator show circuit included Chicago, Boston, Denver and Kansas City. In 1903, he shipped a pair of Florida manatees to the New York Zoological Society for display in the city's aquarium.<br />
To meet the demand for his various reptile ventures, the entertainer established a second farm on leased land along the Miami River, west of the City of Miami in 1905. It was called "Alligator Joe's Crocodile and Alligator Farm". At his new enterprise, he raised gators for his shows, and sold reptile hatchlings as pets nationwide.<br />
A star attraction at his new farm was a huge 18-foot alligator named "Jumbo Joe," in honor of the gator farm's owner.<br />
While in Miami, Alligator Joe married Della Hamilton, a native resident of Dade County, on May 9, 1906. They honeymooned during one of his reptile road shows. The marriage only lasted three years. They were divorced in 1909.<br />
However, the same year, the 35-year-old divorcee met and married 19-year-old Cleopatra "Cleo" Croft of Kansas. The wedding took place at the Kansas City "Electric Park Fair" where Alligator Joe and his traveling reptile show were performing.<br />
The 1910 U.S. Census recorded Warren Frazee as the head-of-household, residing in Precinct 3 of Palm Beach township. His household consisted of his second wife, Cleo; his British-born widowed mother-in-law, Carlotta "Lotta" Croft, 39; and his 64-year-old widowed father, Randolph. <br />
After Alligator Joe's mother, Anna, died in 1909, his father moved from Jacksonville to his home in Palm Beach. He worked at his son's alligator farm in Palm Beach.<br />
<br />
<strong>Alligator Joe's Farm Becomes the Everglades Club</strong><br />
By the year 1913, smelly frontier gator farms no longer suited the civic image the Town of Palm Beach and City of Miami wished to present to the outside world. Alligator Joe lost the lease to his Miami River reptile farm in 1911. It was developed as the Spring Garden development in 1913.<br />
On Feb. 20, 1915, the Pan-American Pacific Exposition opened in San Francisco. Alligator Joe transported 4,500 gators and crocodiles, as well as a manatee, pelicans and a blue herons by rail. He set up what would become his final exhibit at the winter event.<br />
He contracted a high fever in the cold, wet San Francisco climate, and was admitted to the city's "German Hospital" on May 27, 1915. Four days later he died at age 43. Frazee was cremated three days after his death. A prior autopsy revealed he suffered from pleurisy, pneumonia, tonsillitis and fatty degeneration of the heart.<br />
After his death, his traveling exhibit made one final stop in San Diego before it was liquidated in a San Fransico Superior Court. The court estimated the value of his menagerie at $5,295. Alligator Joe's prized manatee was donated to the California Academy of Science, where its skin and skeleton went on display.<br />
Warren Frazee's Palm Beach reptile farm site was bought by Paris Singer, the millionaire son of sewing machine inventor Isaac Singer. Paris hired his friend, architect Addison Mizner, to design the Touchstone Convalescent Club to care for World War I disabled veterans.<br />
Construction began in July 1918. By the time it was completed in 1919, the war was over. The convalescent center failed to attract enough patients to turn a profit.<br />
Singer converted the landmark structure into a private "Everglades Club," which would become internationally famous and infamous for its exclusive membership during the 20th century.<br />
<strong>(c.) Davidsson, 2017.</strong><br />
<strong>NOTE: </strong>See additional articles below and archived in <strong>Older Posts</strong>. Palm Beaches Informationhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13028578886314418086noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303568327527269406.post-11778747931918081732017-05-09T14:48:00.002-07:002020-01-28T15:56:50.357-08:00Palm Beaches during the Spanish-American War: 1898<strong>By Bob Davidsson</strong><br />
<strong> </strong>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.<br />
<strong> </strong>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.<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
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."<br />
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.<br />
Four of the veterans buried at Woodlawn were members of the 1st Florida Volunteer Infantry, according to the Spanish-American War Centennial research site. <br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
<br />
<strong>Florida Filibusters and Gun-runners to Cuba</strong><br />
<strong> </strong>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.<br />
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.<br />
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. <br />
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.<br />
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. <br />
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.<br />
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."<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
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. <br />
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.<br />
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".<br />
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".<br />
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.<br />
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". <br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
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."<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
<br />
<strong>Palm Beachers Prepare for War with Spain</strong><br />
<strong> </strong>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.<br />
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.<br />
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."<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
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."<br />
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."<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
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."<br />
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".<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
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. <br />
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. <br />
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.<br />
<strong>(c.) Davidsson. 2017.</strong><br />
<strong>NOTE:</strong> A related guest editorial by the author entitled<strong> "The Palm Beaches in the Age of Empire"</strong> is published in the June 15, 2017 edition of the Jupiter Courier. See additional articles below and archived in <strong>Older Posts</strong>. Palm Beaches Informationhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13028578886314418086noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303568327527269406.post-67503069735195671922017-04-15T06:10:00.001-07:002017-04-29T18:48:55.939-07:00Local Shipwreck Site One of 12 'Museums in the Sea'<strong>By Bob Davidsson</strong><br />
<strong> </strong>From Pensacola to Key West and north to Jacksonville, hundreds of shipwrecks rest in the coastal waters of Florida, but only 12 have been designated and honored as official state undersea "Museums in the Sea," with one site located offshore of Palm Beach County.<br />
The wreck of the 19th century Norwegian sailing barque "Lofthus" rests in 15 to 20 feet of water, about 175 yards off the shoreline of Manalapan. Divers can still view a debris field, measuring 300 feet by 50 feet, with deck beams, mast and iron plates exposed above the sand of the sea floor.<br />
Beginning in 1987, the Florida Department of State's Bureau of Archaeological Research began selecting shipwreck sites of significant historical value as undersea parks to manage and protect for future generations. So far, 12 shipwrecks have been selected, including the "Lofthus".<br />
The "Lofthus" is registered by the Florida Division of Historic Resources as "State Underwater Archaeological Preserve #8." The 12 undersea preserves are promoted as the state's "Museums in the Sea." The "Lofthus" was designated as an historic site in 2004, when a plaque was attached to its anchor.<br />
To become an undersea museum, the selection process requires "the shipwrecks are the recorders of a moment in time" and a "microcosm of history vital to understanding the people who used Florida's waters before us."<br />
<br />
<strong>Ship Listed on National Register of Historic Places</strong><br />
In addition to becoming a State of Florida underwater preserve, the National Park Service certified the shipwreck in the National Register of Historic Places on Jan. 6, 2004. <br />
After evaluating the site, National Park Service (NPS) staff reported, "The shipwreck is one of the few examples of iron-hulled sailing vessels that plied the waters of Florida, and the world, in the late 19th century. 'Lofthus' represents an element of the tramp sailing commerce that skirted, and occasionally wrecked upon, the shores of Florida."<br />
The vessel history states, "The 'Lofthus' represents a late 19th century collection of wrecked vessels that accumulated on the shallow coasts of the state. These shipwrecks became targets for the wrecking and salvage industry in southern Florida, and today are important and integral elements of extant turn-of-the-century maritime cultural resources."<br />
For most of its maritime life, the "Lofthus" sailed under a British flag as the merchant ship "Cashmere." About one year before its demise on the coast of Palm Beach County, it was purchased and renamed by a Norwegian firm.<br />
"Norwegian shippers were major buyers and operators of old sailing vessels, both of wood and metal," the NPS vessel history states. "Norway lacked the capital, banking and resources to build large vessels of their own, but the country did have an abundance of skilled maritime manpower to operate ships."<br />
"Their ships, including the 'Lofthus,' hauled bulk goods across the oceans of the world," the vessel history concludes.<br />
<br />
<strong>Maritime History of the 'Cashmere' and 'Lofthus'</strong><br />
<strong> </strong>The vessel's 30-year sailing history began with its christening and launching as the "Cashmere" Oct. 5, 1868 at builder T.R. Oswald's shipyard near Liverpool, England. The "Cashmere" was owned by Liverpool Shipping Company, and managed by Henry Fernie & Sons for the East Indian trade route.<br />
The merchant ship had an iron-riveted hull measuring 222.8 feet in length, with a beam of 36.7 feet and a depth of 22.7 feet. It was rated as a 1,277-ton vessel with two decks and a cemented bulkhead, according to its Lloyds insurers report.<br />
By the late 1860's, most iron-hulled ships were converted to steam power. However, in an effort to reduce fuel and engine costs, the owners designed the "Cashmere" to sail as a three-masted barque.<br />
The east Asian trade route plied by the "Cashmere" included India, the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) and Hong Kong. This included sailing past the islands of Java and Sumatra. During the 19th century, the islands were one of the last bastions of piracy.<br />
The Sultanate of Ache, located along the northern coast of Sumatra, was known as the main base used by fast-sailing pirate ships to board lightly armed merchant vessels that ventured in their waters. The shipping of all nations was targeted by the corsairs.<br />
Following the capture of an American ship, the United States dispatched its "First and Second Sumatran Expeditions" in 1832 and 1838 to suppress the piracy. Three American Navy frigates, and their Marine landing parties, briefly curtailed but did not end the scourge.<br />
Dutch colonial navy units fought a prolonged campaign against the Sumatran pirates from 1873 to 1904, when the threat to coastal shipping finally ended. The "Cashmere" sailed in these dangerous waters for more than 20 years.<br />
To discourage pirates, the crew of the "Cashmere" painted 24 black gun ports along both sides of the ship, giving the vessel the illusion of an armed British brig-of-war. The trick worked. The "Cashmere" was never boarded while passing the Dutch East Indies.<br />
In 1897 the "Cashmere" was sold to Norwegian J.A. Henchien, representing the "Barque Lofthus Actierederi," of Lillestrand, Norway. The ship was renamed the "Lofthus" and transferred from the East Indian to American trade zone.<br />
Less than a year after its purchase, the ill-fated "Lofthus" sailed from Pensacola, bound for Buenos Aires, Argentina, with a cargo of cut lumber. While passing through the Florida Straits, the ship was rocked by a coastal storm Feb. 4, 1898 and driven northeast onto a beach in central Palm Beach County.<br />
Captain Fromberg and his Norwegian crew of 16 were unable to free the heavily-laden vessel from the pounding surf. A seagoing tug, the "Three Friends," recently returned from a gun-running mission to Cuba, also tried and failed to free the stranded "Lofthus".<br />
The beached ship was soon declared a total loss. Local salvors offered to purchase its cargo of 800,000 feet of lumber at an agreed price of $1,000. Captain Fromberg abandoned the ship to its fate and gave the ship's dog and cat to a local family.<br />
In September 1898, the salvors blasted a hole in the iron-riveted hull of the "Lofthus" to gain access to its cargo. This action hastened the ship's destruction, and its sinking into the sea, where it has rested for the past 120 years.<br />
<strong>(c.) Davidsson 2017.</strong><br />
<strong>NOTE: </strong>See additional articles below and archived in <strong>Older Posts</strong>. Palm Beaches Informationhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13028578886314418086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303568327527269406.post-22034438235134831922017-03-09T08:50:00.002-08:002020-12-22T05:50:45.856-08:00Local Church Has Its Roots in Arctic 'Saami' Ministry<strong>By Bob Davidsson</strong><br />
<strong> </strong>There is a place of worship in the Palm Beaches with a unique legacy dating back to the 19th century "Laestadian" religious revivalist movement that originated among the native Finnic Saami (Lapp) people of the northern Arctic provinces of Sweden, Norway and Finland - the "Lake Worth Apostolic Lutheran Church."<br />
Finns have lived in the greater Lantana-Lake Worth area of Palm Beach County since the 1920s. After World War II the area's economy benefitted from a large influx of new residents consisting of first and second-generation families, Finnish pensioners and retirees, and seasonal visitors.<br />
In Lake Worth's Bryant Park there are two monuments placed by members of the Finnish community. The "Memorial to Finnish Immigrants" consists of two bronze geese soaring over a marble base with a map of Finland etched on its face. The migratory birds symbolize the journey of Finns and all immigrants to Lake Worth. It was donated by Thor and Saimi Soderholm, a local Swede-Finn couple, and dedicated in 1985.<br />
A second monument, often overlooked by park visitors, is a granite block once part of the Finnish Mannerheim Line and used as a crude barricade to stop invading Russian tanks. The monument is a memorial to veterans and war dead of all nations. Many retirees in Lake Worth were veterans of the Winter War (1939-40) and Continuation War (1941-44) against the Soviet Union, and the Lapland War (1944-45) against Nazi Germany.<br />
An annual three-day Finlandia Days/Midnight Sun Festival, celebrating Finnish heritage and music, has been held each winter in Bryant Park since 1983. Two Finnish-American meeting halls also are located in the greater Lake Worth-Lantana area.<br />
For more than five decades a Finnish Consulate has served the Finnish community and visitors in Lake Worth. Today, it is one of 32 consulate offices located in the United States.<br />
The population of Finnish emigrants and their descendants peaked at about 25,700 in South Florida during Census year 2000, then it slowly declined due to natural mortality, assimilation and changing lifestyles. The local Finnish community established three churches which have helped preserve their language, traditions and religious beliefs.<br />
The "St Andrew's Lutheran Church," located on South E. Street in Lake Worth, was founded in 1953 as part of the Finnish "Suomi Synod". It joined the Lutheran Church of America (LCA) in 1963, and today is a part of the nationwide Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA). The church began offering services in both Finnish and English in 1960.*<br />
The ownership of the St. Andrew's Church building was transferred to the "Iglesias Christiana Church Council," an Hispanic sister congregation for past 18 years, on Nov. 7, 2019. Today, services are offered in three languages within the church. <br />
The current "All Nations Church," located on High Ridge Road in Lake Worth, was established in 1971 as the "Finnish Pentecostal Church of Lake Worth" to serve the local Finnish community. It was not until 2009 that church services were offered in English in addition to Finnish. In an effort to broaden its outreach, it became the "All Nation's Church" in 2011.<br />
The "Lake Worth Apostolic Lutheran Church" was built more than 30 years ago by its parishioners on Kirk Road in suburban Lake Worth. It is one of 57 autonomous Apostolic Lutheran churches in the U.S., serving congregations with a total membership of 9,000, and the only one located in Florida.<br />
The Apostolic Lutheran Church of America dates back to the year 1872, and is one of several religious branches of the Laestadian revival movement founded by a 19th century Swedish Lutheran Church reformer, scientific botanist and explorer named Lars Levi Laestadius.<br />
<br />
<strong>Laestadius and His Mission to the Saami People</strong><br />
<strong> </strong>The Saami (often called Lapps by the Swedes and Karels or Kvens by Norwegians) are the native inhabitants of northern Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Kola Peninsula of Russia. Historically, they were nomadic reindeer herders with a hunter-gatherer society which until recently retained its traditions unchanged for more than 4,000 years.<br />
The Saami speak six dialects of the Finno-Ugrian (Uralic) language related but not identical to modern Finnish. By contrast, their more sedentary Swedish and Norwegian neighbors to the south speak languages rooted in a northern Germanic (Old Norse) lexicon. <br />
Relations between the two distinct populations have ranged from friendship and beneficial trade in the best of times, to ongoing land disputes and cultural genocide at its worst. It was at a time of widespread poverty, alcoholism and forced cultural assimilation that Lars Laestadius began his mission among the Saami.<br />
Lars was born Jan. 10, 1800 in the northernmost Swedish county of Norrbotten. He was the son of a ne'er-do-well hunter and mine operator named Carl Laestadius and his Saami wife, Anna Magdalena. Despite the family's poverty, he was able to attend Uppsala University in 1820 through the financial assistance of an older brother. <br />
He majored in theology at Uppsala, and upon graduation was ordained as a Lutheran minister in 1825. He was posted as a regional minister of the State Church of Sweden in his native province of Swedish Lapland.<br />
He soon married a local Saami woman, Brita Cajsa Alstadius, and together they raised 12 children. Laestadius lived and worked in the Pajala parish of Swedish Lapland from 1849 until his death in 1861. <br />
For most of his adult life Laestadius would self-identify as a member of the Saami community. He could speak two regional Saami dialects, as well as Finnish and Swedish. Later in life, he would use a Finnish text for his sermons to reach his scattered followers.<br />
The minister's favorite pastime was botany. He was an assistant in Uppsala University's Botany Department, and is credited with the discovery and identification of three plants in northern Scandinavia which are named in his honor.<br />
His notoriety as a botanist and linguist among the Saami communities resulted in an invitation from the French Admiralty to join the "La Recherché Expedition of 1838-40" and explore the islands and Arctic coastline of Scandinavia. He was awarded the French "Legion of Merit" for his service.<br />
It was during this adventure that Laestadius began writing his "Fragments of Lappish Mythology," describing traditional Saami religious beliefs at time when the Swedish government and high church officials were discouraging the practice of Saami shamanism. For nearly 150 years, the priceless manuscript was lost. Fortunately, the document was rediscovered in France and belatedly published in 1997.<br />
As a missionary Laestadius searched for the key to spreading Christian doctrine in a manner acceptable to the religious traditions and culture of the Saami people. His prayers were answered when he met a poor Saami woman named Milla Clementsdotter, later known to his Laestadian followers as "Mary of Lapland".<br />
Laestadius was moved and inspired by what he called "her spiritual journey through life to the living faith." He would later write that the encounter led to his own religious experience when he "saw the path that leads to eternal life."<br />
His "spiritual awakening" became the basis of the Lutheran "Laestadian Movement". The liturgy is based on Lutheran doctrine with an emphasis on forgiveness and a life journey of faith leading to a personal "salvation experience" shared with the congregation.<br />
Laestadius spread his revival theology among the scattered Saami communities by training lay clergy to live and travel with the nomadic herders. His clergy were not college educated, but rather selected for ordination "by a call by God to preach the word."<br />
Within his lifetime the Laestadian Movement spread beyond the frozen tundra and taiga of Lapland to communities in Finland, Sweden and Norway. Wisely, both the State Church of Sweden and Lutheran Church of Finland would eventually accept Laestadianism as an apostolic branch of the Lutheran Church.<br />
Laestadius was not expelled from the State Church of Sweden, but was required to provide traditional Lutheran services at his parish, in addition to apostolic sermons to his followers. After he died in 1861, the movement continued under the leadership of one his followers, John Raattamas.<br />
<br />
<strong>The 'Great Laestadian Migration' to America (and Florida)</strong><br />
<strong> </strong>Between 1864 and 1895, thousands of Laestadians immigrated from Finland, northern Sweden and Norway to America. They wanted the freedom of worship without the dictates of a centralized state church, and to escape the hopeless poverty of northern Scandinavia in the late 19th century.<br />
Finns also resisted cultural "Russification" efforts by Czars Nicholas I, Alexander III and Nicholas II during its period of occupation as Russia's Grand Duchy of Finland from 1809 to 1918. This led many Finns to seek better lives in the U.S. and Canada. <br />
Without the central authority of a state-sponsored American Lutheran Church, the Laestadian Movement splintered then reformed in the U.S. Laestadian congregations were formed in mining and agricultural communities in Michigan, Minnesota, South Dakota, Oregon and Washington.<br />
After World War II, descendants of the Laestadian Movement came to Palm Beach County, where using their traditional architectural style, they built their current unadorned rectangular apostolic church with whitewashed walls suited to meet their spiritual needs.<br />
Today, there are an estimated 200,000 followers of Laestadianism worldwide. Within the borders of the four nations that make up "Sapmi" (Lapland) where the movement began, there are between 80,000 and 135,000 native Saami inhabitants. <br />
The informal Laestadian greeting in Finnish, dating back to the time its founder, is "Jumalan terve" - God's welcome.<br />
<strong>*NOTE: </strong>The author served as the pastor's assistant and acolyte in 1965 during the dedication of the new St. Andrew's Lutheran Church in Lake Worth. See additional articles below and archived in <strong>Older Posts</strong><br />
<strong>(c.) Davidsson. 2017.</strong> Palm Beaches Informationhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13028578886314418086noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303568327527269406.post-60461118370211013932017-02-07T06:07:00.001-08:002017-02-13T06:15:03.428-08:00Wartime POWs, 'Spy' Reports in Palm Beach County<strong>By Bob Davidsson</strong><br />
World War II came to the home front of Palm Beach County by way of U-boat attacks at sea, a POW internment camp in the Glades, and numerous unverified reports of espionage by enemy spies along its coastline.<br />
A total of 122 soldiers, sailors and airmen from the Palm Beaches were casualties of war, including 62 killed in action (KIA) and 43 deaths not in battle (DNB), as recorded in the June 1946 "World War II Honor List of Dead and Missing" for Palm Beach County.<br />
While this casualty list may seem small, keep in mind the total population of Palm Beach County was just 79,989 in 1940, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Small cities from Jupiter to Boca Raton still hugged the coast, while the agricultural range line extended east of Congress Avenue.<br />
The war began badly in the home waters of the Palm Beaches and the Treasure Coast. The German Kriegsmarine unleashed a second wave of U-boats as part of Untermehmen Parkenschlag (Operation Drumbeat) on Jan. 11, 1942. Their destination included the southeast coast of Florida.<br />
Three "Ace" undersea boats - U-504, U-564 and U-333 - sank eight ships off the Gold and Treasure coasts during the first nine months of war. They were joined by the Italian Regia Marina Calvi-class submarine "Enrico Tazzoli (TZ)" which claimed four allied ships in the Bahamas Channel.<br />
The U.S. Navy was unprepared for this "Second Pearl Harbor" in our coastal waters from January through August 1942. An "Official Blackout Order" was not issued for the Palm Beach County coastline until April 11, 1942.<br />
The State of Florida responded by establishing the quasi-military "Florida Defense Force" consisting of civilian volunteers. Civil Air Patrol (CAP) wooden "Watch Towers" were constructed on Boca Raton's beach and elsewhere along the coast to report U-boat sightings, while small single-engine airplanes spotted surfacing submarines by air.<br />
Morrison Field in West Palm Beach, and new Boca Raton Army Air Corps field west the city, became training centers for thousands of Army airmen and communication technicians. The Lantana Airport opened in December 1941 as an auxiliary field for the Florida Defense Force and CAP anti-submarine flights.<br />
A secret submarine monitoring "Station J" was established at the Jupiter Inlet military <br />
reservation as early as April 1940 to intercept U-boat transmissions to and from Germany. With the outbreak of World War II, this "Strategic Observation Post" was expanded to track both German and Japanese naval units.<br />
By the autumn of 1942, the "Second Happy Time" for U-boat captains in southeast Florida coastal waters was over, but fears among the uninformed civilian population grew as the actual threat by enemy submarines dissipated.<br />
With U-boats lurking just a few miles offshore, rumors of nocturnal visits and spy missions by German Kriegsmarine crews spread throughout the county, and were even reported in newspapers after he war. None were verified and no arrests were made by the FBI for spying.<br />
<br />
<strong>The Enemy Spies NOT Among Us</strong><br />
<strong> </strong>At Boca Raton's Palmetto Park Beach Pavilion, located near the round-about at the end of Palmetto Park Road, visitors will find the bronzed "Sanborn Wall Historic Marker." The marker presents the strongest case for the belief that German espionage teams landed from their U-boats in Palm Beach County.<br />
The Sanborn Wall memorial states, "On this spot in World War II, spies from German U-boats landed an occupied Dr. William Sanborn's home built on this spot in 1937. "<br />
"The sailors deployed during World War II, as part of Hitler's Operation Drumbeat, torpedoed tankers and freighters traveling the east coast shipping lane carrying vital supplies to the U.S. and England." The marker summarizes, "The Germans sank a total 397 ships and killed 5,000 people. Twenty-four ships were sunk off the coast of Florida, 16 between Cape Canaveral and Boca Raton."<br />
Doctor Sanborn was in his home state of Michigan when apparently several unknown persons entered his winter residence, using the clothing, shower, bedding and food supplies found in the residence. Neighbors reported unusual activity at the home. Military police entered the home in June 1942 in search of a signaling device.<br />
They discovered a telescope and signs of recent activity in the home, but neither spies nor local vagrants were found. Neighbors were questioned "if any shining lights were cast out to sea" at the Sanborn residence. <br />
The case file remained open, but no arrests were made. Today, "Sanborn Square" in downtown Boca Raton is named for the doctor and is a reminder of this unresolved World War II mystery.<br />
For several years, local legends were told, and reported by the news media, of German sailors frequenting restaurants and bars in the Town of Palm Beach. Apparently, when not sinking allied shipping, U-boat crews took time off and came ashore to get hot meals and a beer in an enemy city.<br />
Another popular myth claimed U-boat crews operated out of a secret base in the Jupiter Inlet. A second version of the tale was spread of the Germans actually capturing the inlet. The source of this local legend was probably misinformation about the top secret U-boat monitoring station at the inlet, operated by the U.S. military.<br />
There were rumors of a German family using the George Washington Hotel in downtown West Palm Beach as a spy base of operations to signal U-boats using lights on the roof. A German butler also supposedly operated a short wave radio from a seaside Palm Beach estate to signal U-boats. <br />
The unnamed butler allegedly was killed in gun battle with FBI agents, although the federal agency has no reports to support this rumor or any of the other faux espionage incidents in the Palm Beaches.<br />
In truth, German and Japanese resident aliens living in Palm Beach County during the war years were not spies, but instead targeted by law enforcement under tight restrictions placed on foreign nationals by the federal government.<br />
The FBI often entered the homes of German and Japanese nationals in search of propaganda books, firearms and U-boat signaling devices. Enemy aliens could not travel outside of Palm Beach County without special FBI permits. <br />
Permission also was required for foreign nationals to withdraw large amounts of money from their bank accounts. This created business hardships for German and Japanese residents and their employees. <br />
While law enforcement agencies closely monitored enemy aliens, it should be noted no arrests for espionage were made in Palm Beach County.<br />
One dark chapter in the county's history is the treatment of the few remaining Japanese Yamato agricultural colony farmers during World War II. The Yamato colony was established 1903 in the northwestern section of what is today the City of Boca Raton. <br />
For three decades the farming community provided pineapples and other produce to local markets. The Great Depression made their farms unprofitable and many of the Japanese settlers quit farming and either returned to Japan or moved to California.<br />
Henry T. Kamiya, one of remaining leaders of the Yamato colony, was detained at the beginning of World War II while visiting his daughter in California. He was warehoused against his will at the Manzanar Japanese Internment Camp throughout the war.<br />
When he returned to Palm Beach County after the war, he discovered his land and that of several other former Yamato colony property owners was taken by the federal government in May 1942 for the construction of the Boca Raton Army Air Field.<br />
Hideo Kobayasi, another Yamato colony member, was ordered to vacate his land for the airfield. Compensation for his property was deferred and payment received only after the land was vacated. After losing his property, he moved to Broward County.<br />
Both Kamiya and Kobayishi were eminent domain victims of the "Second War Powers Act of 1942," a law passed by Congress to allow the "emergency condemnation" of land determined to be appropriate for military uses during World War II. The same law also placed the tight controls on activities by resident aliens.<br />
<br />
<strong>POWS in Palm Beach County</strong><br />
Following the surrender of the German Afrika Corps in Tunisia during May 1943, an influx of 371,683 German prisoners of war were transported to America and placed in internment camps. They were joined by 50,273 Italian and 3,915 Japanese POWs during the war.<br />
By May 1945, the number of POWs held in the U.S. peaked at 425,891. They were housed in 175 internment camps distributed throughout the country.<br />
A total of 10,000 prisoners were assigned to Florida. The Belle Glade Camp was located near the Everglades Experimental Station site. It became one of 22 rural work camps in Florida housing German prisoners from March to December 1945.<br />
German POWs were processed at Florida's Camp Blanding, where guards attempted to separate Nazi loyalists, often elite U-boat crews and Afrika Corps veterans, from the nonpolitical prisoners, most of whom were captured after the Normandy invasion. <br />
A total of 250 prisoners of war were sent from Camp Blanding to the Belle Glade "branch camp" for the purpose of relieving labor shortages for agricultural harvesting and processing in Palm Beach County. The U.S. War Manpower Commission was the federal agency that determined the need and use of POW contracts to meet labor demands.<br />
German prisoners at the Belle Glade Camp worked as sugarcane cutters, and in a local bean canning factory. Labor crews also were used to repair the Herbert Hoover Dike along Lake Okeechobee. German officers were exempted from work crews.<br />
The treatment of POWs was governed and observed by the U.S. military under the Geneva Convention of 1929 guidelines. The international law required prisoners receive the same "food, shelter, medical care and clothing" as garrison troops. <br />
The U.S. Department of War hoped good treatment of German prisoners in the U.S. would influence Germany to abide by convention rules for American POWs held in their military concentration camps.<br />
POW work crews at the Belle Glade Camp worked from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. They earned 80 cents a day in camp coupons for their labor. The camp commissary included writing supplies, soap, censored newspapers and magazines, soda, tobacco, and occasionally beer.<br />
Roll call and breakfast began at 5:30 a.m. Lunch was usually served at the worksite. After dinner, the POWs had free time until lights out by 10 p.m. <br />
"Firm but fair" was the policy of camp guards and garrison troops in Florida. Due to a shortage of guards, camp administrators also relied on German officers and NCOs to maintain camp discipline.<br />
The Belle Glade Camp made national news headlines when its POWs went on strike on April 4-5, 1945 and refused to report for work assignments. The strike was sparked by a reduction in the camp's ration of cigarettes.<br />
Camp supervisors responded to the strike by limiting POW food rations to bread and water until they returned to work. The new "no work, no eat" policy was successful and the German prisoners ended their strike after just two days.<br />
As an aftermath of the strike, 39 "troublemakers" were shipped back to the main POW stockade at Camp Blanding. Cigarette distribution from Morrison Field was restored and life returned to normal at the work camp.<br />
POWs were detained at the Belle Glade Camp until December 1945, when transport and conditions in a defeated Germany allowed the return its soldiers and sailors. The camp was closed and its flagpole was later donated to the American Legion Post No. 20 in Belle Glade.<br />
<strong>(c.) Davidsson. 2017.</strong><br />
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<strong>NOTE: </strong>See also "Battle of the Atlantic Comes to the Palm Beaches" archived in <strong>Older Posts</strong>. Palm Beaches Informationhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13028578886314418086noreply@blogger.com0