Pioneering Palm Beach

by Ginger L Pedersen

  NEWSPAPER PRESS ROOM IN WEST PALM BEACH. Birdie worked as a correspondent for several Florida newspapers including the Tropical Sun, the Lake Worth Weekly News and the Florida Times-Union. Courtesy Florida Archives.

  Birdie wrote an extensive article for the Florida Times-Union, the Jacksonville newspaper, about the trip that was also carried by the Tropical Sun. Her observations of the area and prophecies of what the future held for the Miami area are astounding. She called it the “Biscayne Bay Country” and dismissed descriptions she had read of the area as being uninhabitable because of the mosquitoes, sandflies and rocky soils. Her proof that the area would be successful was how prosperous the Seminole Indians were on the flatwoods just beyond the coastal areas. She wrote, “In the near future the prairies that skirt the Everglades will be one extensive garden of luxuriant tropical fruits and waving sugar cane. This will be the home of vegetable producers and building places for the wealthy people from the North who like picturesque surroundings.”

  At this time, the Florida East Coast Railway’s terminal point was Titusville; in 1892, plans had been announced to extend the railroad another twenty-two miles south to Rockledge. No other plans had been announced for bringing the railroad into South Florida. She foresaw the future here, too: “The railroad is bound to cross this valuable land and bring it within two and a half days of New York City and thirty hours of our metropolis, Jacksonville.” She did give an accurate account of affairs as they stood—that most made a living from milling coontie starch or working the occasional wreck on the beach. “The wreck is looked upon as a gift from the Almighty. It is said that during a prayer meeting, when the cry of ‘wreck on the reef’ was raised and there was a stampede for the door, the minister jumped out of the window and was first at the wreck, and according to their usage, was captain of the wreck and got the lion’s share.”

  PALM GROVE AT THE BLESSED ISLE. Along the Lake Worth shoreline, the Deweys planted a coconut grove. The Blessed Isle gardens included roses, bananas, guavas, limes, mangoes, oranges, avocados and pineapples. Private collection.

  The land in Miami and southern Dade County is very rocky, but she foresaw how the rock could be quarried into blocks for building fine homes, which did occur in many homes. She also mentioned the Perrine Grant, given by the federal government to Dr. Henry Edward Perrine in 1838 to create farms for settlers to grow tropical fruits and vegetables on the twenty-three-thousand-acre township. The Seminole Indians drove him from the lands, and at the time of Birdie’s visit, only six people were living on the vast pinelands, which today are home to hundreds of thousands of people.

  The Deweys sailed on to Key West and then to Tampa, where they caught the train to Sanford. Then it was on to Titusville, where they took a steamer to Jupiter, taking the Celestial Railroad to reach the top of Lake Worth at Juno, where they visited the Tropical Sun offices. The sharpie Gold Dust sailed them along Lake Worth to the Blessed Isle.

  As Fred and Birdie settled back into their paradise at the Blessed Isle and Ben Trovato, the winds of change were gathering that would forever alter their discovered paradise and bring a world to them that could have only been dreamed of. It came on glistening rails and brought the most famous people in the world to their very doorstep.

  The King Arrives in the Jungle

  As more new residents appeared, the Deweys began to see the possibilities of the Lake Worth Country and the value of its land. With Fred serving as tax collector and assessor, he was able to see the development that was taking place all over Dade County and what land remained unclaimed. This was coupled with the fact that a new type of settler was arriving in Lake Worth. Wealthy northerners who wished to spend a “winterless winter” were now appearing on the lakefront. Robert R. McCormick, a Pennsylvanian who had made his railroad fortune in Denver, Colorado, began to winter at the Cocoanut Grove House in 1884. He wanted to have his own place, so he bought some of Albert Geer’s land for $10,000 and built the finest cottage on the lake, Lac a Mer, which endures to this day as the Sea Gull Cottage in Palm Beach. This event was a bellwether for what was happening to land values along Lake Worth, and it was happening very quickly. More well-known people followed, among them Charles I. Cragin, Charles J. Clarke, Frederick Robert and Enoch Root.

  Fred and Birdie still owned the seventy-six acres and the Hermitage cottage, but they had the opportunity to make a significant profit on the land. They had not stayed the requisite five years to be granted the homestead at no cost, so in 1891 they paid $1.25 per acre in a cash sale. Some wealthy and prominent Chicagoans took an interest in the property: George B. Swift, who served as the twenty-eighth mayor of Chicago, and James B. Clow, partner in a large plumbing supply distributor and manufacturer that is still in business today. Both had winter homes on Lake Worth and wanted to expand business ventures in the area. In January 1892, they bought the seventy-six acres from Fred and Birdie for $2,400.00 and formed the Chicago Pineapple Company, which augmented the Clow family’s pineapple farm Windella north of West Palm Beach. Fred and Birdie had their first big profit in land sales and began to look around to quickly reinvest the gains.

  PINEAPPLE FIELDS. Early South Florida farmers planted pineapples, which grew well in the sandy soil. Farmers abandoned the plantations after the 1909 pineapple blight decimated the crops, and the land was subdivided for housing. Courtesy Library of Congress.

  First among their purchases was land at the southern foot of Lake Worth; Birdie bought 160 acres from George H.K. Charter on January 29, 1892, for $700.00. The land was bought solely in Birdie’s name, perhaps from her writing profits. Fred bought 80 acres along the ridge west of what became West Palm Beach (where Parker Avenue is today) for $1.25 an acre from the State of Florida, and within two months he had sold it for $2,000.00 to John S. Clarke. Fred also bought large land tracts in what became Broward County, buying two entire sections (two square miles of land). The 1,280 acres was purchased from the state of Florida for $1.25 an acre.

  With wealthy and well-connected men wintering in Palm Beach and investing in property in the lush tropical landscape, times were changing from the pioneer mindset. These changes set the stage for its star player to enter—Henry Morrison Flagler. Born in 1830, Flagler was a founding partner in the Standard Oil Company along with John D. Rockefeller and was one of America’s wealthiest Gilded Age capitalists. Florida became his dream, to be developed with his vast fortune. Flagler had wintered in St. Augustine and Jacksonville as early as 1876, but as Fred and Birdie had already discovered, South Florida had a charm and allure that Northern Florida simply could not match.

  Who exactly clued Flagler in on the Lake Worth Country is a question that has been debated by historians for decades. Art historian Deborah Pollack presented an intriguing thesis in her book Laura Woodward: The Artist Behind the Innovator Who Developed Palm Beach. Pollack argued that it was Laura Woodward, an artist specializing in landscape scenes, who convinced Flagler to see Lake Worth. Woodward had found the Lake Worth Country in 1890, wanting to paint its exotic coconut palms and other wild scenery such as the Everglades. Woodward had met Flagler in St. Augustine, where she was one of the artists-in-residence at Flagler’s Ponce de Leon Hotel. She came to Lake Worth in the summer of 1890, when the Royal Poinciana tree was in full bloom with its garishly red blossoms, and painted all she saw and experienced. With her tropical landscape paintings, she urged Flagler to see Lake Worth and extolled the potential it had as a winter resort. According to Pollack, Laura Woodward’s painting of the Royal Poinciana tree is what brought Flagler to Palm Beach in February 1893. Flagler stayed with the Roberts and was enchanted by all he saw. He directed his agents to immediately begin buying land on both sides of Lake Worth. In Palm Beach, Flagler bought the R.R. McCormick and E.M. Brelsford properties to build his grand hotel on Lake Worth. He also announced that his Florida East Coast Railway would expand to Lake Worth.

  COCONUT PALM PAINTING BY LAURA WOODWARD. Artist Miss Laura Woodward arrived in Lake Worth Country in 1890. He
r full-color landscape paintings of the South Florida tropics may have encouraged Henry M. Flagler to visit the region. Courtesy Deborah Pollack.

  Flagler’s arrival marked an important milestone in Palm Beach County’s history—the end of the pioneer era. Now an entirely new game was afoot, and the area’s first land boom had begun. Emma Gilpin wrote in a letter home on March 5, 1893: “The boom is on. Flagler and his rail-men have made the people entirely wild and property is held sky-high. It is whispered that he closed with Dimick [Cocoanut Grove House owner]—that means a fine hotel here next year.” Gilpin mentioned that suddenly everything was for sale, including the Dewey property, the Blessed Isle. Flagler’s influence was immediately felt. John R. Gilpin wrote in an April 12, 1893 letter to his sister: “Flagler is looked upon as the all-powerful and expectations run high. The railroad is to be built immediately; the surveyor tents are now on the opposite shore.” Flagler’s railroad extension again gained him thousands of acres of public land. In some cases, Flagler was awarded as much as eight thousand acres of land for every mile of railroad he built. The hotels Flagler built broke even at best; it was selling the lands he received from the state that turned a profit through the following decades.

  HENRY MORRISON FLAGLER. Railroad tycoon Henry Flagler built fine hotels along the route of his Florida East Coast Railway. This statue of Mr. Flagler was erected in St. Augustine at Flagler College as a tribute to his memory. Private collection.

  SEMINOLE HOTEL. George Zapf owned this two-story wooden hotel located at the corner of Banyan Street and Narcissus. The structure burned down in the 1896 downtown West Palm Beach fire and was rebuilt with brick. Courtesy Florida Archives.

  As Flagler was buying land on each side of Lake Worth, he realized that his dream resort needed a service town to support his planned hotel. Owen S. Porter had homesteaded land along Lake Worth’s west side, and Flagler purchased fifty acres from Porter for $35,000 in 1893. Flagler bought other lands from settlers to assemble enough for Palm Beach’s service town. Once the land was secured, Flagler hired George Potter to lay out the town grid in August 1893. Local plant names provided the street names in alphabetical order, most of which survive today. East–west streets were Althea, Banyan, Clematis, Datura, Evernia and Fern; north–south avenues were Lantana, Myrtle, Narcissus, Olive, Poinsettia, Rosemary, Tamarind and Sapodilla.

  The residents debated what to name this new town. The first suggestion was the town of Flagler, as reported in the April 13, 1893 Tropical Sun: “The suggestion to name the new West Side town ‘Flagler’ meets with popular approval at Palm Beach. Visitors to the Lake next winter at the end of their journey will hear the cry of Flagler!” Even John R. Gilpin was sure that the town was to be called Flagler, as he wrote his sister: “The expectation now is that the Pullman cars will stop at the town of Flagler in November.” But Flagler did not want to immortalize himself in this way; rather, a very logical name was chosen, based on the fact that the area was always called the “west side.” Residents chose Westpalmbeach, all one word, as the new town’s name. It did not change to West Palm Beach until 1896, when two downtown fires caused the superstitious town folk to realize that the first version had thirteen letters.

  So once again, a town was beginning to find Fred and Birdie’s paradise at the Blessed Isle. The town center was about one mile north of their home. In a letter to the editor, published in the December 27, 1900 issue of the Lake Worth News, Birdie wrote of early West Palm Beach: “Speaking of our town it is like a dream-city to those who have seen its birth and growth. Fewer than ten years ago, the place where it stands was the haunt of wild creatures who roamed unmolested among spruce pine trees and oak scrub. Later it was a little hamlet of tents and shanties where one waded ankle deep in white sand.” The Deweys could easily reach the new town by walking through the pine woods, walking along the shore of Lake Worth or sailing to the wharf at Banyan Street.

  WEST PALM BEACH WATERFRONT. The settlers traversed the waters of Lake Worth, using it much like a highway functioned in other communities. Residents docked at the wharf and would shop and conduct business in town. Courtesy Florida Archives.

  HOTEL ROYAL POINCIANA. Henry Flagler’s Hotel Royal Poinciana was opened in February 1894, becoming the largest wooden structure in the world with 1,150 rooms and seven miles of corridors. Courtesy Library of Congress.

  In a time when things could be built as soon as land was secured with no thought of zoning, building permits or impact, Flagler immediately commenced with the planning and construction of his hotel and resort. As it served as the inspiration for Flagler’s trip to Lake Worth, the Royal Poinciana tree provided the perfect name for the new hotel—it was to be called the Hotel Royal Poinciana, for the magnificent trees that graced the grounds. Ironically, guests at the hotel never saw the tree in bloom as the hotel was only open from January through March and the Royal Poinciana only blooms in summer. The hotel’s construction began on May 1, 1893, on a short timeline for completion. John R. Gilpin’s letter from April 23, 1893, to his sister noted, “They are working away like bees upon the new hotel—a space 800 feet by 250 feet has been cleared.” He continued, “We hear they are going to work on the hotel nights by electric lights. There are evidently great things to be done here this summer—troops of workmen.”

  As 1893 continued, the Deweys held many grand parties and events at Ben Trovato. The one that was most captured for history was the April 10, 1893 tea party, held just a week after Easter, that marked the end of the “Season,” the word that to this day is used to describe the time between Christmas and Easter in Palm Beach. Given in honor of the new pastor, Reverend Harding, more than forty of Palm Beach’s best-known winter residents attended the party. This moment was beautifully captured for history, and a wonderful account of the event appeared in the Tropical Sun: “Mrs. Dewey invited us to afternoon tea at Ben Trovato. She wanted the gentlemen, of course, and we all went, of course, as did the ladies too. Before us lay the lake, smiling in the sunshine and bedecked in glistening sails. Was it not a picture? It was, and Mr. Russell fastened it in his camera for us.” All of Palm Beach’s elite families were there, including the Cluetts, Roberts, Gilpins, Cragins, Brelsfords, Clarkes, Bartons, Mulfords, Zapfs and Kinzells.

  Fred soon found himself again in public service. The Bradford County Telegraph reported that Governor Henry L. Mitchell had suspended the Dade County treasurer and appointed Fred to examine the accounts and report to the county commission. Meanwhile, Birdie was becoming known as a fine hostess for the many parties and events held at Ben Trovato. She entertained important people of the day such as Joseph Jefferson, a well-known actor who brought electricity to West Palm Beach in 1895, as well as with poet and editor Richard Watson Gilder, who was convalescing in West Palm Beach. Ruby Andrews Myers, who was coeditor of the Tropical Sun, offered this description of life at Ben Trovato in her Tequesta article: “I was a delighted visitor to their home where there were books and book talk. We were all interested in the same things and there was much lively discourse on many topics, but never a word about Bruno. Mrs. Dewey did most of the domestic work which she loved, found time to write two or three columns a week for the Tropical Sun, visited a little at the hotel principally for the music, I judged, and was a most delightful hostess.”

  TEA PARTY AT BEN TROVATO. All of Palm Beach’s elite families gathered at Ben Trovato for a season-ending tea party given in honor of the new pastor. More than forty are dressed in their wonderful Victorian-era garb, enjoying an April afternoon in 1893. Fred and Birdie are standing at the far right of the photo. Courtesy Historical Society of Palm Beach County.

  Myers also commented on the ingenuity that the Deweys always displayed from lessons learned in their pioneer days: “There were many ingenious, original contraptions about the house to save steps and fill needs, which she designed and her husband executed. These included a kerosene-lamp-stove arrangement by which her salt-rising bread turned out to perfection.” Finally, Myers presents one o
f the most revealing glimpses into Birdie’s personality: “She had a rare critical faculty—rare in that it was kind—and her bright, optimistic encouragement meant much to her fellow travelers along the road of writing. Small of stature, clear-eyed, curly-haired, with quiet manner, unobtrusive yet possessed of a striking personality, few who have ever known her are likely to forget her. I have never done so and cherish her friendship, satisfying and inspiring.”

  The year 1894 saw many more significant events. In February, Flagler’s Hotel Royal Poinciana had its grand opening, and the first trains arrived in April at West Palm Beach. One of the hotel’s first events was to auction lots in the newly platted town of West Palm Beach, and within a few weeks, merchants had pitched tents to sell their wares on Clematis Street. On November 5, 1894, the townspeople gathered and officially incorporated the town, giving West Palm Beach the honor of being the first incorporated town on the southeast Florida coast. The vote was 77-1.

  Another milestone in any town’s development is its first church. The east side had two churches: the lovely Bethesda-by-the-Sea and a Congregational Church near the Hotel Royal Poinciana. The church by the hotel became a nondenominational one, and the Congregationalists moved their church to West Palm Beach in 1894. Fred played a key role in the founding of that church, the Union Congregational Church, which was located at the corner of Datura Street and Poinsettia Street (now Dixie Highway). Fred was the church secretary and treasurer, ensuring that the congregation would have a fine building. The church endures to this day, though relocated from downtown West Palm Beach.