Three forts of Fort Lauderdale, the third remembered

Site of third Fort Lauderdale -
South Beach, across from Bahia Mar

By Jane Feehan

Maj. William Lauderdale of Tennessee was sent to Florida to fight the Seminoles in 1837. Little did he dream a bustling city attracting visitors from around the world would spring up on the site of a fort bearing his name.

The Daughters of the American Revolution dedicated a plaque in October, 2005 honoring the major's service and his place in Fort Lauderdale's history in a ceremony attended by then Mayor Jim Naugle and local history enthusiasts. The dedication was held at the site of the third fort built in the area during the Seminole Wars of the 1830s, located on the beach east of the current Bahia Mar yacht basin.

Marge McClain, former regent for the Himmarshee chapter of the DAR discovered the original plaque, installed in 1929 by one of the founding chapter members, went missing a few years ago. One of the objectives of the DAR, whose members can prove a lineal descent from a patriot of the American Revolution, is to preserve local landmarks and historic structures across the country.

According to McClain there had been reports in 1952 the plaque was neglected, covered by plant growth. The plaque eventually made its way to a drawer and the marker remained in the sand on the beach, faceless.

The fort was built in 1839 under the command of Capt. William B. Davidson in honor of Lauderdale, whose Tennessee Volunteers had successfully routed the Seminoles in March 1838. Lauderdale died of fever May 10, 1838, in Baton Rouge, La., on his way home to Tennessee.

The first and second forts were constructed in 1838 along the New River, near present-day Southeast Ninth Avenue.

The DAR gave permission in 2005 to have the plaque made for the marker. It is designated the Old Fort Lauderdale Marker and is one of seven DAR historical signs in the city.

Locations of all seven are listed on the Frank Stranahan Marker at the north end of the New River Tunnel at Federal Highway and Las Olas Boulevard, the site of the first trading post in Fort Lauderdale. Other markers commemorate pioneers Ivy Stranahan and Camille Perry Bryan; the Colee Hammock massacre; Fort Lauderdale's first aviator, Merle Fogg; and Alexander R. "Sandy" Nininger, awarded posthumously the first Congressional Medal of Honor of World War II by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on Jan. 29, 1942.

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Sources:

Karnap (Feehan), Jane. “DAR places plaque on beach to honor Maj. Lauderdale.” Sun Sentinel, Oct. 16, 2005.

Tags: History of Fort Lauderdale, Third fort of Fort Lauderdale Florida history, Fort Lauderdale history, Maj. William Lauderdale, historic sites Fort Lauderdale

Seminole Shirttail Charlie - Fort Lauderdale's early character

Shirttail Charlie 1910
Florida State Archives

 

By Jane Feehan

With a past that was the stuff of folklore rather than fact, Seminole Shirttail Charlie (1855-1925) was one of early Fort Lauderdale's colorful characters.

He was known for dressing in nothing but a shirt. News accounts of the day claimed he killed his wife and was sentenced by tribal elders to “be attired in a one-piece garment reaching half way to his knees and slit on the sides.” Others claimed he committed only some minor infraction that earned him the shirt sentence.

In reality Shirttail Charlie dressed in garb that was customary among Seminole men a few decades before he roamed the streets of Fort Lauderdale. It was reported that he was a panhandler. “He begs from the white man for the few pennies necessary for his existence ...” On the other hand, Charlie was also thought to have been an athlete and fearless hunter in his younger days.

Seminole men circa 1900
Florida State Archives

Shirttail Charlie Tommie died in 1925 and was buried near his family’s former camp, near today’s Broward Boulevard east of I-95. A restaurant on the New River bearing his name closed a few years ago.

Sources: 

Genealogical Society of Broward County

Gillis, Susan. Fort Lauderdale: The Venice of America. Charleston: Arcadia (2004).
Weidling, Philip J. , Burghard, August. Checkered Sunshine. Gainesville: University of Florida Press (1966).

Miami News, June 19, 1924

Tags: Fort Lauderdale history, Seminole history, history of Fort Lauderdale

Dark days of Florida's convict lease system and a North Dakota man's death

Convicts leased to harvest lumber
Florida State Archives

By Jane Feehan

The convict lease system emerged in the South after slavery was abolished in 1865. Some lawmen helped farmers cope with the workforce shortage by arresting African Americans, and later white men, on trumped up charges and renting them out for labor.  Sentiment raged for decades against leasing convicts but Florida and Alabama were the last two states to pass laws against the system in 1923.

The case of Martin Tabert, a young North Dakota resident arrested for hopping a train near Leon County  brought an end to this dark chapter in Florida’s history. 

Sentenced to labor, he was rented out to a lumber company operating in the Panhandle. Soon after, Tabert was flogged when he became too ill to work. Within hours of the beating, he died.  His parents brought suit against the lumber company more than a year later after they were informed of the circumstances of their son’s death. They were awarded $20,000 in a court battle that grabbed national headlines. Subsequent to the trial, Florida Governor Cary Hardee introduced legislation that outlawed flogging and abolished the convict lease system in 1923.

Miami Metropolis, Nov, 28, 1923

 Copyright © 2020, 2023. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan

Sources:

http://www.dc.state.fl.us/oth/timeline/1921.html

Estabrook, Barry. Tomatoland. Kansas City: Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2011

Miami Metropolis, March 28, 1910, p. 9

Miami Metropolis, July 12, 1911, p. 4

Tags: Florida history, labor history, African-American history, convict lease, flogging, film research

Fort Lauderdale High Flying L's: Fun facts and notables through the years

FLHS 2022, a retro look

By Jane Feehan

The cornerstone of Fort Lauderdale High School, known first as Fort Lauderdale Central, was laid in 1915 on land donated by the pioneer Stranahan family. A Mediterranean Revival structure designed by Miami architect August Geiger, the school drew students from Pompano Beach, Davie and all the unnamed rural areas that are named municipalities in Broward County today.

More interesting facts:

Track team uniforms of 1918 served as inspiration for the school’s student body nickname, the 

Flying L's. Uniforms with the Flying L logo were provided free to students beginning in 1922. In 1934, during one year of the Great Depression, there were only 16 members of the graduating class. Times were so tough that they were unable to publish a yearbook. 

During World War II, diplomas were given to male students who completed one semester and enlisted in the military. 

The school band, before Castro took over Cuba in 1959, made yearly trips by boat to Havana (see photo at right from a 1948 yearbook). The school building closed in 1962 and relocated to the current site on NE Fourth Avenue. The Class of 1962 laid a commemorative plaque at the old site, now the site of a bank.

Notable graduates:

Bob Clark (attended) - writer/ director of the movie, Porky’s 

C.M. Newton, former athletic director of the University of Kentucky; 

Sandy Nininger, the first soldier of World War II awarded the Medal of Honor (posthumous).

Rita Mae Brown, author and women’s rights activist; 

Peter T. Fay, senior judge of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta 



Sources: 
Sun-Sentinel. Telling Tales Out of School by Jane Feehan. April 11, 2004
Gillis, Susan. Fort Lauderdale: The Venice of America. Charleston: Arcadia (2004). 

Tags: Fort Lauderdale history, Florida in the early 1900s, Fort Lauderdale High School history

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) Florida State Archives

 

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 Jupiter to Miami along the barefoot route - much-shortened from the mail route used before 1885. The US Post Office operated a route from 1867 for two years before suspending the route.

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.  

The USPS Star Route 6451 was reactivated in 1884 with the first courier contract going to Lantana settler and future Dade County school superintendant, Edward Ruthven Bradley.

A statue near the Hillsboro Inlet commemorates these men. Carriers included Kentucky native James “Ed” Hamilton who had settled in Hypoluxo with two friends in 1885. He became a mail carrier in 1887 but disappeared a few months after beginning service, perhaps drowning or being attacked by alligators while trying to cross the inlet after his boat went missing.

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

Hillsboro Lighthouse Preservation Society at hillsborolighthouse.org/bfmn.html

WestPalmBeach.com

Tags: 

Florida in the 1800s, mail service in early Florida, Hillsboro Inlet, USPS, Ed Hamilton

Hugh T. Birch and the property he didn't donate to Fort Lauderdale

Birch State Park from the Intracoastal

By Jane Feehan   

Hugh Taylor Birch (1848-1943), a Chicago attorney and former counsel for Standard Oil, was sailing a small boat from Hobe Sound in the 1890s when a storm drove him near Fort Lauderdale's harbor.  Rescued, he was brought to Stranahan’s camp along the New River. Boat mishap aside, there was something about Fort Lauderdale that brought Birch back to buy property – more than three miles of it - along the ocean.

Aerial view of Birch property1928
Florida State Archives

At that time, most early settlers looked toward the Everglades for opportunity. But Birch made the $500 purchase ($1 dollar per acre) because it was where he wanted to live a few months each year. Some  say motion picture producer D.W. Griffith offered him $250,000 in 1920 for a portion of the land, but Birch refused to sell. (D.W. Griffith stories about land purchases in Fort Lauderdale seemed to fuel a lot of interest but ring akin to Capone stories of the time: unsubstantiated.)                    

Birch property 1900 Florida State Archives

                    On December 6, 1941, Birch hosted Senator Spessard Holland at his Fort Lauderdale estate to find out about deeding his property to the state’s park system, because, he told the senator, “he had had some friction with the city and county …”  Birch liked what he heard and moved forward to make arrangements with the state to donate 180 acres and nearly one mile along the Intracoastal waterway. He lived on the estate until his death in 1943.

               

Hugh Taylor Birch State Park was opened and dedicated January 27, 1951. The park’s entrance is on Sunrise near A1A. Its natural habitat provides a venue for hikers, bicyclists, canoeists and picnickers to enjoy the outdoors.  

Canoes at Birch State Park 1950
Florida State Archives

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Sources: 

Genealogical Society of Broward County

Gillis, Susan. Fort Lauderdale: The Venice of America. Charleston: Arcadia (2004).

Weidling, Philip J., Burghard, August. Checkered Sunshine. Gainesville: University of Florida Press (1966).

Tags: Fort Lauderdale history, Florida State parks, Hugh T. Birch, Florida history, 
Hugh Taylor Birch State Park, history of Fort Lauderdale, Hugh Taylor Birch shipwreck