By Wellborn Phillips Jr.
During the 308 years between the discovery of Florida by
Ponce de Leon in 1513 and America’s purchase
in 1821, there had been only 3 successful—and
still small attempts to colonize—at St. Augustine, on the Panhandle, and a village on Key West.. At the same time, Florida had acquired a reputation
for being “remote” and having hurricanes
and heat, Indians, alligators and mosquitoes.
Just the same, several dozen
hearty individuals—largely Bahamians—disregarded Florida’s reputation and wanted
to get away from the autocratic English.
So they trickled into Florida and built homes—and farms—in some of those “remote”
locations scattered across the map. Some
of them even got grants from the Spanish Crown.
The sale of Florida to America prompted more action in the
next few years than it had seen in the previous 308. The Adams-Onis Treaty transferred ownership
to America, but also required America to
appoint a commission to study and ratify legitimate individual claims to
Florida lands based upon Grants from the Spanish Crown. To qualify for
consideration, the Bahamians—and possibly others—had to register with the
commission. Today, we do not know how
they even learned of the requirement, or how they qualified, but we know that
three groups got a clear title to their properties originating with the Spanish
Crown.
One of the groups owned land on Key Biscayne. We’ll discuss that some other time and spend
our time today on the mainland properties.
One property on the mainland extends one square mile north of the Miami
River, known as the James Eagan Donation.
Today it is Downtown Miami—the property Julia Tuttle bought and Henry
Flagler helped to develop and sell.
The other tract is a
long strip of land south of the river that extends along Biscayne Bay into
Coconut Grove. This was a group of
Donations owned by various members of the Lewis Family. Today, it houses a
spectacular collection of office buildings, apartment buildings and
condos. Its southern tip is the land
where Vizcaya was built.
When the American committee finished its work and the owners
titles were verified, all three got a clear title going back to the Spanish
Crown—and the rest of the land was in the public domain.
In 1822, an Act of Congress
created a Legislative Council of 13 people to be elected from Districts. It also instructed the President to appoint
the Governor. President Monroe immediately appointed William
P. Duval from Virginia. At the same
time, Monroe ordered Duval to pacify the Indians. In the mean time,
the newly organized
government in Tallahassee was busy organizing itself. When this was finished, it organized the
first five counties in North Florida—where the population was –Escambia, St,
Johns, Jackson, Duval and Gadsen.
Almost immediately, the Legislative Council realized that a 6th area—South Florida, the Keys and
Key West, with a lot less population, was rapidly spiraling out of control and
also badly needed a government. In 1823, the Legislative Council created a
new—a GIGANTIC sixth county-- named it Monroe County for the President and
designated Key West as the County Seat
Monroe County was indeed “a gigantic sixth county” It
included not only Key West and the Florida Keys and all of the land that is now
Dade County but it extended north to Charlotte Harbor on the Gulf Coast and to
Hillsboror Inlet on the East Coast.
While all this new activity was taking place, Governor Duval
was holding a conference with the Indians and it was widely believed they would
be content with extensive new lands in the West. It was also believed there would be a big
influx of new settlers. Both beliefs
turned out wrong: the Indians were
unhappy with their new status and “the new activity” attracted only 3
men—Richard Fitzpatrick, Jacob Houseman and a famous horticultist Dr. Henry
Perrine.
Richard Fitzpatrick, originally from Columbia, South
Carolina was a young man with unlimited energies. At first, he tried making salt. But he did better at politics. He was elected to the Key West City Council,
then appointed Clerk of the Circuit Court, a member of the Grand Jury and a
deputy Auctioneer. The first street in
Key West is named for him. Finally he
was elected to the Territorial Legislative Council. But above all, his ambition was to be a
gentleman farmer.
In the mean time, Jacob Houseman had arrived at Indian Key
from Staten Island in a boat stolen from his father. For a while, he appeared to be the most
promising of the three men. He built a
large, fine home for himself, then built other homes for sale, developed lots,
got Indian Key declared a port of entry so he could challenge Key West for some
of the wrecking business. Finally, he
built stores, a hotel and even a billiard parlor.
In the mean time, James Eagan was getting tired of the uneventful
life he was living in Key West. He heard
about Indian Key and he decided he would move to the Big City. He placed an ad in the Key West newspaper,
offering his land for sale. Fitzpatrick
saw the ad, bought Eagans 640 acres for $400, then bought the other three
tracts for $1,840.
Fitzpatrick began improving his empire. He built 20 buildings near the mouth of the
River including quarters for 60 slaves.
He extended Eagan’s groves and coconut plantation. By this time, Fitzpatrick had been elected to
the Territorial Legislative Council. So
he got two assistants to help him: James
Wright and Stephen Mallory. (Years later, Mallory would have a distinguished
life, first, as a U. S. Senator and
later, during the Civil War, as Secretary of the Navy for the Confederacy.)
In 1830, the first Federal Census identified a total
population for Florida of 34,730 people.
Early in 1836, the Legislative Council was scheduled to meet
with Fitzpatrick as a chairman who was not averse to using his new powers. The agenda was settled—they would also create
a new county from the eastern half of Monroe and Indian Key was to be the
County Seat—and the new county was to be named Pinckney, a distinguished name in South Carolina.. But Fitzpatrick didn’t know that the history of
Florida
was destined to be written elsewhere for the next eight
years.
Back in 1823, Governor Duval, at the command of President
Monroe had convened a group of Seminole chiefs and got their signatures on the
Treaty of Moultrie Creek which required all the Indians to leave Florida and
move out West. In the three years that followed, most of the chiefs that signed
the Treaty were replaced by younger man who were determined to fight. And the
Second Seminole war was about to start.
On December 28, 1835, two infantry companies commanded by
Major Francis Langhorne Dade were moving from Fort King near Tampa Bay to northeast
Florida when they were ambushed by a large band of Indians near the present
site of Bushnell. Only 3 men escaped and
related what happened; 108 men, including Major Dade, were killed.
Major Dade was immediately declared a hero and history books
started telling us this was the spark that started the Second Seminole Indian War. A short time later, the Legislative Council
met and created the new county as planned.
But instead of naming it Pinckney, as their chairman had decided, they
outvoted him and named it for America’s most-recent hero, Major Francis
Langhorne Dade.
The new county was almost wiped out before it got
started. The Indians, led by Chekika,
attacked Indian Key, destroying
Housman’s little settlement and killing Dr. Perrine who was visiting
there. The Indians then moved to the
Miami Area, burning the Key Biscayne Light House, then looting and destroying
the Fitzpatrick Plantation. Sometime
later, Fitzpatrick sold his plantation and other properties to his nephew,
William F. English, for $16,000.
English has two claims to fame. First, he platted part of the plantation
south of the river as The Village of Miami, becoming the first to use the name
in its present form and to refer to an area on land. But his efforts otherwise were not
successful. He could find only two
customers for his lots. Second, in 1844,
he was elected a Dade County Senator and he guided a bill through the
Legislature, moving the county seat from nearly burned out Indian Key to the village
of Miami
In 1849. English learned about gold in California and moved
there. Five years later, he accidentally
shot and killed himself. For the next 10
years, little happened in the Miami Area.
During the Civil War
(1861-65) a Federal blockade cut off communication with the
outside world.
In 1865, thousands of Carpetbaggers arrived. The Freeman’s Bureau had plans to convert
South Florida into a “Little Liberia” using the Homestead Act to give 160 acres
of land to each of the 60,000 freed slaves they hoped to settle here. But the plan never got off the ground. Fortunately, the two men the Bureau sent to
implement the program—William Gleason and William H. Hunt—were too
interested—and busy—with their own plans.
Gleason from New York was 36 years old but he had already
made a substantial fortune , founding the town of Eau Claire, Wisconsin. And he was president of the Bank there. But greed led to shady deals. The bank failed, Then he met a group of
Radical Republicans who convinced him that The South during Reconstruction was HIS
Land of Opportunity. In 1866, Gleason
arrived in a schooner which he anchored off of Key Biscayne. It was called “The Ark” because it had so
many people and things aboard—Gleason, his wife, and 2 sons, Hunt and his wife,
but also a wide assortment of equipment, seeds, food, books, and even a
printing press. They moved into English’s
old Ft. Dallas building. And Gleason
departed, leaving Hunt in charge.
In Tallahassee, Gleason teamed up with a previously unknown
person named Harrison Read who was running for Governor. And he got Read to agree to him joining the
ticket as Lieutenant Governor. What
happened—they won—convinced Gleason that
Florida during Reconstruction was indeed a Land of Opportunity
But being Lieutenant Governor
wasn’t enough for the ambitious Gleason.
Before long, Gleason engineered
impeachment proceedings against Reed, declared
himself governor, stole the State Seal and set up an office for himself across
the street.
For a while, Florida had 2 people, each claiming to be
Governor of Florida. Eventually, the
State Supreme Court declared Reed the lawful Governor, the State Senate
impeached Gleason. It declared Gleason
did not have the residency required in the State Constitution.
Gleason was not dismayed.
While he was still Lt. Governor, he had formed the Southern Inland
Navigation & Improvement Company.
And already he had started buying State lands (which Gleason himself—as
either Governor—or Lt. Governor had declared were “swamp lands.”) That
designation, by himself, is all Gleason needed to enable himself to buy any
government-owned lands anywhere in Florida
for 6 cents an acre. And Gleason was rapidly becoming a major
property owner.
In 1869, Gleason moved back to Miami where he had plenty of
cronies. He was immediately appointed
County Clerk, County Surveyor, Tax Assessor and member of the School
Board. (This last job seemed especially
strange because in 1869, Dade County still did not have any public
schools.)
For the next 8 years,
however, there was no doubt about one thing: Mr. William H. Gleason was the political
boss of Dade County.
At the same time, Gleason
began to realize that in the 1870’s, he was finally losing the absolute control
he had had over events. Many new people
were moving to Miami—and many of them were not charmed with Mr. Gleason.
For the election of 1876,
Dade County had 73 voters registered in 3 precincts, designated as Miami
Area, Jupiter and Lake Worth. Gleason
already knew many of the 14 voters in Jupiter and Lake Worth. Some might not vote at all, he decided, and
those that did, would probably be inclined to leave things as they are. It was the other 59 voters in the Miami Area that
concerned him.
These 59 voters would be voting as usual at the Michael
Sears home—located where Bay Point is today—and Gleason decided he could not
trust them—over half of them could be new people in town.
During the election,
everything appeared to be handled properly in all three locations. However, that night after votes were counted,
something happened that no one
anticipated—and it had National repercussions!
At Jupiter and Lake
Worth, the tally for the seat in the Legislature gave Gleason a slim majority of the 14 votes and everyone
was flabbergasted when Gleason’s hand –picked canvas board announced Gleason
was reelected to the Legislature for another term,.
What about the 59 votes from Michel Sears home? The conversing board announced that the
election would be decided by the 14 votes because many of the 59 votes from the
Sears house were “irregular”and didn’t count.
At first, there appeared to be just a technical problem. Perhaps there would be a recount of the 59
ballots. Then someone pointed out that t
was still Reconstruction and the election had to be certified by a Federal
Court. . .
. . .Several days later the situation became really
serious: the 59 votes from Michael Sears
home couldn’t be checked—they were not just set aside--they had been lost and
the entire election could not be certified until they were found. And finally, this wasn’t just another local
election, this was the famous—or infamous-- Tilden-Hayes Presidential Election which had
gone to the Electoral College—and either Mr. Hayes or Mr. Tilden needed ONE
vote to be elected President of the United States.
Oregon and three
Carpetbagger states—Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina were still to be
certified. Each day, the newspapers went
into a litany why each state wasn’t certified that included the
explanation that Florida couldn’t be
certified until Dade County was certified.
Finally, a New York Times column asked about Dade County and
the people began chanting “Where in Hell is Dade County.
Finally, Mr. Hayes
was smarter than Mr. Tilden. He offered
to with draw Federal troops and end Reconstruction. South Carolina gave him its electoral vote. And months later, Federal troops went home.
Nobody went to jail.
But it was the end of Mr. Gleason, the end of an era..
And 20 years later a
new era would start with people like Julia Tuttle and Henry Flagler.
Today, Major Dade has 4 namesakes—not only Miami-Dade County
and Dade City, Florida but also towns named
for him in Missouri and Georgia. And every
year on the anniversary of the event, the battle is re-enacted at the Dade
Battlefield State Park near Bushnell.
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