Newspaper stories of 1899 Florida (don't laugh)

 

1900 Florida sunset,
Florida State Archives/Florida Memories

Local news items published by the Tropical Sun (South Florida) will leave 21^st-century readers chuckling if not longing for simpler times. The Tropical Sun was once the only newspaper between Melbourne and the upper keys. Here’s a sampling of items that kept people reading newspapers in 1899 (by city and county):

Jupiter Jottings

The Law’s, Ziegler’s, and the DuBoi’s are each the owner of a cow.

Mr. Culberson is coming back again this winter. He is expected here in a few days.

Delray Doings

The Lantana Fish Co. must be doing a land office business judging from the number of boats Mr. M.K. Lyman is building.

Tropical Sun, 1899

What the Sun’s men heard in the Lively Local Whirligig

Major Cooper is still adding to the adornment of his shaving parlor; this week’s handsome potted plants are the attraction.

Tramps are most noticeable in this town by their scarcity. We have too much use for them here on the streets so they keep well away.

The Ladies Aid Society met at the Congregational parsonage Wednesday afternoon and indulged in afternoon tea and other refreshments dear to the ladies' hearts.

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For more on the Tropical Sun, see:  http://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2013/03/two-cousins-stage-line-and-founding-of.html

Tags: Florida history, South Florida news of the 1890s, early Florida newspapers.

Fort Lauderdale, Lt. Powell, riverine warfare ... and a Vietnam connection

 

Fort Lauderdale waterway 1900
Florida State Archives

By Jane Feehan

Fort Lauderdale’s namesake, Major William Lauderdale built a fort in the area in 1838 during the Seminole Wars (1817-1858); the city could have been named after U.S. Navy Lieutenant Levin M. Powell who established a fortified tent base along the New River two years before, in 1836.

Instead of having a city named after him, Powell is known today as the pioneer of riverine warfare. The Navy lieutenant was ordered to seek out Indian encampments in the Everglades but he determined that his boats were unsuitable for shallow waterways and dense tropical flora. He used flat-bottom boats, as the Seminoles did, with better success. His riverine warfare model, which included small-boat assault tactics, has been used by the military since then, including during the Vietnam War.

Powell led several battles in Florida, including the bloody Battle of Loxahatchee (now Palm beach County) in 1838. He also opened, with orders from Commodore Alexander James Dallas, Fort Dallas in 1836, near where the City of Miami was established. Powell served as its commandant 1836-1838. In 1838 he was deployed to the New River to support Maj. Lauderdale’s mission. 

Fort Lauderdale could have been named Fort Powell ...

Tags: Fort Lauderdale history

Copyright 2020

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Sources:
1.McIver, Stuart. Glimpses of South Florida History. Miami: Florida Flair Books, 1988.
2. Vandervort, Bruce. Indian Wars of Mexico, Canada and the United States 1812-1900. New York: Rutledge, p. 134.
3. Miami News, May 16, 1965


Tags: Fort Lauderdale history, Levin Powell, riverine warfare, first military base in Fort Lauderdale, history of Fort Lauderdale

Barefoot mailmen in Florida speed up postal service—on foot

 

One of six panels from a West Palm Beach Post Office (1900)

 
By Jane Feehan

The Barefoot Mailman, a name applied collectively to the men who walked and rowed the rugged 136-mile round trip from Palm Beach to Miami, greatly improved mail delivery in the area during the late 1800s. 

Through their efforts during the years 1885 to 1892, letters took a week to get from Palm Beach to Miami along the barefoot route - much-shortened from the mail route used before 1885.

Current resident of Hillsboro Inlet

Before that year, letters went through a 3,000 mile odyssey that could take up to two months to reach a delivery destination 68 miles away. 

From Jupiter mail went by Indian River steamboat to the Titusville rail; by train to New York’s port; by steamer to Havana and then on a schooner to Miami.  

A statue near the Hillsboro Inlet commemorates these men and the death in 1887 of mail carrier James “Ed” Hamilton who disappeared, perhaps drowned, while trying to cross the inlet.

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Sources: McGarry, Carmen Racine. Magnificent Mile: a History of Hillsboro Beach. Morriston: RitAmelia Press, 1997.

Hillsboro Lighthouse Preservation Society at http://www.hillsborolighthouse.org/bfmn.html

Tags: 

Florida in the 1800s, mail service in early Florida, Hillsboro Inlets, USPS

Perrine: A doctor, exotic plants and a link to the Smithsonian

Perrine home, 1840

By Jane Feehan

Henry Edward Perrine (1797-1840) received the first U.S grant for plant introduction and testing in 1838. It was for 24,000 acres in South Florida and made not long after Spain gave up control of the area.

Perrine, a physician born in New Jersey, served as U.S. Consul at Campeche, Yucatan in Mexico for 10 years. While there, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Richard Rush sent letters to all consuls encouraging them to collect plants to send back home for cultivation. The only consul official to take up the proposed project was Perrine. 

His interest in tropical botany motivated his request for a grant in Florida where he thought the climate most suitable for seeds and plants he was to bring back from Mexico. After receiving the grant, he and his family settled on Indian Key, between Cape Florida and Cape Sable. There, he planted Mexican limes, Aguave Sislana (sisal hemp), oranges, limes, avocados and a host of tropical seedlings.

His botanical career was short lived.

Perrine was killed in an Indian attack in 1840. His family escaped and later requested that the Perrine land grant rights be transferred to an area just south of present-day Miami. The doctor’s legacy includes the City of Perrine, sisal hemp growing wild on Indian Key, the possibility that today’s key lime evolved from the Mexican varieties he brought back from the Yucatan … and a Smithsonian connection.

Some say Perrine may have been the one to discover that an Englishman named Smithson had died leaving money to establish a scientific institute in America. He and Richard Rush traveled to England, collected the money and the rest, it could be said, is the Smithsonian Institute.

Sources:

 Douglas, Marjory Stoneman. The Everglades, River of Grass. Miami: Banyan Books, 1978.

 http://digitalcollections.fiu.edu

 www.keyshistory.com

Tags: Perrine history, Miami history, Seminoles, Smithsonian

Florida frontier justice: execution by alligator

Two gators in search of a meal, picture courtesy of Steve Kantner

According to a New York Sun Times news story datelined Fort Lauderdale, Jul. 23, 1897, Florida Seminoles* acknowledged two capital crimes in the late 1800s: theft and adultery. The newspaper published an account given by Seminole James Jumper that underscored the negative views held then about one of those crimes.

It was reported that Tiger Cat, a member of an Indian camp near Tamiami Trail, ran off with the chief’s wife, enraging their entire community. A group set out to find the law-breaking couple; two weeks later they were apprehended and brought back home to face justice. For more than two days the governing council debated punishment. They settled on execution … by alligator.

The convicted pair was brought to Little Gator Key (perhaps an Everglades hammock; there is no Florida key by that name). The two were stripped of their clothes and tied to the ground about 50 feet apart. A dog, which was to initially attract feeding gators, was attached between them. The couple waited all day in the blazing heat until sundown, when a gator emerged from the water and quickly devoured the dog. Other gators joined the dinner frenzy and finished off the errant couple, who were by then most remorseful.

*Note: It is not implied that this group was part of today’s Seminole Tribe of Florida, which has its own constitution, police department and modern and humane due process of law.  

 Tags: Florida in the 1800s, Jane Feehan film researcher, Everglades, alligators