Saturday, December 5, 2020

The Seminole Tribe's Legacy in Palm Beach County

 By Bob Davidsson

        The Seminole village chieftain Cha-Chi faced a fateful decision on Nov. 7, 1841, one which would dictate and haunt the remainder of his life.

        Two days earlier Captain Richard Wade of the U.S. Third Artillery with a picked force of 60 solders in 12 dugout canoes embarked from Fort Lauderdale in response to reports of a Seminole hunting camp on the Hillsboro River. Wade surrounded and raided the camp, capturing 20 Indians and killing eight, shot while trying to escape.

        Cha-Chi was questioned by Captain Wade about the location of his main village. As he viewed the bodies of his eight dead villagers, the chieftain made the decision to guide the soldiers to his town with the promise that his mixed-race Spanish wife, Polly, and remaining villagers would be spared and protected.

        Cha-Chi knew he had little choice but to negotiate terms with the Army captain. The soldiers were everywhere, and his village was the last in the region that would later be called Palm Beach County.

        The Seminole tribe fought two battles along the Loxahatchee River in January 1838, then retreated into the Loxahatchee Slough. Trapped between two armies to the north and west, 527 Seminoles, mainly women and children, surrendered at the newly built stockade named Fort Jupiter.

        Lt. W.G. Freeman was the officer in charge of the captive Seminoles. Concerned by overcrowded conditions at Fort Jupiter, he escorted 100 detainees to Fort McRae on Lake Okeechobee until transports arrived to ship the Indians to St. Augustine.

        The great medicine chief and war leader Sam Jones (Abiaka) was forced to flee south into the Everglades to escape imprisonment at Fort Jupiter and deportation to Oklahoma by the U.S. Army.

        A few days after the Loxahatchee battles, Major William Lauderdale and his Tennessee Mounted Volunteers cleared a "Military Trail" from Fort Jupiter to Fort Dallas (Miami). Major Lauderdale failed to locate Cha-Chi's village, located just four miles to the east of his new road, but the chieftain knew his good fortune would not last.

        In his 1841 official report, Captain Wade wrote, "Under the guidance of an old Indian, found among our prisoners, who was called Chia-chee (Cha-Chi), I took up a line of march through nearly a mile of deep bog and saw grass, then through a pine barren and some hammock, to a cypress swamp, a distance of some 30 miles northward."

        "Here (on November 8) we were conducted to another village," Captain Wade reported, "which we surrounded and surprised, and captured 27 Indians, took six rifles and one shotgun, and destroyed a large quantity of provisions and four canoes. The next morning we set out on our return to the boats."

        Cha-Chi's village was located within the future city of West Palm Beach. Lt. Andrew A. Humphreys, Wade's topographical engineer, noted the Seminole settlement was located 12.5 miles south of Lake Worth Creek and 1.5 miles west of Lake Worth. The site was probably adjacent to the freshwater chain-of-lakes which today is just east of highway I-95.

        He wrote, "The site of this (town) is on a pretty island, bounded on the northward-east by a deep clear pond half a mile wide, and between a mile and a half and two miles long. On the west and south it is surounded by a grassy lake."

        "Six miles from the last haulover, on the west side of the lake (Lake Worth)," the topographer wrote, "is Cha-chi's Landing, a broad trail half a mile in length, formerly led from this place over a spruce scrub toward the villages of the Indians whose gardens were on the opposite shore of the lake, which they reached by hauling their canoes over the trail. "

        Reporting on the progress of his expedition, Captain Wade wrote, "Having seen much in the old man, Chia-chee, to inspire my confidence, I permitted him to go from our camp (on the Hillsboro River) to bring in other Indians, which he promised to do in three or four days. This promise was redeemed, having brought in six at Fort Lauderdale."

        By compiling the total number of Indians captured, killed or surrendering before and after Wade's raid, Cha-chi's town had a population of at least 61 Seminoles at the time of its capture in November 1841.

        Wade was rewarded for the raid on Cha-chi's village, and the capture of 53 Seminoles during his campaign, with a promotion to the rank of major. Lt. George H. Thomas, Wade's second in command and a future Civil War general, was promoted to a brevet first lieutenant. 

        Lt. William Tecumseh Sherman, who also was stationed at Fort Lauderdale at the time of Wade's raid, boasted to his family in a letter written in November 1841 that their regiment (the U.S. Third Artillery) "caught more Indians and destroyed more property in a fair method than the rest of the army."

        As a result of Wade's two expeditions along Lake Worth (called "Hypoluxo" in the Muscogee dialect) there were few if any Indians remaining in eastern Palm Beach County by the war's end in 1842. As for Cha-Chi, also known as "George or Old Georgy," he continued to serve as a guide for the military.

        He guided Navy Capt. John T McLaughlin's "Mosquito Fleet" along the coastal waters of South Florida. Cha-Chi also led Capt. John Rogers Vinton of the U.S. Third Artillery from Fort Lauderdale back to the western shore of Lake Worth in 1842 during a futile search for medicine chief Sam Jones.

        After the war, the Army kept its word and allowed Cha-Chi and his family to remain in Florida. He moved to the Manatee community in Hillsborough County. He even received an executive order from Florida Gov. Thomas Brown (1848 - 1853) on Oct. 12, 1852, protecting the former chieftain from his enemies both white and native American.

      The order stated, "Whereas it has been presented to me by a petition of a number of citizens of the County of Hillsborough that a certain Indian of the tribe of Seminoles now in Florida by the name of 'Chi' and his wife have been outlawed by their tribe for the offense of acting as a guide to the United States troops during the period of Indian hostilities in Florida, and that the faith of the general government has been pledged for the protection of the said Chi and his wife. Now know Ye that the faith of the state of Florida is hereby extended for the protection of Chi and his wife..."

        Cha-chi was awarded a bag containing $100 in coins for his service to the military. Despite the protection of a state proclamation, Cha-Chi continued to live in fear of reprisals by members of his own tribe. After the outbreak of the Third Seminole War, he took his own life.

        On June 6, 1856, Lt. Alex S. Webb wrote in his journal: "I forgot to mention the death of Corporal Manning of my company, (and) of Chi the Indian. Chi committed suicide. He evidently felt that he was neither Indian nor white, and he got himself out of this world to avoid meeting parties of Indian scouts."

The Cow Creek Band of Seminoles: 1835 - 1930

        By the end of the Second Seminole War in August 1842, the geographical area that became Palm Beach County was nearly devoid of permanent native American villages and camp sites until the arrival of a second wave of Seminole migration.

        What became a branch of the Cow Creek Band of the Seminole nation traces its origins to the Florida-Georgia border, northeast of Tallahassee, in the late 18th century. During the First Seminole War (1817-18), this Muscogee-speaking band of Seminoles were forced south of the Suwannee River by General Andrew Jackson's invasion of Spanish Florida.

        The band of Seminoles, under the leadership of Chipco (Echo Emathla Chopco), settled northeast of Tampa Bay in Pasco County. To their misfortune, the village was near the line of march of Major Francis Dade and his U.S. Army command in 1835.

        Chipco joined other Seminole leaders in ambushing the two U.S. Army companies. Major Dade and 100 soldiers under his command were killed in the so-called "Dade Massacre," an event that marked the beginning of the Second Seminole War (1835 - 1842).

        During and after the Seminole wars, Chipco and his followers lived a nomadic existence, frequently moving their camps in Central and South Florida to avoid capture and deportation to Oklahoma. These wanderings were traced by Prof. James Covington in a report titled "Federal and State Relations with the Florida Seminoles: 1875 -1901."

        "The band led by Chipco did a considerable amount of moving about in the Florida wilderness during this period," he reported. "Chipco's band lived in the cypress swamps north of Lake Okeechobee until 1866, when it moved to the Kissimmee River Valley. The band moved again in 1872-73 to Lake Pierce located northeast of Lake Wales in Polk County, but migrated from there in 1885 to Lake Rosalie."  

        Chief Tallahassee succeeded Chipco as leader of his band of Cow Creek Seminoles after the death of his uncle in 1881. Under his leadership, the tribal band increased to 30 "clans" or extended families. Each clan encampment was led by its senior matriarch and had its own totem or natural symbol - such as panther, wind or snake.

       A male warrior married into the clan of his wife. For example, when Chief Tallahassee married Martha Tiger he became part of her Tiger (i.e. Wildcat) Clan or extended family. Martha Tiger's brother, Tom Tiger (Tustenuggee), would later leave her clan when he married into the Snake Clan.

        Under pressure from new settlers and ranchers in Central Florida during the late 1880s, the Cow Creek Band of Seminoles, led by Chief Tallahassee, moved east of Lake Okeechobee into the Bluefield and Hungryland region of Palm Beach County. They also settled near a popular trading site on high ground that became known as "Indiantown".

        Beginning in the 1890s, the U.S. government began acquiring parcels that became the nucleus of federal trust lands held for the Seminoles until the reservations were established. The so-called "Indiantown Reservation" of the early 20th century was on public land. It was actually 2,000 acres of land held in trust for use by the Seminoles.

        Upon the death of Chief Tallahassee, his brother-in-law, Tom Tiger, assumed a leadership role in the Cow Creek Band. He married Mary Tiger (i.e. Mary Tustenuggee), matriarch of the Snake Clan, which settled about four miles from Indiantown in the 1890s, and thus he also became part of her extended family.

        As a young man, Tom Tiger fought in the Third Seminole War (1855-58). However, after the war he became a valued friend to American settlers in southeast Florida. Tom Tiger had an endless curiosity about his new neighbors and their many strange inventions. He would often make unexpected visits to West Palm Beach, Stuart and Fort Pierce to trade or just observe what was happening in the growing communities.

        When a farmer stole one of his horses, advocates for Tom Tiger went to court for justice. It became the first case of a member of Seminole tribe seeking redress in a Florida court of law.

        Tom Tiger was struck by lightning and died while carving a dugout canoe near Big Mound City in Palm Beach County. Members of his clan buried him under the canoe. In 1907 an amateur archaeologist from Pennsylvania convinced a guide to take him to the grave site. He stole Tom Tiger's bones and tried to sell them to the Smithsonian Institute. When that failed, he placed them on public display in his home state.

        The Cow Creek Band was outraged by the theft with a few warriors threatening to start a "Fourth Seminole War" unless the remains were returned to Florida. In what became one of first federal acts of repatriation of native American remains, Tom Tiger's bones were soon returned. His clan buried his remains in an undisclosed site.

        In another notable legal case involving members of the Cow Creek Band, DeSoto Tiger of the Snake Clan was killed in December 1911 by John Ashley, leader of the notorious Ashley Gang. Ashley robbed him of his otter pelts valued at $1,200. He was brought to trial four years later in March 1915.

        Two members of the Seminole tribe, Wilson Cypress and Henry Clay, attended the court hearing in West Palm Beach to witness if justice was served. Ironically, they were arrested and charged with illegal possession of protected Everglades bird plumes.

        Ashley cut a deal with the State of Florida to plead guilty to a lesser charge of  robbery instead of murder. He soon escaped from jail and continued his crime spree for another nine years.

        DeSoto Tiger was the brother of Ada Tiger, who became the matriarch of the Snake Clan after the death of her mother, Mary Tiger Tustenuggee. Their brother, Jimmy Gopher, was the medicine chief of the Snake Clan. 

        Ada Tiger's daughter, Betty Mae Tiger Jumper (Potackee), was born in April 1923 in Indiantown. Later in her life she was elected as the first chairwoman of the "Seminole Tribe of Florida" from 1967-71. She died in 2011. Betty Mae's brother, Howard Tiger (born in 1925), became the first member of the Seminole nation to enlist for service in World War II. 

        The Snake Clan prospered during the first quarter of 20th century on land set aside for the tribe near Indiantown. By the year 1926, Ada Tiger was raising a herd of 100 cattle on the open range.

        Another important member of the Seminole tribe, who lived part of his childhood in a temporary camp near Indiantown, was Billy Osceola (1920-74). He became the first elected chief of the Seminole Tribe of Florida after its reorganization in 1957. He died Aug. 1, 1974 in Boynton Beach.

        When Palm Beach County was established in 1909, it included what later became Martin County and the southern third of Okeechobee County. Several Seminole camps were located in Palm Beach County, including the Indiantown "reservation," according to a report published by the U.S. Department of the Interior in 1932 titled as a "Survey of the Seminole Indians of Florida".

        The detailed 90-page document provided a final social, demographic and economic profile of the Seminole tribe in the 1920s, before the reservation system was established in Florida. The author was Roy Nash, the U.S. government's "Special Commissioner to Negotiate with the Indians," who spent several years compiling information about the tribe.

        The document was first presented to Congress in 1930 as a "Report to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs Concerning Conditions Among the Seminole Indians of Florida." Among the findings, Nash and other Indian agents reported a total population of 578 Seminoles living in Florida, of which 125 lived in 12 camps located east of Lake Okeechobee from St. Lucie County south to Loxahatchee Farms in Palm Beach County.

        The main threat to the health of the Seminole nation in the 1920s was malaria. The survey reported there were 279 cases in the 10-year period between 1921-30, impacting nearly 50 percent of the tribe.

        Most Seminole villages in the 1920s still consisted of the traditional open-air, palm-thatched "chickees" (a Muscogee word for home). Fertile Everglades hammocks were used as agricultural sites each spring to plant corn, pumpkins and potatoes. The tribe's main source of outside income in the 1920s was the fur trade.

        The 1930 survey estimated the Seminole tribe's annual income as $38,145. The fur trade accounted for $25,000, with native arts and crafts earning $8,945. The Cow Creek Band sold its raccoon furs, otter pelts, deer buckskin and alligator hides to agents in Canal Point, Okeechobee City, and occasionally along the coastal cities. Canal Point agent J.E. Carter, for example, earned an average of $6,000 to $7,000 annually from the Seminole fur trade with his associate in Arcadia, FL.

        The Seminole village sites in the 1920s were mainly located on public land, but a few such as the Loxahatchee Farms camp, were allowed on private property with the consent of the landowners. According to the survey, Ella Montgomery enticed Charlie Cypress and his family to abandoned their home in the Big Cypress Swamp and move to Loxahatchee Farms with a gift of a Ford automobile.

        Ms. Montgomery, related by marriage to U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Edward Douglass White (1910-21), was one of many well-meaning citizens and organizations in Florida that sought to help the Seminole tribe.  Charlie Cypress, age 55, was born in 1875 and head of the household that built their camp adjoining the Montgomery home just 10 miles west of West Palm Beach, according to the 1930 Census.

        The draining of the Everglades for agricultural use in the early 20th century damaged the natural habitat traditionally used by the Seminole tribe for hunting and as a food harvesting resource.

       The Florida "Land Boom" of the 1920s, together with the opening of first official Seminole Reservation in Dania, FL, placed additional pressure on the tribe to abandon their traditional way of life. Such was the sad case of the Snake Clan of Indiantown.

The Forced Removal of the 'Snake Clan': 1926.

        Captain Lucien A. Spencer, special commissioner and Indian agent for the Seminole tribe in southeast Florida from 1913-27, was determined to relocate members of Cow Creek Band from their remote camps in Palm Beach and Martin counties to the new Dania Seminole Reservation, the first of its kind to open in 1926.

        He arrived in Florida as a Baptist missionary with the title of "The Rev. Lucien Spencer". As the new special commissioner, he viewed his mission as one to enlighten the Seminoles with the twin virtues of the American education system and the Christian faith.

        The Rev. Spencer joined a Florida National Guard regiment sent to the Texas border in 1916 to protect U.S. settlements from raids by Pancho Villa and other Mexican revolutionaries. When he returned to Florida, the Indian agent no longer used the title of "Reverend". He became "Captain Spencer" to both friend and foe.

        The main target of his reservation relocation plan was the Snake Clan, the wealthiest and most influential extended family unit in the Cow Creek Band. Snake Clan matriarch Ada Tiger and medicine chief Jimmy Gopher converted to Christianity in 1920 when a native American team of Oklahoma Creek Southern Baptist missionaries visited their camp.

        Captain Spencer assumed the Snake Clan leaders would willingly move to the Dania Reservation since it offered both an Indian school and church. He was wrong. Both the Snake Clan and its larger Cow Creek Band of Seminoles opposed the removal of tribal members to Broward County.

        In response, Captain Spencer later wrote, "The Indian camp I was preparing to move here (to Dania) refused to come on the account of the above (Cow Creek Band) interference, and I properly cut off their ration supply."

        "At the end of three weeks of starvation, they moved here and placed their children in school," the Indian agent reported. The Snake Clan's Indiantown camp was closed.

        Captain Spencer's inhumane action against the Snake Clan was noted by Roy Nash in his survey, and is reported in the Congressional Record, U.S. Senate Document 314, 71st Congress, 3rd Session.

        Most of the Cow Creek Seminoles living east of Lake Okeechobee relocated to the 36,600-acre Brighton Reservation after it opened in 1938 in Glades County. Others moved to the new Fort Pierce Reservation. The 2010 Census recorded 694 Seminoles living in Brighton.

        In the well-meaning but inaccurate conclusion to his 1930 survey, Special Commissioner Roy Nash wrote, "Fifty years hence no one will question that Seminole Indians are full-fledged citizens of Florida. Seminoles each standing tall on his own feet will have become Floridians. The original American, now a social outcast, will again be an American."

        In historical hindsight, the conclusion should have said despite three wars, forced deportations and decades of government mismanagement, today the Seminole nation continues to survive and thrive in Florida.  

(c.) Davidsson. 2020.  

*NOTE: A copy of this article was published in the Dec. 20 South Central Florida Life section of the Okeechobee News.  Additional articles are indexed and archived below and in Older Posts.

Saturday, October 24, 2020

The Jupiter Inlet in Spanish Colonial History

By Bob Davidsson

        For nearly 300 years the Jupiter Inlet was a region of constant concern to the royal governors in St. Augustine and the Empire of Spain.

        The inlet and its Loxahatchee River estuary was a hideout and source of firewood and water supplies used by passing privateers and pirates, invaders and colonial rivals in 1565, 1627-28 and during Queen Anne's War from 1702-13.

        Spanish governors devised several plans to fortify the inlet and thus deny its use by their colonial enemies. They all failed. This article documents those efforts with the reports and pleas for help forwarded by Florida officials to Spain's Council of the Indies.*

        The location of the Jupiter Inlet made it a popular but dangerous port-of-call for passing sailing vessels making the long journey back to Europe. The powerful Gulf Stream current, used by mariners for centuries, made its nearest approach to the Florida coastline by this outlet to the sea.

        Along the south shore of the inlet was the ancient shell mound and Jeaga Indian village of Hobe. The midden served as a navigation marker to passing ships, leading them to the estuary and its natural resources to supply their vessels.

        During his voyage of discovery  to Florida in 1513, Juan Ponce de Leon anchored his small fleet of three ships outside of the Jupiter Inlet. His flagship, the "Santa Maria de Consolacion," and the caravel "Santiago" waited at the inlet for the delayed arrival of their brigantine, the "Cristobal," which had been swept north by the Gulf Stream. Antonio de Herrera, the 16th century Spanish court historian, wrote what happened next.

        "He went out from there to the river where they gathered water and firewood, waiting for the 'bergantine' (Cristobal)," he scribed. "Sixty Indians went there to hinder him. One of them was taken for a pilot so he might learn their language. He gave to this river the name 'La Cruz' (the cross) and he left by it a cross of stone with an inscription on it  and they left oft taking on water because it was brackish."

        The "Cristobal" rejoined Ponce de Leon's fleet on May 8. The three ships sailed a short distance to the south, to the easternmost point of the island of Palm Beach, where the explorer accurately described the island and nearby Gulf Stream as the "Cabo de Corrientes" (the cape of currents).

        During the 16th century, Palm Beach was an unbroken barrier island extending nearly 40 miles from the Jupiter Inlet south to the Boca Raton Inlet.

        The historian Herrera reported, "They came upon and anchored behind a cape, close to a village named Aboioa. All this coast , from Pinta de Arrafices until this Cabo de Corrientes runs north-south to the southeast, and the water is clear with a depth of six fathoms."

        It was a search for water and firewood that drew the ill-fated fleet of French Admiral Jean Ribault to the Jupiter Inlet during the summer of 1565. While restocking his supplies, he rescued a shipwrecked Basque seaman named Vizcaino (the Biscayan) who was a captive and eventually adopted into the Ais tribe. For the next two years Vizcaino would serve as an interpreter of coastal dialects for first the French and then the Spanish in Florida.

        Ribault was making the long voyage from France to relieve the French colony at Fort Caroline on the St. John's River. As fate would have it, his arrival coincided with that of the new Spanish proprietary governor of Florida, Pedro Menendez de Aviles. Ribault's fleet was shattered by a tropical storm as he sailed south to destroy the hastily-built Spanish settlement of St. Augustine.

        The events that followed would lead to Spain's most determined effort to establish a settlement near the Jupiter Inlet. 

Rise and Fall of Fort Santa Lucia de Padua: 1565-66

        In the late autumn of 1565, a small brigantine entered the Jupiter Inlet. Aboard the vessel was Juan Velez de Medrano, captain-general of Spain's army in Florida. He also was recently assigned the post of lieutenant governor of the "Province of Ais" by Menendez when the Spanish governor sailed to Cuba for supplies and more soldiers.

        Velez was one of the officers leading the attack on the French outpost of Fort Caroline. But now, two months later, his army was starving and in mutiny at the "Port of Ais," 30 miles north of Jupiter Inlet along the Indian River.

        In a whirlwind two-month campaign, Menendez founded the town of St. Augustine and destroyed the rival French colony at Fort Caroline. He murdered his rival Jean Ribault and two groups of shipwrecked survivors at Matanzas Inlet, then marched his army south and captured a third party of 70 French castaways at their makeshift fort on Cape Canaveral.

        Instead of returning to the poorly provisioned settlement of St. Augustine, Menendez continued his march south with 300 soldiers to "Jece," the main village of the Ais Indians. He forwarded his plan of action to King Phillip II on October 15, 1565.

        The Spanish Adelantado (governor) wrote," I shall place there (at Ais and Tekesta) 150 Spaniards, for they are needed to keep watch over the Indians, who are very warlike, until the Spaniards have gained their goodwill."

        Menendez failed to gain the goodwill of the native tribes of South Florida. After the governor sailed to Cuba, the Ais cut off the garrison of 250 Spaniards and 50 French prisoners of war at the Port of Ais, (located near Fort Pierce), from their distant base at St. Augustine.

        About 100 members of the starving garrison, led by a foot soldier named Escobar, deserted the outpost in a forlorn hope of signaling a passing ship. They were trapped on the north shore of the St. Lucie Inlet.

        Velez sailed to the Jupiter Inlet to find a better location to provision his army among less hostile natives. He selected an undisclosed site a few miles north of the Jeaga village of Hobe in the Jupiter Narrows. Unknown to Velez, the Jeaga were allies of the larger Ais tribe to the north.

        Several years later in 1574, Pedro Menendez-Marques, the nephew of the Spanish governor, would observe, "There are captives in the power of the cacique called Ays (Ais), who is father-in-law of said Jega (Jeaga)."

        Velez sailed back to the Port of Ais, and with the opportune assistance of a relief ship under the command of Captain Diego de Amaya, transported the garrison and surviving mutineers to the Jupiter Inlet. Contemporary Spanish historian Bartolome Barrientos detailed the fate of the Spanish garrison at the Santa Lucia outpost.

        "During the next eight days the Spaniards built a fort  in which they set up their defense" Barrientos wrote. As their answer to this, the Indians attacked 1,000 strong, discharging their arrows without cessation, they fought for four hours, during which 6,000 arrows fell in the fort."

        During an 1574 inquiry, Juan de Soto, a soldier in the Santa Lucia garrison, testified, "As to the Xega (Jeaga), he knows that these Indians have slain many Spaniards in the district they call Santa Lucia, where a company was garrisoned, and they killed in such numbers that those alive were forced to leave and abandoned the fort because the Indians were persecuting and killing them every day."

        In similar testimony, Diego Lopez, an artilleryman at Santa Lucia, reported of the estimated 236 men defending Santa Lucia no more than 60 or 70 survived. When the caravel "Ascencion" arrived at the Jupiter Inlet with supplies for the garrison in March 1566, it sparked a second mutiny by the desperate soldiers. Gonzalo Solis de Meras, the brother-in-law of Menendez, reported on the event.

        "Because Juan Velez wished to prevent this, they tried to kill but wounded him, and (Gabriel) Ayala, his ensign, who was likewise preventing them making off with the caravel; and they all embarked upon her and were on their way to Havana."

        Menendez intercepted the "Ascencion" and the Santa Lucia garrison near the Florida Keys, and continued his voyage to St. Augustine. The fort of Santa Lucia was deserted, and its exact location remains a mystery in the year 2020.

The Rescue Mission to Santa Lucia: 1622

        In September 1622, the annual treasure fleet (the Flota) from Havana was overdue. St. Augustine was the last friendly Spanish port before making the dangerous journey across the north Atlantic. A concerned Governor Juan de Salinas (1618-24) received reports from Indians of ship debris washing up along the southeast coast of Florida.

        Unknown to Governor Salinas, the fleet was scattered by a hurricane north of Cuba, with the galleons "Atocha" and "Rosario" sinking on a reef south of the Florida Keys after being battered by wind and waves. In response to this disaster, Salinas sent two reconnaissance patrols to southeast Florida in search of shipwrecked survivors from the overdue treasure fleet.

        In a 1623 report to the Council of the Indies, Governor Salinas wrote, "About the month of September (1622) some remains of ships were found on the coast that indicated shipwreck and loss of same. And soon thereafter I had word from the Indians of the coast of Jega (Jupiter Inlet) and Santa Lucia that many others have come to grief on this coast."

        "This caused me notable concern," the governor reported, "and grief because of its being time for the Galleons and fleet (Flota) to be coming through that channel. I sent the sergeant-major, Gabira, to the point with 40 soldiers so that he might search along these (coasts) and collect whatever he might find on them."

        When Sergeant-Major Gabira failed to find any shipwrecks, Governor Salinas decided to lead an expedition in person to the territory of the Ais and Jeaga Indians at Santa Lucia.

        "It appeared to be appropriate that I should make this investigation," the concerned governor wrote. "I did so. I reached as far as Santa Lucia, which is the farthest I was able to go, hunting all over them without finding anything of importance or anything else other than broken chests of rotting tobacco and three shallops (canoes)."

        The narrative of Governor Salinas emphasized the ongoing concern in St. Augustine of shipwrecks along the Florida coastline, and the need for an outpost in the Santa Lucia region to recover cargos and assist survivors. Just five years later, the arrival of squadrons of Dutch privateers along the Treasure Coast's estuaries would heighten this anxiety.

The "80 Years' War" Comes to Jupiter Inlet: 1627-28

        In the year 1627, the United Provinces of the Netherlands and the Spanish Hapsburg empire were engaged in the 59th year of the Dutch War of Independence, a conflict known as the "80 Years' War" (1568-1648).

        The Dutch West Indies Company, created in 1621, expanded the war to Florida and the Caribbean by licensing privateers to prey on Spanish shipping. Through of use of captured charts, its merchant-directors were well aware of routes used by Spanish silver fleets from Mexico, known as the "Flota," and convoys carrying gold from South America, the "Galleones".

        Fearful of Dutch raids along the unguarded southeast coast of Florida, Governor Luis de Rojas y Borja (1624-29) wisely recommended a fortified outpost at Jupiter Inlet in his Feb. 13, 1627 "Letter from the Governor of Florida to His Majesty.".

        "I should warn and advise your Majesty to build a fort at the bar (Jupiter Inlet)," the worried governor wrote, " at a place they call Jega (Jeaga), it being a place where vessels all come to cast anchor when they want to take on water, wood and wait for merchant ships they wish to capture."

        "A fort at this place would act as a sentinel and guard against their landing and helping themselves," Governor Rojas warned. "It would be well to have it in case of vessels being wrecked upon the coast, as many are, to be able to rescue and save the crews and passengers, who so often perish."

        The governor's sage advice was ignored by the king and his court, with disastrous consequences for the Kingdom of Spain. 

        In the spring of 1627, Spanish Captain-General Tomas Larraspuru sighted a fleet of 13 Dutch warships in the Florida Straits while escorting a convoy of ships to Havana. The Dutch privateers, under the command of Piet Heyn (1577-1629), remained in Cuban waters until July, capturing prizes and charting the coastline for future raids. Larraspuru reported 55 vessels were boarded by Dutch "pirates" in 1627.

        On their return voyage to Holland, the 13 Dutch ships anchored offshore of the Indian River Inlet and occupied the nearby Ais village of  Jece as a temporary base. A courier ship from St. Augustine observed the Dutch squadron at anchor and reported its presence. Governor Rojas mustered a force of 150 Spaniards and 300 Indians and marched to the Treasure Coast.

        In his 1628 report, Governor Rojas wrote, "And they (the Indians) have come to give me the news that there were enemy on the coast. And on two occasions, when they landed to obtain water, they abandoned their places and withdrew into the woods and others came to give the report and ask for help."

        The Dutch had already departed on their voyage home when Governor Rojas and his small army arrived at the Ais village.

        The profitable 1627 expedition financed the sailing of four separate squadrons by the Dutch West Indies Company the following year, led by Captains Pieter Adriaanszoon Ita, Witt de With, Joost Benckert and the return of Piet Heyn. Their targets were the Spanish treasure fleets.

        Captain Ita arrived first off the coast of Cuba. His squadron captured the Spanish galleon "Remedios" after a spirited fight. They tried to sail the badly damaged galleon back to Holland, but were forced to scuttle the "Remedios" northeast of Jupiter Island after removing its treasure.

        Piet Heyn gathered 31 Dutch warships near Hispaniola on July 27, 1628 and sailed for the Florida Straits. He surprised the Cadiz-bound Spanish silver fleet at anchor in the Bay of Matanzas, Cuba, on Sept. 9.

       The Flota's commander, Captain-General Juan de Benevides, fled to the mainland, and his fleet surrendered after token resistance. The 17 ships captured in Matanzas Bay yielded a silver haul valued at 11.9 million guilders. The victory marked the only time an entire Spanish treasure fleet was captured.

        Piet Heyn's combined Dutch fleet assembled one last time off Florida's Treasure Coast for refitting then set sail for Holland on Sept. 30. To the relief of Spanish officials in St. Augustine, the Dutch fleets never returned to Florida. However, the loss of the silver Flota forced Spain to declare bankruptcy for the remainder of 1628.

Shipwrecks and Captive Indian Divers: 1650-1700

        During the Spanish colonial period, as it is today, the Jupiter Inlet, known as the "Rio Jobe" in the 17th century, was often a danger to mariners due to strong tides and currents, as well as shifting sand bars.

        On April 2, 2013, the Town of Jupiter Historical Resources Board dedicated an historical marker entitled "Jupiter Inlet Shipwrecks" at Jupiter Beach Park as a memorial to vessels lost near the inlet during the 17th and 18th centuries.

       Two of the sailing vessels memorialized after sinking near the inlet were the avisos "San Miguel de Archangel" (1652)  and the "San Francisco y San Antonio" (1657). Avisos, also called "presidio boats," were courier ships used to carry important correspondence or special cargos. They were small, well-armed, and could out sail larger pursuing warships.

        Supplies and artifacts salvaged from shipwrecks near the Jupiter Inlet were distributed along the Jeaga's two primary trade routes in Palm Beach County. The first extended south to villages along the Rio Jeaga (Lake Worth) to the northernmost towns of the Tekesta nation on the Rio Secor (Spanish River) and Hillsboro River located near the Boca Raton Inlet.

         The second native trade route followed the Loxahatchee River to its headwaters, then passed through the Loxahatchee and Hungryland sloughs to the Guacata (Santaluces) and Maymi tribes of Lake Okeechobee.

        By the late 17th century, English pirates and privateers often patrolled the Treasure Coast in search of shipwrecks to salvage, and to kidnap native Americans from the coastal tribes to use as divers on the sunken vessels. Florida Governor Diego de Quiroga y Losada (1687-91) was aware of these illegal activities and forwared his recommendation to the Council of the Indies.

        "It is necessary to increase a lookout of five men 10 leagues from here at Mosquito Inlet to the south of this port," the governor wrote, "where the enemy enters with his vessels and landed men in the year 1683, and where he goes to kidnap Indians for divers."

        Expressing a similar concern, British Governor Thomas Lynch of Jamaica wrote a letter of complaint to Captain-General Robert Clarke, governor of New Providence (the Bahamas) about lawless behavior along the southeast coast of Florida.

        His letter stated, "It is known that your islands are peopled by men who are intent rather on pillaging Spanish wrecks than planting, that they carry on their work by Indians kipnapped or entrapped on the coast of Florida, and that all the violence you complain of arises only from disputes about these wrecks from what the English and the French have driven the Spaniards contrary to natural right."

       The English governor concludes, "The sea ought to be free, and the wrecks are the Spaniards."

        The British barkentine "Reformation" was shipwrecked on Jupiter Island in 1696 while on a voyage from Jamaica to Philadelphia. Quaker merchant Jonathan Dickinson, who chartered the vessel, and his fellow passengers and crew were held captive by the Jeaga and Ais Indians for nearly two months. 

        While a captive, Dickinson observed in his journal; "There was a man of this town who some years past had been taken off by some of our English ships for a diver on a wreck to the eastward of Cuba, where he was for some time, but the vessel putting into Cuba for water, this Indian swam ashore and got to Havana, thence to St. Augustine and to his native village."

        After the year 1702 the issue of kidnapping Indians to salvage shipwrecks became a mute point. The Jeaga and other coastal tribes were decimated during an international war not of their making.

The Demise of the Jeaga Indians at Jupiter Inlet: 1702-13

        The European "War of Spanish Succession" came to Spanish Florida as part of its colonial counterpart - "Queen Anne's War".  It opened in 1702 with a failed attempt by the governor of South Carolina to capture the "Castillo de San Marcos" fortress in St. Augustine. The same year the British and their Indian allies began targeting Florida's native tribes.

        In his March 25, 1702 report to the Spanish War Council, Governor Jose de Zuniga y Zerda (1699-1706) outlined measures needed for the defense of the embattled colony of Florida, including defensive proposals for the Indians of southeast coast.

        Governor Zuniga recommended, "The sixth chapter sets forth the benefits which would accrue to the service of God and the king from the construction of a blockhouse in the village of Ais, which lies on the coast of the Bahamas Channel, and the assignment there of a garrison, officers, a corporal, and two Franciscan friars to teach the Christian doctrine to the heathen Indians."

        "This project would make it possible for the soldiers to report quickly on disasters to ships of the Indies along the coast, and guard those which were in distress, while at the same time Christianity would be extended under sufficient safeguard," his report concluded.

        The Spanish War Council issued its response on Jan. 3, 1703. Governor Zuniga was directed to "attempt the conversion of the Ais Indians to the Christian faith." As to his request for a fortified blockhouse, the council replied "the king was to determine what was most suitable."

        No further action was taken by the Kingdom of Spain to protect the native tribes of southeast Florida from British raiders and their Creek and Yemassee Indian allies.

        The architect of the British and Indian raids in southeast Florida was Capt. Thomas Nairne, the Indian Agent of South Carolina, who led the first raid. Historian Marjorie Stoneman Douglas, the author of "Florida: The Long Frontier," wrote a descriptive summary of the impact of these slave raids.

        "A Captain Thomas Nairne, with his warlike Yemassee Indians, took slaves from the Ais and Jeaga and as far south as Biscayne Bay, where they captured the last Tequestas, and southwest, almost the last Calusas," she wrote.

        "Many died of hunger as the gangs (Indian slaves) were driven north. Some escaped to the Everglades or down to the Keys. An epidemic of measles killed hundreds in what would become Key West."

        By July 1708, Captain Nairne observed, "Your lordship (the Earl of Sunderland) may perceive by the map that the garrison of St. Augustine is now reduced to bare walls, their cattle and Indian tribes all consumed either by us in our invasion of that place or by our Indian subjects."

        In his Jan. 14, 1708 "Letter to His Majesty," Governor Francisco de Corcoles y Martinez (1706-16) reported on the dire impacts of the war in South Florida.

        "Nothing of all this has sufficed to prevent the enemy from his constant killings and hostilities," the governor wrote, "which since the siege (of St. Augustine) they are doing, departing from the Indian villages bordering on the Carolinas, being aided by the English with guns, ammunition, cutlasses and pistols, and even being accompanied by some English who urge, incite and encourage them to these assaults, until they have desolated the entire mainland and the coast to the south and of Carlos (the Calusa)."

        In a 1708 publication called "A Memorial to Charles Spenser, Earl of Sunderland," Captain Nairne boasted, "It is certain we have firm possession by means of our Indians, from Charles Town to Mobile Bay, excepting only the garrison of St. Augustine and the islands of Cape Florida (the Florida Keys)."

        Under pressure from Yemassee and Creek raiders, the remnant Jeaga tribe deserted the Jupiter Inlet and fled south to the Florida Keys. The last "Cacique of Jove" (Jeaga) requested Cuban sanctuary in 1711.

        Captain Luis Perdomo arrived in the Florida Keys with two ships. He found 2,000 desperate native American refugees waiting for transport. A total of 270 Jeaga, Tequesta and other South Florida natives were shipped to Cuba. The Jeaga cacique and 200 of the Florida Indians died within a few years from diseases and hardship.

       There was no further need for Spain to build an outpost at the Jupiter Inlet. It was a deserted wilderness by the end of Queen Anne's War.

        Spain awarded a 12,000-acre land grant in 1815 to Eusebio Maria Gomez, a St. Augustine clerk and city defender during the "Patriot War of 1812," for his services to the Spanish crown. It included land "on a river and island known by the name of Jupiter and Saint Lucia," according to the legal description.. The land granted to Gomez was not settled until after the end of the Spanish colonial period. 

        The Jupiter Inlet began a new chapter in its history when it became part of the United States in 1821. It is a long history with roots in its Spanish colonial and native American past. 

(c.) Davidsson. 2020.

*NOTE: This article also is posted on the Town of Jupiter's Historical Timeline web page. Additional articles are archived below and in Older Posts. 

Friday, September 4, 2020

Figulus, Bingham Island and the Audubon Preserve

By Bob Davidsson

         Located midway across the Lake Worth Lagoon, between the "Billionnaire's Row" in Palm Beach and assorted McMansions along South Flagler Drive in West Palm Beach, are six islets preserved exclusively for the birds and wildlife of South Florida.

         To early pioneers in Palm Beach County the heavily wooded islets were known generically as the "Mangrove Islands". They were identified collectively as the "Bingham Islands" in 1893 after the property was purchased by Charles W. Bingham (1846 - 1929).

        The islands also became the "Audubon Islands Sanctuary" on Nov. 23, 1942 when the Bingham, Bolton and Blossom families, descendants of Charles Bingham, leased the land to the Audubon Society as a natural preserve for 99 years until Oct. 31, 2041.

        Today the islands fall within the jurisdiction of the Town of Palm Beach. The Future Land Use Element of the Palm Beach Comprehensive Plan designates the Bingham Islands as "Conservation intended to preserve and protect unique natural areas from development and negative impacts of public use. No urban development is permitted."

        The islands encompass 22 acres of land in the Lake Worth Lagoon. Along the north end of the largest island a fence separates the sanctuary from the Marjorie Merriweather Post Causeway and two Southern Boulevard (SR 80) bridges connecting the island of Palm Beach to the mainland.

        The islands feature native vegetation such as gumbo limbo, paradise, mastic, buttonwood, ironwood, cabbage palms and crabwood trees. Herons and ospreys are year-round residents of the sanctuary, and seasonal visitors such as turkey vultures flock to the islands nightly during the winter months to roost.

        In December 2018, Audubon Florida and local supporters of the sanctuary, with the approval of the Town of Palm Beach, completed the first of three restoration phases designed to remove invasive plant species such as Brazilian peppers and Australian pines. The goal is to restore the Audubon Islands Sanctuary to a natural state as it appeared to Seminole Indians and early pioneers in the 19th century.

Figulus, the Potters and the Bingham Family

        What became the Audubon Islands Sanctuary was within the unincorporated community of "Figulus" (Latin for Potter) between the years 1881 and 1893. The community was founded by brothers George W. Potter and Dr. Richard Potter of Cincinnati.*

        In December 1873, the brothers moved to the rough-and-tumble village of Lemon City in Dade County. Seeking a  more tranquil homestead, George Potter visited the island of Palm Beach in 1881 and purchased a tract consisting of 160 acres, including 2,000 feet of ocean front property, the six islands in the Lake Worth Lagoon, and a small plot of land on the opposite shore of the mainland.

        The second post office to open on the island of Palm Beach was established Jan. 7, 1886 by the Potters in Figulus with Dr. Potter as its first postmaster. The Potters purchased a schooner as their primary means of transport for mail service and trade along the 20-mile Lake Worth Lagoon.

        The Potter family also built a dock connecting Figulus to the Mangrove Islands to the west. It was same site selected for three future bridges connecting Palm Beach with West Palm Beach.

        The community of Figulus came to an end in 1893 when Cleveland, Ohio, investor Charles Bingham purchased the property from the Potter family.  The investment was made on the advice of his friend and neighbor in the wealthy Euclid district of Cleveland - Henry Flagler.

        Charles and Mary Payne Bingham were an Ohio power couple, making their fortune  through major financial holdings in the Standard Oil Company. Their goal was to create a winter retreat in Palm Beach for their ailing son. They built the shingle-style Figulus "Bingham-Blossom House" mansion on the property for their seasonal visits.

        Beginning in 1919, Charles Bingham subdivided the former Figulus property among the Bingham-Blossom-Bolton family heirs.  Their six islets in the Lake Worth Lagoon appeared on county maps and atlases as Bingham Island.

        The north end of Bingham Island was used to build a causeway and the two original bridges connecting the southern ends of Palm Beach and West Palm Beach. Two Southern Boulevard replacement bridges were dedicated on Sept. 15, 1950.

        The section of island connecting the two bridges was renamed the "Marjorie Merriweather Post  Memorial Causeway" historic site in 1974 following the death of the Post cereal heiress. Her mansion, Mar-a-lago (Ocean-to-Lake), was built between 1924-27 immediately east of Bingham Island. Today her estate is owned by President Donald Trump.

        Work on a second Southern Boulevard (SR 80) replacement bridge project began in April 2017. A temporary lift bridge was completed a  year later and is in use until the new permanent span is opened. The construction site is fenced off from the sanctuary, but the noise penetrates far into the preserve. 

        North of the Bingham Island causeway there is a popular beach used as a launching site by kayakers and paddle boarders to explore the Audubon Islands Sanctuary. Once the bridge project ends sometime in late 2021, life will return to normal in this protected natural area for both wildlife and human observers.

(c.) Davidsson. 2020.

*NOTE: Article reprinted in the October 2020 "Everglades Kite Newsletter." See also "Welcome to Historic Downtown Figulus: 1881-93" posted February 2016 in the Origins & History of the Palm Beaches digital archive. Additional articles archived below.

Friday, June 12, 2020

Why Juan Ponce de Leon Matters Too in Florida

        Cardinal Timothy Dolan: "The destruction of monuments only impoverishes our sense of history." (June 29, 2020 WSJ column.) 
        During the night of June 10-11, 60 protesters marched to Miami's Bayfront Park where seven were arrested after confronting police and defacing the statues of Christopher Columbus and Juan Ponce de Leon with red paint.
        The face, tunic and boots of the seven-foot bronze replica of Ponce de Leon, the founding father and first governor of Puerto Rico as well as the Spanish discoverer of Florida, were splashed with the symbolic blood by the vandals. The monument's marble pedestal and inscription plate also were tagged with red paint citing the chosen slogans of the protesters.
        A red "Hammer and Sickle" - the insignia used by communists and Soviet Russia during its 70-year repressive history - covered Ponce de Leon's inscription plaque. Below the "Hammer and Sickle" were painted the letters "BLM," the acronym for the organization Black Lives Matter.
        The marble pedestal supporting the statue of Ponce de Leon was defaced with the words "Libertad Yo," followed by some incoherent scribbling with red paint that defies translation.
         Seven nights later, the statue of Ponce de Leon in the City of St. Augustine, the nation's oldest township established by Spain in the year 1565, was desecrated with rotten eggs by vandals, according to the June 18, 2020 edition of the St. Augustine Record newspaper.
          The Ponce de Leon monument in Melbourne Beach was defaced on June 22 with streaks of red paint and the words "Ais Murder" written on its base. (In fact, the Ais Indians attacked the explorer's landing party north of the Indian River Inlet during his voyage of discovery.)
          If the anarchists would have taken the time to read the inscription at the base of Ponce de Leon's Bayfront monument, they would have learned; "He arrived on Easter Sunday in 1513 looking for the Fountain of Youth, he found something better, a beautiful land that he claimed for Spain, and he called it Florida (the land of flowers)."
         One can only imagine the message Ponce de Leon would have delivered from his grave as the 21st century rage mob vandalized his statue. True to his noble and charitable character, he probably would have said monuments to the past are not the enemy. Ignorance is the enemy. Ignorance of history is the cradle that spawns racism and nourishes it daily with hatred.
          The statue honoring Florida's discoverer was designed by the skilled Hispanic sculptor Enrique Monjo. It was dedicated in Bayfront Park on Oct. 12, 1977. The monument is located next to the City of Miami's "Torch of Friendship," and was donated by the government of Spain, according to the Library of Congress.
         While a few protesters in Florida have judged Ponce de Leon as a target worthy of their wrath, in Puerto Rico his legacy is still honored by many. The inscription on Ponce de Leon's tomb in Puerto Rico reads, "In this narrow spot lies a gentleman, who was a Lion (Leon) in name and much more in fact."
        His tomb is resting in a place of respect within the San Juan Bautista Cathedral. A statue of a guardian angel placed above his tomb protects the founder of Puerto Rico from harm in the afterlife. The city of Ponce, Puerto Rico, was named in honor of the island's first governor.
         The admired 16th century Spanish historian-poet Juan de Castellanos (1522 - 1607) wrote the following "Elegy to Juan Ponce de Leon" while he resided in Puerto Rico. This contemporary elegy states;

        "He was affable, well loved by his people,
         properly balanced in every way,
         he suffered his labors admirably;
         was prepared in the face of danger,
         the most courageous trembled before him,
         an enemy to friends of convenience,
         and envied even by the worst of men."

         Many Puerto Ricans living in Florida and their native island can trace their ancestry back to Ponce de Leon and children born during his two marriages to the Dona Leonora and Juana de Pineda. Protesters may wish to consider this historical fact before they topple his memorial statues. Family matters in Hispanic culture.
        The State of Florida recently observed "Viva Florida 500, 1513 - 2013." The event marked the 500th anniversary of the state's discovery by Ponce de Leon. It was year-long celebration of Hispanic history and the numerous cultural contributions of our first settlers.
        Landmarks honoring Ponce de Leon are found throughout the State of Florida. In Palm Beach County, for example, there is a Ponce de Leon Street in Royal Palm Beach, a Ponce de Leon Avenue in West Palm Beach, and a Ponce de Leon Road in Boca Raton. The Ponce de Leon Ballroom is the centerpiece of the historic Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach.
        During his first voyage in 1513, Ponce de Leon explored the Jupiter Inlet (Rio de Cruz) and the Palm Beach barrier island (Aboioa). The governor of "Bimini and Western Islands" was fatally wounded by a Calusa arrow inflicted during his second voyage to Florida in 1521.
       His flagship carried Ponce de Leon to Havana, Cuba, where he died from his infected wound and was buried in July 1521. Thirty-eight years after his death, his grandson and namesake, Juan Ponce de Leon II (1524 - 1591), transferred his grandfather's crypt from Havana to San Juan. It has been in the care of the Catholic Church since the year 1559.
       Unknown to Ponce de Leon and other early explorers in Florida, they were the carriers of fatal diseases from Europe, such as smallpox and measles, which would soon kill native Indians by the tens of thousands. Critics of Ponce de Leon are quick to place this burden on the Spanish explorer while absolving their own ancestors from blame.
        The anarchists arrested for defacing the Bayfront statues of Columbus and Ponce de Leon were charged with inciting to riot, disorderly conduct, unlawful assembly, battery on police officers, aggravated assault, and criminal mischief. The vandals also have symbolic blood on their hands for not observing CDC guidelines during the incurable COVID-19 viral pandemic.
        President Donald Trump issued a presidential order on June 26 titled "An Executive Order on Protection of American Monuments, Memorials and Statues and Combating Recent Criminal Violence." The order sets penalties for both law violators and local government agencies that fail to protect historic monuments.*
        The Executive Order (Section D) states; "It is the policy of the United States, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, to withhold federal support tied to public spaces from state and local governments that have failed to protect public monuments, memorials and statues from destruction or vandalism..."
        The moral righteousness of a social movement is diminished in the eyes of the public by those who commit pointless acts of vandalism. If a cause is just, it will win public support on its own merit through peaceful assembly and protests.
        Ponce de Leon was not perfect (are you), but he is the symbol of the 286-year period when Florida was not just a colony of Spain, but a time in history when Hispanic culture, traditions, religion and laws helped shape the future of our state as it exists today. For this reason alone his memorials deserve respect.
        Hopefully, Hispanic Floridians will have seats at the table during future discussions of social equity and racism in our state to assure their message is heard too.
(c.) Davidsson. 2020.
*NOTE: Article updated on June 29, 2020. See additional articles below and archived in Older Posts.

Friday, May 15, 2020

The Vanderbilts of Manalapan: A Local History

By Bob Davidsson
        Consuelo Vanderbilt Spencer-Churchill Balsan, former Duchess of Marlborough and chatelaine of England's Blenheim Palace, purchased five acres of land on the south end of Hypoluxo Island in 1934 to build her new winter home.
        She wanted it to face "Eastover," the mansion built four years earlier by younger brother Harold Stirling Vanderbilt (1884 - 1970), located directly across the branch of the Lake Worth Lagoon separating Hypoluxo from Manalapan's seaside barrier island.
        Consuelo named her 26,177-square-foot mansion "Casa Alva" (the house of Alva) in honor of their formidable mother, Alva Erskine Vanderbilt Belmont. She hired her brother's Swiss-born architect, Maurice Fatio, to design the Mediterranean-Revival style mansion which the heiress often referred to as "The Cottage".
        Harold and Consuelo were the great-grandchildren of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, the 19th century shipping and railroad tycoon who during his lifetime was the richest man in America. Both siblings were multi-millionaires through inheritance and family business enterprises.
        It was Harold Vanderbilt who in 1931 incorporated Hypoluxo Island and a section of barrier island south of Lantana's East Ocean Avenue into the Town of Manalapan.
        Hypoluxo was one of several place names once used to describe the Lake Worth Lagoon. The common meaning is "body of water with no way out" in a Seminole dialect, and dates back to the 19th century when the lagoon was a freshwater lake instead of today's tidal estuary.
        Palm Beach County pioneer George Carter was the first settler to homestead Hypoluxo Island in the 1880's. Pineapples, coconuts and alligator meat were the main cash commodities produced during the early history of the island.
        Manalapan is a place name shared with a city in New Jersey established in the 1840's. In the native American Lenape language it translates to "a place of good bread," or its less flattering original meaning - "covered swamp with edible roots."
        In 1892, the Hypoluxo Beach Company was organized in New Jersey to develop properties  east of Lantana. David Baird, a company founder, lived in Manalapan, N.J., and suggested it as a future name for the Florida community. As a result, today there are two cities sharing the same name.
        The Ocean-Island Corporation acquired a one-mile strip of land in the 1920's, south of Palm Beach and east of Lantana, to develop an exclusive subdivision by the sea. Harold Vanderbilt was one of the investors acquiring property within this tract.
        While his mansion was under construction in Manalapan, the Vanderbilt's purchased and remodeled the "El Solano" estate from 1925-30. The Palm Beach mansion was designed by architect Addison Mizner in 1919. "El Solano" was later acquired by the late John and Yoko Ono Lennon from 1980-86.
        When he established the seaside town, Vanderbilt envisioned Manalapan as a low-density community and winter retreat for upscale entrepreneurs like himself. His vision holds true today.
        Manalapan residents have a median household income of $216,250. Their median property values are $2 million, and 96.4 percent of the town's residents own their homes, according to 2017 U.S. Census estimates.
        A headline in the July 5, 1970 edition of the Palm Beach Post reported, "Manalapan was Vanderbilt's Town." At the time of his death, he was the town's honorary "Mayor Emeritus".
        The newspaper's analysis was based on the facts that in addition to incorporating the town in 1931, Harold Vanderbilt served on its governing council for 32 years, and was mayor of Manalapan from 1952 through 1966.
        Vanderbilt was a director on the board of the New York Central Railroad for four decades. He also served as president of the board of trustees for Vanderbilt University, founded by his family in Nashville, TN, after the Civil War. A bronze statue of Harold Vanderbilt, created by New York artist Joseph Kiseleweski, was dedicated in 1965 on the university campus for his years of service.
         His favorite pastimes were yachting and contract bridge. Many card players consider him the "father of contract bridge" for establishing the rules used today in tournament play back in 1925. The Vanderbilt yacht "Enterprise" defended the "America's Cup" against international challengers during sailing races held in 1930, 1934 and 1937.
        The Vanderbilt home, known as "Eastover," is a three-story Italian Renaissance-style mansion completed in 1930. The architectural firm of Treanor and Fatio designed a mansion with imported stone and stucco walls and a clay tile roof. Construction costs at that time totaled about $500,000.
        The mansion is located on a beach coastal ridge overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. The estate once occupied a six-acre site extending from the ocean to the Lake Worth Lagoon and was intersected by South Ocean Blvd.
        "Eastover" was approved in December 2002 for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places. It was selected for both its architectural design and historic significance to the Town of Manalapan.
        Harold Vanderbilt died in July 1970 at age 85 at his Rock Cliff estate in Newport, R.I. He was buried in St. Mary's Churchyard at Portsmouth, R.I.
        His "Eastover" estate in Manalapan has changed ownership several times since his passing. In the year 2000, Veronica Hearst, the third wife and widow of publishing company heir Randolph Apperson Hearst, purchased "Eastover".
        Unfortunately, the mansion proved to be a costly investment. The publishing heiress and New York socialite soon overextended her finances. The estate was subdivided, and 150 feet of oceanfront property was sold. The mansion went into foreclosure in 2008, but survives under private ownership as an historic landmark today.

Consuelo Vanderbilt and the Churchill Family
        Railroad heiress Consuelo Vanderbilt (1877 - 1964) of Manalapan married twice - once for royal titles and a second time for love. Her second husband was aviation pioneer and textile company heir Lt. Col. Jacques Balsan, whom she married in 1921 and remained with until his death in 1956 at age 88.
        Her first husband was Great Britain's 9th Duke of Marlborough, Charles Spencer-Churchill (1871 - 1934). They were wed in a New York City high-society ceremony Nov. 6, 1895, following tough prenuptial negotiations between her ambitious mother, Alva Vanderbilt, and the Churchill family at the St. Thomas Episcopal Church.
        Consuelo, blessed with natural beauty and inherited wealth, was considered the most successful of the Gilded Age "Dollar Princesses" in the 1890's. They were marriages of convenience and social status. American women sought the titles of European nobility. Impoverished Europeans shared their family titles in exchange for American dollars. The American duchess had a net worth of $20 million in 1895.
         Between 1895 and their divorce in 1921, Consuelo became the Duchess of Marlborough and the chatelaine of the Churchill's time-worn Blenheim Palace in England. In exchange, Charles Spencer-Churchill received a dowry of $2.5 million from the Vanderbilt's and annual dividends from their railroads.
        John Churchill, the First Duke of Marlborough, was one of England's most famous warrior-heroes. As England's field marshal in Europe, he defeated the armies of France's Sun King, Louis XIV, during the War of Spanish Succession. Construction of Blenheim Palace began during the final years of his life.
        In 1897, Consuelo gave birth to the first of her two sons, John Albert William Spencer-Churchill. He became the next in line to become the 10th Duke of Marlborough, replacing his older cousin, Sir Winston Churchill, who would have inherited the title if Consuelo's husband, Charles, died without an heir.
        Some historians speculate that Sir Winston's loss of the hereditary title of Duke of Marlborough was one factor motivating him to pursue a career in public service and politics. Despite his titular demotion, Consuelo and Winston remained friends throughout their long lives.
        After her divorce to Charles Spencer-Churchill in 1921, Consuelo lived in Europe with her second husband, Jacques Balsan, until 1939. Sir Winston was a frequent visitor to their home in Dreux, France, and once made a painting of their St. Georges Hotel residence while a guest.
        At the end of World War II, Churchill was defeated in his bid for reelection as prime minister of England. He visited South Florida in the winter of 1946, and stayed at Consuelo's "Casa Alva" as a guest of his American friends in Manalapan while preparing a speech to be given at Westminster College.
        His "Sinews of Peace" message, delivered March 5, 1946 as a guest lecturer at the college, served as a warning of future aggression by Soviet Russia in Eastern Europe and became known to history as the "Iron Curtain Speech":

        "From Stettin in Baltic
         to Trieste in the Adriatic,
         an 'Iron Curtain' has descended
         across the continent..."

        Consuelo Vanderbilt sold "Casa Alva" after the death of her second husband in 1956. It was purchased by William and Maura Benjamin. The Point Manalapan mansion was converted into the private "Manalapan Club" for several years, then restored to a family residence, as it remains today.
        After the sale of "Case Alva" for $6.8 million, Consuelo Vanderbilt moved to the Town of Palm Beach. She bought the 1940 neo-classical villa of heiress Audrey Emory, located on East Verdado Road, to use as her new winter residence.
        The former Duchess of Marlborough died Dec. 6, 1964 in Southampton, Long Island. She was buried next to her younger son at St. Martin's Church, Oxfordshire, England, a short distance from Blenheim Palace.
        As for "Eastover" and "Casa Alva," they remain the architectural centerpieces of a time in history when Manalapan was "Vanderbilt's Town".
(c.) Davidsson. 2020.

Thursday, April 23, 2020

'Waveland' - Life in Our Border Town, 1880 - 1925

By Bob Davidsson
        Waveland was Palm Beach County's northernmost border town from 1909 to 1925. Today, it is a ghost town from the past, but one with a history worth remembering.
        The riverfront community, built on 100 acres of land between the Indian and St. Lucie rivers, was purchased by pioneer Henry William Racey in 1855. His land tract was located southwest of Jensen Beach, east of the community of Rio, and extended south onto Sewell's Point.
        The history of Waveland predates the establishment of its first post office in 1880 by nearly 4,500 years. The region's first inhabitants were the ancestors of the Ais Indians. Mount Elizabeth, the native tribe's southernmost ceremonial site, rose 60 feet above the 19th century pioneer community.
        During the Second Spanish Colonial Period (from 1785 - 1821), Waveland was the terminus of two Spanish Land Grants. The Kingdom of Spain awarded sections of land along the Treasure Coast to James Hutchinson, Samuel Miles and Eusebio Gomez as payment for their services to its struggling Florida colony.
        The Waveland community made its topographical debut on the A.J. Johnson and Company "Map of Florida" in 1878. Its first appearance on a Dade County map was documented two years later. For the next 45 years confused mapmakers alternately placed the border town in Dade County, St. Lucie County and Palm Beach County after 1909.
       Martin County, created out of the northern third of Palm Beach County in 1925, ended the conflicting border affiliations in 1925 by replacing the Waveland place name with Jensen Beach.

The Hanson-Miles Land Grant
        John M. Hanson petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court in 1842 to confirm a "Florida Land Claim" for five square miles or 16,000 acres of land, originally granted to Samuel Miles by the governor of Spanish East Florida in 1813. He purchased the land from Miles in August 1823. The huge tract of land became known as the Hanson-Miles Land Grant.
        In his court petition, Hanson wrote, "Samuel Miles, a new settler, admitted (to Florida) under the protection of the King of Spain, on July 18, 1813 presented a petition to Governor Sebastian Kindelan y O'Regan of East Florida (1812-15) setting forth the great services performed by him for the supply of troops of Spain in the province, and severe loses and suffering sustained by him in the service of the crown, and considering himself entitled to some favor, asked for a grant of five miles square of land for the construction of a water saw mill at a place fit for this purpose."
        Hanson described the site as "vacant, situated at the mouth of the River Santaluces". Although the saw mill was never built, the land grant included the future site of Waveland, and extended as far south as Tequesta, west of the Gomez Jupiter Island Grant.*
        The Supreme Court withheld its final decision in the land grant case entitled "U.S. vs. Hanson and Others" and ordered a new survey. It would not be accepted until 1889. Meanwhile, the land grant remained an unsettled wilderness.

William Racey Discovers His 'Land of Waves'
        In 1855, novice explorer William Henry Racey of New York sailed to Jacksonville in search of adventure and a future homestead for his family in Florida. His timing couldn't have been worse. He arrived at the start of the Third Seminole War (1855-58).
        Racey purchased a section of land 35 miles south of Jacksonville called "Racey Point" on the St. Johns River, then sailed south into a war zone between the U.S. Army and the Seminole tribe. Good fortune was with him and he experienced no hostile encounters during his travels.
        He entered the Indian River and examined the land granted to James Hutchinson of Georgia and his heirs in 1803 by Spanish East Florida Governor Enrique White (1796 - 1811). The Hutchinsons acquired 2,000 acres of land on what is today called the North and South Hutchinson barrier islands, as well as an original mainland section north of the Hanson-Miles Land Grant.
        The Spanish land grantee homesteaded a section north of Waveland on the west shore of the Indian River until fear of Indian attacks forced him to relocate his family to the barrier island bearing his name in April 1807. His bad luck continued with trespassing vessels and pirates plaguing his seaside plantation.
        Hutchinson drowned at sea when his ship encountered a storm in September 1808 while sailing from St. Augustine to his island plantation during the peak of hurricane season. His land grant remained with the Hutchinson family throughout most of the 19th century.
        South of the Hutchinson Land Grant, Racey noted a large wooded mound looming above the western shoreline of the Indian River. He christened it "Mount Elizabeth" in honor of his mother, Elizabeth Hiscox Racey. Its original name in the Ais Indian dialect is unknown.
         Continuing south along the Indian River, Racey reached the site where Samuel Miles once planned to build a saw mill, the point of land where the Indian and St. Lucie rivers merged as one. Racey discovered his Florida paradise at this land of waves and purchased a 100-acre tract on May 1, 1855.
        Racey returned to New York with the intent of relocating his family to the Indian River property. He never made the journey. The Civil War and family responsibilities delayed his return. He died in 1874 with his Florida retirement dream unfulfilled.
        During the absence of the Racey family, a Waveland post office was established at the home of Dr. William M. Baker on Sept. 2, 1880. Waveland maintained a post office, with a brief relocation of service in 1891, until U.S. mail deliveries were moved to Jensen Beach on Aug. 31, 1918.
        Charles Henry Racey (1861 - 1933), William Racey's son and an optician by trade, lived in New York City until he received word in 1890 that settlers were attempting to obtain his Florida inheritance through the purchasing of delinquent property taxes.
        To defend his property rights, Charles Racey relocated his family in Waveland. They arrived on an Indian River Steamship Company transport vessel and stayed at the home of the postmaster, Dr. Baker, until construction of the Racey estate on Mount Elizabeth was completed in 1891.
        The Racey estate's mansion was a three-story wooden structure, with a 40-by-50 foot ballroom, observation tower, and boathouse with a 400-foot dock extending into the Indian River. During the construction, the top of the ancient Ais Indian mound was leveled, reducing the height of Mount Elizabeth from 60 to 40 feet.
        To promote settlement in Waveland, Racey subdivided his property in 1891, christening the homesteaded site as Arbela. He donated five acres of land for an Episcopalian church and cemetery located at the Crossroads Hill in Waveland.
        The "All Saints Church" was built in 1898 and opened its doors to a congregation of 42 settlers in Waveland. Today, the historic "All Saints Church" remains the oldest continuous religious site in Martin County. The church was added to the Martin County Historic Register during its 120th anniversary on March 12, 2018.
        Fields of pineapples were planted at the base of Mount Elizabeth. Racey recorded his occupation as a "fruit grower" in both the 1900 U.S. Census and in the 1916-18 City Directories.
        Racey was named president of the "East Coast Good Roads League" in 1898. Through his initiative, the first road was built connecting Waveland to Ft. Pierce. He also co-founded the "South Florida Navigation Company" in 1907 to keep inlets and coastal waterways open.
        On Jan. 21, 1921, a kitchen fire quickly spread throughout Racey's estate, destroying the 30-year-old wooden buildings. Charles Racey moved with his family to property he owned in Dade County. The Waveland pioneer resided in Miami until his death in December 1933.

The Mount Elizabeth Archaeological Site
        After the departure of Charles Racey's family, the Mount Elizabeth estate changed ownership several times. Willaford Leach of Chicago, and his wife, Ann, a Coca-Cola company heiress, purchased Mount Elizabeth and surrounding property in 1936. They built a Mediterranean Revival-style mansion named "Tuckahoe" (welcome). It remains at the site today.
        When the Leach family moved to Palm Beach in 1950, their 54-acre property was sold to the Catholic Church. It was the site of St. Joseph's College in the 1970s, and later used for the Florida Institute of Technology which closed in 1987.
        Martin County obtained the Mount Elizabeth property in 1997 and created the "Indian RiverSide Park" for public use. It includes both the ancient mound site and the adjacent "Tuckahoe" mansion.
        The home of Capt. Henry Sewell, built at Sewell's Point in 1889, was relocated by barge from Port Sewell to Indian Riverside Park in 2007-08. Captain Sewell served as a postmaster and legislative representative for Dade County's northern district in the 1890s.
        The archaeological importance of Mount Elizabeth as a native American "East Okeechobee Culture" religious ceremonial center and village site during the Late Archaic Period was acknowledged by the federal government in 2002 by placing it on the Federal Register of Historic Places.
        Archaeologists discovered the mound itself consists of shells and marine life residue from the Indian River and nearby Atlantic Ocean. Mount Elizabeth, the highest remaining Indian mound in South Florida, also contains village pottery fragments and those of neighboring tribes obtained in trade.
        As for Waveland, most of the former community is now county park land or included within the borders of Jensen Beach. The "All Saints Church" and "Waveland Avenue" remain reminders of its history.
(c.) Davidsson, 2020.
     *NOTE: A related article by the author titled "Eusebio Maria Gomez and the Jupiter Land Grant" was published in the August 2010 edition of The Florida Genealogist. Read additional articles posted below and archived in Older Posts. 

Tuesday, March 31, 2020

Lake Osborne: The 'Shining Spirit of Fresh Water'

By Bob Davidsson
        Lake Osborne is the center of a popular Palm Beach County recreational area for fishing, boating and camping with a hiking trail encircling most of its extent. .
        The inland lake, located west of  the cities of Lake Worth Beach and Lantana, was introduced to the nation by the name "Osborn" on the 1882 "Map of Dade County," distributed by the C.B. Colton and Company of New York. The Palm Beaches were part of Dade County between the 1860s and 1909.
        Subsequent maps and pioneer documents would continue to refer to it as "Lake Osborn" until 1917, when the "Lake Osborne Addition" plat became the first to use the alternate common spelling  of "Osborne". Originally called the "Osborne Colored Addition," the plat was changed to the less derogatory name of Osborne Addition in 1994.
        Two families shared the same surname with the lake in the 19th century. Florida Sen. Thomas Ward Osborn (1868-73), and his older brother, The Rev. Abraham Coles Osborn, president of the Great Southern Railway Company, planned a railroad passing through Palm Beach County in the 1870s. The proposed route of the failed business venture was west of Lake Osborne.
        The first known legal deed-holders on the lake belonged to a second New Jersey family, Ezra Asher Osborn (1823-95) of Monmouth County, and his son Frank. The father-son team headed a business syndicate in the 1880s that sought to enrich its investors by planting coconut groves on unoccupied coastal land purchased from Biscayne Bay to the Jupiter Inlet. A plague of rabbits led to its bankruptcy.

Early History of Lake Osborne
        To the Seminole Indians, who hunted and fished along its shores, the lake was known by the poetic name of "Matal-ka-oska" or shining spirit of fresh water. Geologically, Lake Osborne is part of a 30-mile interconnected chain of lakes and sloughs located west of the Atlantic Coastal Ridge in Palm Beach County.

        The nearest Seminole village, known as "Cha-Chi's Town," was located about five miles north of Lake Osborne, near the chain-of-lakes site today called Clear Lake in West Palm Beach. During the Second Seminole War, Capt. Richard Wade, leading a force of 60 men in 12 canoes, sacked Cha-chi's Town on Nov. 8, 1841, capturing 27 villagers in the raid.

        He returned to the abandoned village one month later during a reconnaissance patrol of the Lake Worth Lagoon. Wade's engineer and topographer, Lt. Andrew A. Humphreys, made the following observation of the chain of lakes including Lake Osborne in his "Memoirs"  on Dec. 19, 1841.

        "Lagoons of deep water, covered by spatterdocks, are here and there met with, he wrote. "In many places, canoes have to be pushed and hauled, but at others the water expands into grassy lakes, a quarter of a mile in extent and generally one to two miles apart."

        Spatterdocks (Nuphur Lutea) is a term used for a common aquatic plant found along the edges of the chain of lakes. The Seminoles used spatterdocks to stop bleeding and as a pain killer. It is edible and also is used as a natural tea.      

        The journal of early Palm Beach County pioneer Charles Pierce credits German emigrant Michael Merkel of Alsace-Lorraine as the first settler to homestead along the eastern shore of Lake Osborne. He sailed to the Palm Beaches in November 1878. The first pioneer to farm on the west shore of the lake was Benjamin "Uncle Ben" Lanehart.

        Pierce wrote, "He (Merkel) built a very small palmetto shack on the south side of a large bay running eastward from the main body of the lake." Merkel lived most of his austere life as a hermit, living on fish, game and palm berries gathered along the shores of Lake Osborne. Neighbors to the east in the pioneering community of Jewell (Lake Worth) often heard him chanting in Latin, leading to the popular belief that he was a defrocked priest who had fled Europe.

        The development of Lake Osborne began after the arrival of Morris Benson Lyman in 1884. Lyman served as the postmaster of the fledgling community of Lantana in 1889, and was appointed  the first treasurer of Palm Beach County by Gov. Albert Gilchrist when it separated from Dade County in 1909.

        Lyman became president of the "Lake Osborne Development Company," with his wife, Mary, working as vice president. The corporation acquired 770 acres of land between Lantana and Lake Osborne valued at about $75,000. The property was divided into tracts for the sale of homes and farming sites.

        Lantana's founding father also served as one of the first supervisors appointed to the Lake Worth Drainage District (LWDD). Beginning in 1916 and continuing through the 1930s, the LWDD sponsored a series of projects lowering the water levels in the chain of freshwater lakes to clear their adjacent wetlands for agriculture and development.

        Lakes Webster, Jackson, Bessie and Boynton vanished. The water levels in Lake Osborne were reduced by the completion of the E-4 canal in the 1930s. Today, the lake covers 378 acres, with an average depth of 6 to 8 feet.

        Most of the western shore of Lake Osborne was acquired by Palm Beach County in the 1940s through the Florida Lands Acquisition Act and the lobbying efforts of Commissioner John Prince. Lake Osborne is utilized as both the John Prince Park recreational area, created in 1952,  and as a reservoir within the C-16 drainage district.
(c.) Davidsson. 2020.
*NOTE: Read additional articles below and archived in Older Posts

Thursday, February 27, 2020

The 'WPB Canal' and the City's Inland Port: 1917-25

By Bob Davidsson
        The peaceful tranquility of Howard Park in downtown West Palm Beach today belies the site's history 100 years ago as the city's center of commerce and the hub of Palm Beach County's agricultural export industry.
        It was the vision of the city's business leaders that transformed an Everglades drainage canal into a commercial transportation network connecting the agricultural communities of Lake Okeechobee to the heart of West Palm Beach between the years 1917-25.
        The completion of the West Palm Beach Canal in 1917, connecting Lake Okeechobee at Canal Point with the Lake Worth Lagoon, provided farmers with a direct route to the coastal city, where they could ship their produce to northern markets via Henry Flagler's Florida East Coast (FEC) Railway.
        The City of West Palm Beach enhanced the transportation waterway on May 17, 1918 with the opening of a canal extension or "stub" leading north to a ship turning basin in the city's business district.
        The city's inland port featured docks for steamships and barges, boat slips and an agricultural produce market. An FEC railroad spur connected the basin to the main rail line for rapid shipment of produce.
        It was reported on the opening day of the city's turning basin (today a small pond in Howard Park) that 5,000 crates of agricultural products were loaded onto 10 railroad freight cars for transport to northern cities.

Origin of the West Palm Beach Canal
        In the year 1907, the Florida Legislature created the Everglades Drainage District (EDD) with a mission of increasing agricultural production in South Florida by draining submerged marsh lands through a series of canals leading to the coast.
        Between the years 1915-28, the Hillsboro, New and Miami rivers became drainage outlets to the sea through interconnecting canals originating in Lake Okeechobee and the northern Everglades.
         In 1911, West Palm Beach attorney and developer George Currie (1858-1926) successfully petitioned Florida Gov. Albert Gilchrist on the behalf of the chamber of commerce to include a canal from Lake Okeechobee to the Lake Worth Lagoon as part of the Everglades Drainage District.
        Currie served two terms as mayor of West Palm Beach in 1903-05, and was the treasurer of Dade County prior to the creation of Palm Beach County in 1909. He later donated a strip of land along the Lake Worth Lagoon to the City of West Palm Beach in 1920 known today as "Currie Park".
        The dredging of the West Palm Beach Canal was approved by the State of Florida in 1913. The engineering project was awarded to the firm of Johnson & Company of Miami.
        The July 1914 edition of the "Water Chronicle" (Vol. 4) entitled "Inland Navigation" reported, "Johnson & Co., engineers and contractors of Miami, are progressing with their contract to complete the West Palm Beach Canal, extending from Lake Worth to Lake Okeechobee."
        "They soon will install two additional dredges, a dipper and a suction," the report continues. "This equipment will complete the canal to 42 miles long and require 7 million cubic yards of excavation. The first half is to be completed within two and a half years, and the entire work within four years."
        Soon after the completion of the West Palm Beach Canal in 1917, the West Palm Beach City Commission approved $14,000 in construction bonds to finance the dredging of the northern extension (stub) and ship turning basin.
        The stub canal (today located parallel to Parker Avenue) was dredged to a depth of 20 feet and was 50 feet in width when it opened in May 1918. The depth of the stub canal and turning basin was adequate for use by passenger steamships and motorized barges making the journey from Canal Point to West Palm Beach.
        The passage of vessels from Lake Okeechobee into the West Palm Beach Canal required the deepening of the lake's channel in 1921, and the construction of a lock to maintain uniform water levels for shipping. The Florida Legislature approved funds for the construction of "Lock #1" at Canal Point on June 2, 1919. Work on the project began in September of that year.
        As recorded in the 1919 Laws of Florida, the authorizing legislation reads, "The Board of Drainage Commissioners of the Everglades Drainage District out of funds coming into their hands as such are hereby authorized, empowered and directed to build, erect and construct in the West Palm Beach Canal...a suitable lock so as to furnish safe, convenient and practical means of transportation for vessels navigating Lake Worth and the West Palm Beach Canal between Lake Worth and Lake Okeechobee."
        To help pay the salaries of the lock tenders, the state allowed the collection of tolls ranging from two to five cents per linear foot for passenger boats entering the canals. Local farmers shipping produce to market usually paid half that rate.
        On Jan. 1, 1914, one year after the opening of the Hillsboro Canal in southern Palm Beach County, the first speed limits were enforced by the State of Florida to reduce erosion in the canals. Craft traveling "upriver" toward  Lake Okeechobee had a speed limit of 5 mph, while "downriver" ship traffic could power up to 6 mph.

The Years of Prosperity: 1920-24
        By the year 1920, the population of Palm Beach County increased to 18,154. West Palm Beach was the county seat and largest city with 8,659 residents, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
        New farming communities such as Belle Glade, Chosen, Ritta, Utopia and Port Mayaca dotted the shores of Lake Okeechobee. The Florida Department of Agriculture reported in 1920 that Palm Beach County led the state in truck farming.
        The West Palm Beach Canal, dredged to a depth of 12 feet and with a new lock in operation, was open for both passenger service and the barging of agricultural products between Lake Okeechobee and West Palm Beach.
        In the comprehensive "History of Florida Past and Present, Historical and Biographical," published in 1923, author Harry Gardner Cutlers reported, "During the year 1921, there were unloaded at the canal dock in West Palm Beach for shipment to northern cities, 191,796 hampers or crates of vegetables including cabbage, string beans, tomatoes, egg plants and peppers."
        "In the month of December 1921," he reported, "16,088 crates or hampers of vegetables were shipped from the city, as compared to 16,824 during the same month of the preceding year (1920); which is a fair illustration of the practical value of development in the district."
        The developers of the Palm Beach Loxahatchee Company purchased 6,500 acres of land adjacent to the West Palm Beach Canal to create an accessible farming community called "Loxahatchee Farms". Today the township is incorporated as Loxahatchee Groves.
        The completion of the Everglades Drainage District canal system in South Florida formed a new inland transportation network connecting the Lake Okeechobee communities to West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale and Fort Myers. During the early 1920s, more than 150 commercial vessels - including passenger steamships, barges and fishing tenders - plied Lake Okeechobee and its outlets to coastal cities.
        The annual "Report of the Chief Engineer, U.S. Army (Part 2)" recorded a total of 1,612 passengers boarded ships for transport in the West Palm Beach Canal during the year 1924.
        Brothers Bill and Ben McCoy of West Palm Beach operated a nautical transport service for passengers commuting between Moore Haven, located on the western shore of Lake Okeechobee, and their home port. The Menge Brothers Steamboat Company, based in Fort Myers, operated a flotilla of eight steamships and three barges on Lake Okeechobee and its canals.
        For a brief period, the Holland and Butterworth Company of Miami promoted a passenger service up the Hillsboro Canal from Deerfield to Lake Okeechobee. The company charged $3 for a three-day cruise that left Deerfield on Saturdays and returned on Mondays.
        Beginning in 2019, the "Foreverglades," a 41-foot replica of a 1920s-era freight steamboat, was displayed by artist Sofia Valiente in Howard Park, site of the former West Palm Beach turning basin and inland port.
        The "Foreverglades" replica used the steamboat "La Roseada" as its design model. The "La Roseada" was a typical stern-wheeled, steam-powered freight vessel that cruised the West Palm Beach Canal and the waters of Lake Okeechobee in the 1920s.
        Side-wheeled steamships were too wide to navigate the narrow drainage canals of South Florida. The stern-wheelers were more maneuverable and could reverse from obstacles in the waterways.

The End of the Canal Era
        The age of inland commercial navigation along the West Palm Beach Canal entered a period of steep decline beginning in 1925. By the time the Hurricane of 1928 destroyed the docks at the West Palm Beach turning basin, its downtown agricultural market was already deserted.
        The West Palm Beach Canal could not compete as a transportation network with the first cross-county highway and a new railroad extension linking the coastal city to the Glades and Lake Okeechobee farm communities.
        On July 4, 1924, William J."Fingy" Conners' new toll highway opened to traffic between West Palm Beach and the City of Okeechobee. The highway followed the route to Canal Point blazed by the West Palm Beach Canal.*
        One year after the opening of the Conners Toll Highway, the Seaboard Coast Line railroad completed an extension from West Palm Beach to Okeechobee City in 1925. Growers began shipping their produce by truck and on the new rail line.
        With the building of the Herbert Hoover Dike in the 1930s, access to the West Palm Beach Canal from Lake Okeechobee was further restricted for boat traffic. The waterway became the drainage ditch as it is known today - the C-51 canal.
        Fortunately, in its second century, the West Palm Beach Canal may once again become part of a transportation network. A public-private partnership called the "Palm Beach County Blueway Trail" is working on a plan to connect the canal to the county's inland chain of freshwater lakes as well as the Lake Worth Lagoon via a boat lift.
(c.) Davidsson. 2020.
*NOTE: Read related article below. Additional articles are indexed and archived below in "Older Posts".