Welcome To Beautiful 'Mosquito County': 1824-45

 By Bob Davidsson

        While it is not promoted in "Discover the Palm Beaches" tourism advertisements, for 20 years Palm Beach County formed the southernmost region of Florida's "Mosquito County".

        On Christmas Eve, Dec. 24, 1824, the Florida Territorial Legislature carved a vast geographical section out of St. Johns County, 190 miles long and sixty miles wide, along the east coast to create the territory's third county.

        Mosquito County was named for the old 16th century Spanish geographic landmark "Barra des Mosquitos" (Mosquito Coast) which encompassed the Mosquito Lagoon and Mosquito Inlet in today's Brevard County.

        Florida's third county included all or parts of today's Palm Beach, Martin, Okeechobee, St. Lucie, Indian River, Polk, Lake, Orange, Osceola, Brevard and Volusia counties. The southern border of Mosquito County was the Potomac (Hillsboro) River, flowing northwest to southeast before emptying into the coastal estauary just south of the Boca Raton Inlet.

        The first county seat of Mosquito County was "John Burch's House" located near Ormond Beach. It was relocated first to New Smyrna and finally to a pioneer community called Enterprise.

        Early maps of Mosquito County were inaccurate, reflecting a lack of first-hand information about the unsettled wilderness that covered most of the county in 1824.

        Lake Okeechobee was plotted on maps as "Lake Macaco" in Mosquito County until the Seminole's Muskogean name for the big lake came into use by U.S. Army topographers in the 1830s. Mapmakers placed the lake further west than its actual location.

        The wilderness north and east of Lake Okeechobee was designated as the "Seminole Indian Reserve". This was land that Florida's territorial government regarded of having little value to settlers.

        While Lake Worth was charted on Mosquito County maps, it was often listed by the generic name of "Freshwater Lake". The Spanish identified the lake as the "Rio Jeaga," named for the ancient tribe that inhabited its shores. The Seminole name was "Hypoluxo".

        The 1830 Census recorded 733 settlers living in Mosquito County. Most residents lived north of Cape Canaveral. The Census of 1840 revealed a population decline due to the outbreak of Second Seminole War in 1835.

The Seminole War in Southern Mosquito County

        Between the years 1838-42, the southern region of Mosquito County was a battleground pitting U.S. Army and Navy units against the Seminole and Miccosukee tribes. Following the Battle of Okeechobee in December 1837, Colonel Zachary Taylor built a supply depot on the eastern shore of the big lake called Fort McRae, then pursued the Seminoles southeast into the Loxahatchee Slough.

        The Seminoles fought two battles along the Loxahatchee River against a small U.S. Navy unit on Jan. 15, and the main army of Major General Thomas S. Jesup on Jan.24. After the battles, Jesup built a sable palm log stockade three miles west of the inlet called Fort Jupiter. Major William Lauderdale was dispatched to build a "Military Trail" between Fort Jupiter and Fort Dallas (Miami).

        More than 500 Seminoles, caught in the Loxahatchee Slough, surrendered to General Jesup and were detained at Forts Jupiter and McRae until transports were available to deport them to Oklahoma. However, medicine chief Sam Jones (Abaika) refused to surrender and led his followers south of the slough, along the eastern shore of Lake Okeechobee to the temporary safety of Big Cypress Swamp.

        In the year 1841, the war shifted from the Jupiter Inlet to the shores of Lake Worth (named for Col. William Jenkins Worth), where the remaining Seminoles were cultivating a variety of crops along both shores of the freshwater lake.

        Major Thomas Childs destroyed 2,000 bushels of potatoes and "several hundred bushels of corn" planted near Lake Worth while en route with units of Third Artillery from Jupiter Inlet to his new command at Fort Lauderdale in September 1841. Two days were required by his 90 soldiers to uproot and burn the extensive fields.

        Two months later, Captain Richard Wade led two explore and destroy missions between Fort Lauderdale and the Jupiter Inlet in November and December 1841. He sacked Cha-chi's village, located on the western shore of Lake Worth at the future site of West Palm Beach, capturing 27 Seminoles during the surprise attack. 

        On Feb. 14, 1842, Navy Lt. John Rogers led 87 Marines and sailors in 16 canoes across the Everglades to Fort McRae on Lake Okeechobee. He encountered several deserted villages while making a complete circuit around the lake, from McRae northwest to the Kissimmee River then back to the ruined remains of the stockade.   

        Few native inhabitants remained in the Palm Beaches by the war's end in 1842. Fort Jupiter was an abandoned outpost.

Settlers Seek New Name for 'Mosquito County'

        New Smyrna, the county seat of Mosquito County, did not escape destruction during the Seminole War. In December 1835, a band of Indians and allied former slaves burned the New Smyrna Sugar Mill, neighboring sugar plantations and several buildings in the village.

        The U.S. Army responded by building "Fort New Smyrna" in May 1837 to protect the few remaining settlers in the area. Captain Lucien Bonaparte Webster (1801-53) and 41 soldiers of the First Artillery garrisoned the outpost.

        The fort was used as a staging area and supply depot for General Jesup's 1837-38 campaign in southern Mosquito County at the Jupiter Inlet. As the Seminole War's battelines moved south, Capt. John Rogers Vinton (1801-47) and the Fort New Smyrna garrison was transferred to Fort Lauderdale. The outpost was abandoned in November 1841.

        With the Seminole War winding down to an inconclusive stalemate, 20 settlers in Mosquito County built a new community in 1841 near an ancient Mayaca Indian midden and gave it the hopeful name of "Enterprise". The village was the southernmost port on the St. Johns River. It became Mosquito's county seat from 1843-45 in place of the devastated community of New Smyrna.

        Beyond the communities of Enterprise and New Smyrna, Mosquito County was a depopulated wilderness as a result of the Seminole War. The county needed settlers. Mosquito was viewed as an impediment to future growth, and settlers twice petitioned the Florida Territorial Legislature for a new name for their county.

        A bill advanced in the Legislature changing the name to "Leigh Read County" in honor of the Speaker of the House of Representatives who supported the legislation. Both houses of the Legislature passed the bill.

        Unfortunately, Speaker Read was assassinated on April 27, 1841 by the friends of a man he previously killed in a duel. While several maps of "Leigh Read County" were printed, the authorizing bill was never signed into law.

        A 19th century conspiracy theory claimed the Mosquito legislation mysteriously never reached the governor's desk. Territorial Governor Richard Keith Call was a political opponent of Speaker Read. It was one of the first examples of a "pocket veto" by a Florida governor in 1842.

        A determined delegation of 72 Mosquito County citizens submitted a second petition to the territorial Legislature in 1844 to change the name Mosquito to "Harrison County" in honor of President William Henry Harrison, a hero of the War of 1812, who died in 1841 after just 31 days in office.

        The petition stated, "The name Mosquito is very unpleasant to many of the citizens..."

        President Harrison was the former standard bearer of the Whig Party. Florida Democrats opposed the name. "Orange County" was approved by the Legislature as a compromise in place of  "Harrison" on Jan. 30, 1845. Florida became the nation's 27th state less than two months later on March 3, and the unwanted name Mosquito County passed into territorial history. 

        Between 1850 and 1909, the southernmost region of Mosquito County would be annexed in turn by St. Lucie, Brevard and Dade counties. A greater "Palm Beach County" was created from the northern half of Dade County on April 30, 1909. It included northern Broward, Martin and southern Okeechobee counties.

        The current borders of Palm Beach County were established following the creation of Broward County in 1915, Okeechobee County in 1917 and Martin County in 1925. While mosquitos remain a minor nuisance, the county is no longer burdened by the name "MOSQUITO".

(c.) Davidsson. 2021.

*NOTE: See also "The Palm Beaches During Reconstruction: 1865-76" posted Feb. 1 and other articles archived below.

The AWS: Our Local Eyes on the Sky, 1941-44

 By Bob Davidsson

        As World War II raged in Europe and Asia, hundreds of local volunteers joined the nation's Aircraft Warning Service (AWS), the civilian auxiliary of the U.S. Army's Ground Observation Corps, to watch for enemy planes flying over Florida's airspace.

        The AWS was organized through city and county civil defense agencies beginning in May 1941 in anticipation of the war coming to America's shore. At its peak, the AWS numbered 750,000 aircraft spotters along the Atlantic coastline from Canada to Key West, the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific coast. A majority of the observers were women.

        By Sept. 20, 1941, there were 514 aircraft observation posts established in Florida. These included 13 stations in Palm Beach County, four in Martin County and two in Okeechobee County, according to the Florida State Planning Board in Tallahassee. More area observation posts were added after America entered the war.

        AWS volunteers were trained to identify the silhouettes of German, Japanese and American aircraft. Reported sightings were forwarded to regional "filter centers," and if confirmed, to the U.S. Air Corps First Fighter Command headquarters based in New York. Data gathered from multiple observation stations was used to track the movement of aircraft.

        With German U-boats lurking off the coast of southeast Florida  in 1942-43, there was a real fear in the Army's air command that the submarines might be assisted by enemy reconnaissance aircraft.

        AWS aircraft spotters were stationed on the roofs of the tallest office buildings in West Palm Beach, and on the Lake Worth Casino building. In Boca Raton, observers were stationed from dawn to dusk on a wooden tower built on the Red Reef beach.

        The AWS reporting stations were linked by telephone lines so volunteers could report suspicious aircraft or submarine sightings immediately.

        While the threat of German U-boats off Florida's coastline was proven by the loss of many ships, as the war progressed it became apparent that the Germans and Japanese lacked long-range bombers capable of raiding the U.S. mainland.

        Germany's only four-engine bomber was the Fw200 "Condor". The Condor was essentially a civilian airliner refitted for combat as a patrol bomber to sink allied shipping in the mid-Atlantic. 

        Prior to the war, a Condor made the first direct 4,000-mile flight from Berlin to New York City in August 1938. Ironically, the first generation of Condor airliners were powered by Pratt & Whitney engines purchased in America.

        There were no AWS reports of  bombing missions over the U.S. cities by the thin-skinned patrol bomber during World War II.

German Ju88 Bomber Buzzed the Palm Beaches

        However, in December 1943, three AWS spotters in West Palm Beach, Mr. and Mrs Merritt Smith and Mrs. Herbert Weiss, sent a "flash message" to the Army Air Corps by telephone. They correctly identified a German Ju88 light bomber flying over the Palm Beaches and reported its location.

        The Junkers Ju88 sighted by the observers was one of 15,000 twin-engined fighter-bombers built by Germany during the war. A Luftwaffe pilot decided to surrender by flying his Ju88 to an allied airfield. The aircraft, in perfect flying condition, was confiscated by the Army Air Corps and eventually transported to Morrison Field in West Palm Beach.

        The Army conducted a test flight over the Palm Beaches to evaluate the aircraft's strengths and weaknesses. The German crosses on the wings of the Ju88 were replaced by Army Air Corps stars. While the AWS volunteers correctly identified the Ju88 as an enemy plane flying over Palm Beach County, it was in fact piloted by an American.

    With the Germans and Japanese in full retreat, the U.S. Army disbanded the AWS in May 1944. The 14,000 observation posts in the United States were closed. The wooden AWS tower resting on Boca Raton's beach was dismantled in 1946.

(c.) Davidsson. 2021.

* NOTE: Article also was reprinted in the June 11, 2021 edition of the South Central Florida Life and the Okeechobee News. Read additional articles below and archived in Older Posts.