Martin Digital History

Browse Items (8 total)

  • Historical note:
    Wilhelmina Ernestina "Minnie" Miranda Shuflin (1878-1953), born in Ohio, married Frank Shuflin in 1896. She, her husband, and five children (Earl, Adah, Frank, John, and Sarah Ruth) arrived in Jupiter in 1913. Between 1920 and 1930, the family moved to Miami, where Wilhelmina taught in the public school. She continued to live there after her husband died in 1934.

    Scope note:
    Brief weekly descriptions of activities, including visits in West Palm Beach and Hobe Sound.
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  • 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.
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  • 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.
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  • 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.
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  • 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
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  • Short memoir of the author's time as postmaster of Hobe Sound, Florida from the late 1920s to the late 1950s.
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  • An account of the experiences of the Frazier family's arrival in Martin County in 1888, by Margarette Frazier. Published in the Stuart Messenger, 16 May 1918 with the title "Stories of early Stuart settlers, coming down the Indian River on the Frost Line, Reuben Russel Frazier in 1888, the first school, the first church, the first teacher and the first preacher."

    Margarette Melissa Dufour (1851–1929), her husband Reuben Russell Frazier (1846–1905) and their three children came to the area in 1888 with a load of lumber and household goods, a horse and wagon, forty chickens, and three beehives.

    The article switches from third person, referring to Margarette Frazier as "Mrs. Frazier" in the first half, then switching to first person, in her voice.
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  • An account of the arrival of the Frazier family to Martin County. Published in the Stuart News, 9 Nov 1950.
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