By Bob Davidsson
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.
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."
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
The Legislature also designated the entire length of U.S. 27 as the "Purple Heart Highway," with an effective date of July 1, 2010.
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".
The Deadly Legacy of 'Bloody 27"
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.
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.
This sad narrative, and hundreds like it, have earned highway U.S. 27 the notorious nickname of "Bloody 27".
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.
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.
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.
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."
The NHTSA study concluded that an estimated 10 percent of fatal accidents and 17 percent of all crashes were caused by "distracted driving".
U.S. 27: A New Highway of Hope
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.
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.
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."
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)
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.
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.
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.
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..."
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.
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.
*NOTE: Read additional articles below and archived in Older Posts.
(c.) Davidsson. 2018.
Friday, May 4, 2018
Tuesday, April 10, 2018
County History Unearthed in Shellrock Mining Pits
By Bob Davidsson
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)."
"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."
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.
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.
Today, the "Castillo" remains the oldest European masonry fortification in the United States.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
The History of Okeeheelee's 'Shellrock Pits'
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.
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.
There is no record of native American villages at Okeeheelee. Historically, the site consisted pineland scrub forest, not pretty waters.
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".
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
Prehistoric 'Monsters' Emerge from Rock Mining Pit
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Rocking mining was and remains an important part of the county's history.
(c.) Davidsson. 2018.
NOTE: Article summary and notice also was printed in The (Belle Glade) Sun. Read additional articles below and archived in Older Posts.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)."
"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."
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.
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.
Today, the "Castillo" remains the oldest European masonry fortification in the United States.
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.
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.
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.
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:
- Palm Beach Aggregates mine and expansion sites located west of the Acreage near S.R 7.
- Stewart Mining Industries - Palm Beach County Mines, northwest of the Palm Beach Aggregates.
- Fine Stone Mine - Gilbert Pit, south of the Martin-Palm Beach County line near Lake Okeechobee.
- U.S. Sugar Corp. - Lake Harbor Quarry in western Palm Beach County, south of Lake Okeechobee.
- Bergeron Sand, Rock and Aggregate's Florida Rock Quarry in western Palm Beach County.
- CEMEX Construction Materials - South Bay Quarry, located west of the Loxahatchee Refuge.
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.
The History of Okeeheelee's 'Shellrock Pits'
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.
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.
There is no record of native American villages at Okeeheelee. Historically, the site consisted pineland scrub forest, not pretty waters.
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".
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
Prehistoric 'Monsters' Emerge from Rock Mining Pit
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Rocking mining was and remains an important part of the county's history.
(c.) Davidsson. 2018.
NOTE: Article summary and notice also was printed in The (Belle Glade) Sun. Read additional articles below and archived in Older Posts.
Saturday, February 3, 2018
Palm Beach County's Ancient 'Transit Networks'
By Bob Davidsson
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Ancient Trade Routes and Waterways
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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."
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.
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".
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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 "Navidad at Fort Santa Lucia: 1565" archived in Older Posts.)
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Ancient 'Intermodal Transit Center' of the Palm Beaches
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.
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.
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).
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Ancient Trails Reopen for Hikers
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.
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.
(c.) Davidsson. 2018.
NOTE: Article reprinted in the March 23, 2018 edition of the Okeechobee News. See additional articles below and archived in Older Posts.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Ancient Trade Routes and Waterways
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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."
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.
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".
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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 "Navidad at Fort Santa Lucia: 1565" archived in Older Posts.)
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Ancient 'Intermodal Transit Center' of the Palm Beaches
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.
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.
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).
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Ancient Trails Reopen for Hikers
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.
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.
(c.) Davidsson. 2018.
NOTE: Article reprinted in the March 23, 2018 edition of the Okeechobee News. See additional articles below and archived in Older Posts.
Tuesday, December 19, 2017
Pioneer Creates 'Utopia' Along Lake Okeechobee
By Bob Davidsson
'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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
A Fishing Community on the Big Lake
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Clements, the self-taught community leader, made sure students received a proper utopian education by also serving as the school's headmaster and teacher.
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.
The Most Unusual Election of 1917
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.
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.
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.
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".
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
(c.) Davidsson. 2017.
*NOTE: A print version of this article was published in the Dec. 28 edition of the Okeechobee News. Read also "God's 'Chosen' City on Lake Okeechobee" archived in Older Posts.
'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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
A Fishing Community on the Big Lake
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Clements, the self-taught community leader, made sure students received a proper utopian education by also serving as the school's headmaster and teacher.
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.
The Most Unusual Election of 1917
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.
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.
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.
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".
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
(c.) Davidsson. 2017.
*NOTE: A print version of this article was published in the Dec. 28 edition of the Okeechobee News. Read also "God's 'Chosen' City on Lake Okeechobee" archived in Older Posts.
Thursday, November 30, 2017
A Long and Winding History of the Hillsboro River
By Bob Davidsson
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.
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.
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.
So, who was Wills Hill and why is he so honored in the State of Florida?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.*
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.
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.
Natural History of the Hillsboro River
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.
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.
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.
"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."
"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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
The Dredging of the Hillsboro Canal
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
(c.) Davidsson, 2017.
*NOTE: "Hillsboro" is the second of two articles about the county's ghost rivers which no longer exist. See additional articles below and archived in Older Posts.
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.
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.
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.
So, who was Wills Hill and why is he so honored in the State of Florida?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.*
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.
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.
Natural History of the Hillsboro River
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.
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.
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.
"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."
"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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
The Dredging of the Hillsboro Canal
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
(c.) Davidsson, 2017.
*NOTE: "Hillsboro" is the second of two articles about the county's ghost rivers which no longer exist. See additional articles below and archived in Older Posts.
Friday, October 27, 2017
'Democrat River': Belle Glade's Everglades Gateway
By Bob Davidsson
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
Life Along the Democrat River, 700 to 1883 A.D.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Democrat River and Everglades Expedition
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.
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.
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.
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."
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."
"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."
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."
The journal entry reported, "It was determined to ascent it as far as possible and from its source to start into the swamp."
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.
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).
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.
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.
The Aftermath of the Expedition
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."
"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."
"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."
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.
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.
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."
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.
(c.) Davidsson. 2017.
NOTE: "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 Older Posts.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
Life Along the Democrat River, 700 to 1883 A.D.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Democrat River and Everglades Expedition
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.
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.
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.
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."
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."
"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."
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."
The journal entry reported, "It was determined to ascent it as far as possible and from its source to start into the swamp."
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.
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).
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.
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.
The Aftermath of the Expedition
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."
"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."
"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."
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.
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.
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."
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.
(c.) Davidsson. 2017.
NOTE: "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 Older Posts.
Saturday, August 5, 2017
The Changing Geographic Face of Palm Beach County
By Bob Davidsson
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.
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.
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.
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.
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".
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.
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".
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.
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.
'The British Are Coming' and Going
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.
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.
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.
The treaty opened eastern coastal areas to British settlement. The territory west of the "Indian Boundary" remained exclusively under native American control.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Welcome to Mosquito County
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.
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".
"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.
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.
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.
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.
Within St. Lucia, Brevard and Dade Counties
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Birth of Palm Beach County
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Palm Beach County Loses 'The Wedge'
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.
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.
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.
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.
(c.) Davidsson. 2017.
NOTE: See additional articles below and archived in Older Posts.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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".
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.
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".
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.
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.
'The British Are Coming' and Going
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.
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.
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.
The treaty opened eastern coastal areas to British settlement. The territory west of the "Indian Boundary" remained exclusively under native American control.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Welcome to Mosquito County
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.
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".
"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.
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.
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.
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.
Within St. Lucia, Brevard and Dade Counties
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Birth of Palm Beach County
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Palm Beach County Loses 'The Wedge'
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.
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.
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.
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.
(c.) Davidsson. 2017.
NOTE: See additional articles below and archived in Older Posts.
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