Martin Digital History

Browse Items (12 total)

  • A short history of the 1949 hurricane assembled by Floretta Bartlett in 1990. The introduction indicates that author had assembled a packet of material, including this history and photographs (no longer accompanying this document).
    Tags

  • Short memoir of growing up with the Ashley family by John Ashley's great niece. Sandra Mario Provence's grandmother was John Ashley's sister.
    Tags

  • Curd Emil August Schroeder (1872-1946) was born in Berlin, Germany, Curd Schroeder apprenticed as a merchant before fulfilling his dream of emigrating to America in 1893. Sailing from Hamburg aboard the Suevia, he arrived at Ellis Island and briefly stayed with relatives in New York before traveling south to Florida. Settling near Sewall’s Point and Jensen, he joined his uncles in the pineapple and crating business along the St. Lucie River. His memoir vividly describes his Atlantic voyage, early impressions of America, and daily life in pioneer Florida—hunting, fishing, sailing, and surviving storms in a developing tropical frontier.
    Tags

  • Diary of Margaret Peck Johnson (1864-1935), made during her boat travel on the Indian River and in White City in 1894. Margaret, her husband (William T. Johnson), two children (Pearl and Sallie) take a boat from Cocoa, Florida down the Indian River to the St. Lucie Inlet, then west and north up the St. Lucie River to White City, Florida. They are accompanied by another couple, Calvin and Minnie Coutant, from Cocoa to Fort Pierce.

    The first 28 pages (14 Jan 1894-23 Feb 1894) of the diary details the fish and game caught along the river and meals cooked, activities, people met, and towns visited, including a stop in Fort Pierce where the men helped Willie's father build a store for several days. Comments on the flora, including flowers, ferns, and orchids are made throughout. The diary then details the family's lives settling in the newly established planned community of The White City (23 Feb 1894-12 March 1894). The family purchased two lots and there are several mentions of how nice Col. Myers was to them and activities in the community.

    The White City settlement was established in 1893 by Louis Albert Francois Pio (14 December 1841 – 27 June 1894). Pio was one of the founders of the Danish Social Democratic Party in Denmark. He fled to America because of persecution, and he and several other Danes attempted to establish a socialist Utopian colony in Kansas, but it failed. He then had many jobs in America, including as a journalist and editor, and also managing the Florida Exhibit at the Chicago World's Fair of 1893. At the fair, he met railroad tycoon Henry Flagler, who convinced him to promote a new town along the rail lines. Pio wrote pamphlets, articles, and placed ads about the community, targeted toward the Danish. The settlement was named "The White City" (although the U.S. post office refused to recognize the article "The" as part of the name in 1894) for two reasons: One, in commemoration of the World's Fair (the main street was also "Midway Road" for the same reason), and two, because the company would not sell land to Black people or employ them in any way. ("Florida's White City," The Sun, New York, 6 May 1894, p. 15) Pio died in June 1894, soon after the community is established. [The "Mr. Peer" mentioned in the diary may refer to Pio.] Soon after, Col. Myers absconded with the community's funds. Settlers were left destitute, and then faced a "Great Freeze" in winter 1894-1895, which killed most of the crops. It took several years for residents to recover.

    It is unknown if the Thompson family experienced any of this hardship. However, they were back in Alabama for the 1900 Federal census. It is unknown if this is an excerpt from a much longer diary. There is a note on the last page that it was given to Margaret's daughter Sallie B. Johnson in Jan 1902.

    Diary was donated in 1871 to HSMC by Mary E. Cates in memory of her grandmother Margaret Johnson (the diary author) and the two little girls mentioned in the diary (Sallie was Cates' mother), and by the generosity of her first cousin, Wilburn McAlister (Pearl's son), who had the original diary for many years.
    Tags

  • The Stuart Hotel, once a central landmark in Stuart, Florida, was owned and operated by Emerson and Mae Clark in the 1920s and early 1930s. Their son, Robert “Bob” Clark, grew up there and later shared detailed memories of life in the town’s early days—Florida’s land boom, segregation, hurricanes, tourism, and small-town life along the St. Lucie River. His recollections offer a vivid portrait of childhood, community, and change in early 20th-century Florida.
    Tags

  • Details Priest's experiences in Florida from about 1868, when he and his family moved to Titusville. The family lived in several places in Volusia County, including Cook's Ferry near Lake Haney and near Ormond, with his father usually earning a living by lumbering. Encounters with bears, boars, alligators, and swarms of bees are detailed. Also discusses the regular abuse of Seminoles he had seen, and details the experiences of Coekeechee, son of Osceola.

    Includes the story of Augustus Oswald Lang (1835–1873), who married Priest's oldest sister, Susan (1856-1918). He first opened the Lake Worth inlet to the sea, and later was murdered by friends who wanted his land.

    p. 2 Foreword by Marty Baum
    p. 3 Autobiography of Joseph Lark Priest : A Florida Pioneer
    p. 38 Descendants of Dugal Priest
    p. 40 Index of names
    p. 41 Index of topics
    p. 50 Photocopies of photographs of the Priest family
    Tags

  • After graduating from New Smyrna Senior High School, Lillian Louise Rudd (1925-2018) worked at Camp Murphy, first as a Camp Locator, and then after several promotions, was in charge of writing special orders. Every time a GI was transferred, they needed to have "orders" to take along with them. Camp Murphy was home of the Southern Signal Corps, which trained in radar. She married Roden Percy Davisworth September 13, 1944 in Stuart.

    Color photocopy of scrapbook features short memoir of her WWII experiences, including when the Germans torpedoed a ship. Photographs are of herself and friends, including those of Emily Beach, Elsie Wells, Buddy Wells, Wayne Wells, Stuart High Band, Red Fultz and Billy Smith (in sailor uniforms), unidentified soldiers at Camp Murphy, group photo of the Junior Hostesses of the Stuart Servicemen's Club. Also invitations, a note from Donald Anthony Burroughs, newsclippings from the Stuart News and the Camp Murphy Message.

    More material from Lillian Louise Rudd Davisworth is available at FSU (finding aid: https://archives.lib.fsu.edu/repositories/10/resources/1680)
    Tags

  • This memoir was written in the 1990s, either by Elsie or dictated by her. It chiefly offers short stories of the lives of the Savage family living in the area, along with the activities of a child growing up in Indiantown, including harvesting guava, gathering firewood, and being dosed with sulphur and molasses. It also offers some record of their amiable interactions with the Seminole people.
    Tags

  • Rev Charles Fred Blackburn (1868-1944) was a "circuit rider," clergy who traveled through sparsely inhabited regions, serving the Indian River-Lake Worth mission for many years. He later became superintendent of West Palm Beach District of Methodist Churches.

    In this pamphlet, he details visits to the towns of Brantley, Sebastian, Fort Pierce (then called Edgartown), Stuart, Lake Worth, Juno, and Miami. Blackburn led church services in a number of towns despite lack of adequate housing or church buildings. In Sebastian, he led the building of a new church. In Stuart, he went to officiated at the wedding of William J. Dyer and Kate Hamilton, only to find the marriage license was for the wrong county. He later established the Methodist Church in Stuart. Later in Miami, he faced conflict with other denominations and they were quarantined due to yellow fever.

    Embossed with stamp "From the Library of Rev RJ Gisler, Methodist minister"
    Tags

  • Nils Wilhelm "Bill" Jorgensen (1896-1977) was the first child born to the Danish community that settled White City (named for a section of the 1893 Chicago World's Fair exhibition), a settlement south of Fort Pierce. He was frequently interviewed and gave presentations on White City history. Page 11 is missing.

    This short history details the settling of White City by a group of Danes from Nebraska and presents several humorous stories of resident escapades. It includes stories of interactions with Indians; descriptions of wood cutting and home building; details of social interactions and "tall tales" told at the country store; gator hunting techniques; clearing hyacinths from canals; agricultural activities, including pineapple crops failing due to lack of potash, and planting the first citrus grove in the area.
    Tags
Output Formats

atom, dcmes-xml, json, omeka-xml, rss2

Proudly powered by Omeka.