Pinellas County Area Historical Vignettes
As you can see, we have split the Historical
Vignettes from the Local Area News section of our Web page.
Having both on the same button was cumbersome and did not provide the proper
emphasis on our heritage. Frank von Geyso from his post in KC, Ks. will
continue to be an important contributor. We do, however, encourage
others in the class and elsewhere to make inputs to assure that we don't
overlook any interesting elements of our background.
July 2, 2008
The following
article appeared in the St Pete Times on this date and discusses the early days
of the McMullen family in Pinellas County.
Pioneer family letters are donated to Heritage Village
By Piper Castillo, Times Staff Writer
In print: Wednesday, July 2, 2008
The collection
contains love letters, political essays and family notes.
The earliest is
from the 1850s. The most recent is from the 1960s.
The letters —
hundreds of them — trace the history of the McMullen family, who are among Pinellas County's earliest settlers.
"The
letters are like reading a Jane Austen novel, but in Cracker country,'' said
Dottie Bouchard, 79, a descendant of Daniel and
Margaret Ann
McMullen.
Now the
collection will be made available to the public. On Tuesday, Bouchard and two
of her relatives appeared before Pinellas
County
commissioners to present the letters to Heritage Village, an official keeper of the
region's history.
Dubbed primary
documents by historians because they are original items created by the people
themselves, the collection consists
of hundreds of
letters addressed to the inhabitants of the McMullen House from the mid 1850s
to the 1960s.
Family patriarch
Daniel McMullen homesteaded in Largo, served in the Confederacy
and was present with forces that surrendered
to U.S. troops in Sumter County. By the time he died, in
1908, he had 65 children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Because of the
family's size and their involvement in so many aspects of Florida life, the donation is
priceless, according to Ellen Babb,
interim director
of Heritage Village. The letters "may
yield a new interpretation not only of our own history, but the state's
history,'' she
said.
A bulk of the
correspondence is addressed to Daniel McMullen's daughter, Nancy McMullen
Hardage, affectionately known as Nanny.
Nanny lived in
the house most of her life, caring for her widowed brother's children. One of
these children, Nancy McLaughlin, donated
the home to Heritage Village in 1992.
McLaughlin took
the letters with her when she moved to join her daughter, Peggy Miller, in Jay, Fla. Earlier this year, Miller
decided it
was time to give
the collection to Heritage Village.
Babb said
digital pictures of the letters will be displayed at Heritage Village. Access to the collection
will be granted on a case-by-case
basis, she said.
Bouchard and
Anita Crawford, two great-granddaughters of the settler, made the formal
presentation Tuesday, as well as Dottie's son,
Ray Bouchard.
"I'm still
learning so much about the family," Dottie Bouchard said. "One thing
I have realized through these letters was the strength of
the McMullen
women."
When asked how
she compares contemporary e-mail to old-fashioned letters, Bouchard laughed.
"I think
e-mail may be more honest, but it is too spontaneous," she said.
"It's not thought-out like these letters."
May
12 2003
The following article appeared in the St
Petersburg Time on May 10, 2003 and it has a link to
some wonderful graphics that, among other things, show then and now
pictures of historical sites in and around Clearwater.
Clearwater
today or long ago.url
May
4, 2003
And Now for Clearwater.........When
was the first Wooden
Bridge
built to Clearwater Beach?
It was the same year that the City of Clearwater
was incorporated - 1915. When the area was known only to the Timucuan,
Calusa and Appalachia Indians tribes, clear springs were located along high
bluffs that are now downtown Clearwater. The early settlers called it Clear
Water Harbor
until 1895. In 1906 the word Harbor was dropped from the name and Clearwater
became one word.
Florida was made a territory in 1822; then during the Seminole
Indian Wars of 1835, the government built the original Fort
Harrison where Harbor
Oaks is presently located. In 1841, the Fort was abandoned but a plaque
commemorating its location remains on Druid road in downtown Clearwater.
The first settlers farmed primarily cotton and vegetables and suffered
hard times with weather, such as the hurricane of 1846 and severe storms in
1848. The first newspaper, "The Clear Water Times" was established by
Rev C. S. Reynolds. The first narrow gauge railroad was built in 1888; at
that time the community had a whopping population of 18 families. At a
later date, Henry Plant (Plant H. S. enemies), a West and Central
Florida developer, built a standard gauge railroad through Pinellas
County. He also
built several hotels including the Belleview Biltmore Hotel in 1897.
Real estate started booming in 1921. It peaked in 1925 and
then busted in 1927. When "Pinellas Point" was first settled,
it was part of the Western
Hillsborough County.
This was a long days travel to the court house in Tampa,
so the Legislature created Pinellas County in January of 1912. Clearwater
was made the county seat. As a final point, in more a recent historical
note, the Philadelphia
Phillies baseball team began Spring training in the 1940's.
May
1, 2003
Equal Time for St. Pete.........Pyotr Demnetyev, a Russian, who
later changed his name to Peter Demens, built the first railroad to the area in
1888. The route was from near Ocala,
through Tarpon Springs and continued to Saint
Petersburg. He was responsible for naming
"St Pete" after his hometown of St.
Petersburg, Russia.
Atlantic-Coastline acquired the line as he went broke.
In the 1884, the first area newspaper, the West
Hillsborough times was printed. This was started in Dunedin,
according to the Dunedin
Historical Society. In a few months, it was sold to A.C. Turner of Clearwater,
who in 1892 sold to Rev R. J. Morgan of St.
Petersburg for the outlandish sum of
$1,200. The Rev Morgan renamed the paper - the St.
Petersburg Times. In 1920 the population
of St Pete was 642 persons.
April
17, 2003
Dunedin - How it got its Name..........The oldest
city on the Florida
West Coast south of Cedar Key is our own Dunedin.
The first deed, recorded in 1852, was in Hillsborough
County courthouse
(Pinellas was part of Hillsborough until 1912). Soon after the Civil War,
settlers moved into the area. Richard I. Garrison was the first to
receive a government grant on Curlew Creek, in 1852, of 160 acres.
Around 1870 John L. Branch, who built the first store in Dunedin
also built a dock between Sunset Point and Main
Street, to unload supplies from the sailing
vessels. This created a trading center and seaport for the entire
area. At that time the only way to arrive in this area was by ship or on
horseback. Another general store was built on the waterfront by two
Scotsman - J. O. Douglas and James Somerville. A third store was built by
George L. Jones (no relation to the C & W star). Mr. Jones installed
a sign, "Jonesboro."
This prompted the two Scots to put up a sign, "Dunedin',
which is Gaelic for their home town of Edinburgh,
Scotland.
Locals preferred Dunedin
over Jonesboro, so
the Scots petitioned the federal government for a post office. They got
it, installed the post office in their store and put the name Dunedin
over the store. All this occurred in 1878.
March
22, 2003
Capt Jim McMullen........Another early founder of the Peninsular
was born June 11, 1823
on a rural farm in Telfair County,
GA. In the Spring of
1842, at age 18, Jim was diagnosed with consumption (Tuberculosis).
Leaving his home he ventured south to the Florida
Territory. He
found his way to Rocky Point where he spent time, with a boat he acquired,
sailing on Tampa Bay
and recuperating. Eventually he crossed the Bay and came upon a high
bluff which formed a lasting impression in his mind. This is where he
built a hotel, docks and where many of the McMullen family members eventually
lived; this was to become the settlement of Bayview on old Tampa
Bay.
Eventually, his six (6) other brothers joined him. Their families
grew and married the Booths, Kilgores, Wards and many other early pioneers of
the Pinellas Peninsular. His Grandfather, also named Jim, came from Scotland
through Nova Scotia
around 1775. He moved to North Carolina
where legend says he served as drummer boy in Granberry's Company of the North
Carolina Militia during the American
Revolution. Allegedly, he saw action at the Battle
of Lexington and Bunker
Hill.
Jim's Mothers family, the Fains, also from Scotland, served in the
Revolutionary Army. Thomas Fain had settled in Georgia.
The well known McMullen log cabin built by Capt. Jim around 1852, still stands
today. It is now located at the Heritage
Village in Largo,
along with other artifacts of pioneer life on the Peninsular. The home
and property, northeast of Clearwater
about two miles, was acquired by the Coachman family after death of Capt. Jim
in 1895. The Coachman family were also growers of Citrus in the area and
used the cabin as a logo on their orange crates. The cabin was the victim
of arson in 1976 but was subsequently restored and opened to the pubic.
It remains the oldest existing structure in the county.
February
24, 2003
Dr Odet Philippe:.......An early settler of the Pinellas
Peninsular. He first came to the area from New River
( Ft. Lauderdale)
on the southeast coast of Florida
around 1832. His previous residence was Charleston,
South Carolina. he
started the Grapefruit, other Citrus and the Cigar making industry in this
area, which he brought from the Bahamas
and Cuba.
He had many ties in the Tampa,
Cuba,
the Florida Keys and St Domingue (Santo
Domingo).
His plantation, which today we call Philippe
Park, was an area of
raised ground, some of which are Indian Mounds, on the northwest side of Worths
Harbour. He
gave it the name of Napolean's burial island in the South
Atlantic, St Helena.
Worths Harbour and St Helena are next to our Safety Harbor of today. In
earlier days prior to being called Safety Harbor it was known as Green Springs,
for the mineral waters that flowed nearby. These were later called
Espirito Santo Springs, so named for their healing power.
It is said that Dr Philippe was born in Lyon, France in 1787 and he died
in 1867 at St Helena, a Doctor and a Noble descent. His daughter
married one Richard Booth, another of the early Pinellas Peninsular pioneers.
January
26, 2003
Historical Tidbits -The following hyperlink takes you to some
interesting facts about the place of our heritage.
Historical
Tidbits.txt
January
13, 2003
History of the Belleview Biltmore - Originally built by railroad
magnate Henry Plant and opened in 1897, the stately Biltmore sits on a high
bluff overlooking the Gulf of Mexico. It quickly became a favored retreat
for celebrities, industrial barons and international dignitaries, who
luxuriously traveled in their own railroad cars. It is the oldest major
resort in Florida and the largest occupied wooden structure in the United
States. Beautifully restored, it offers visitors a wonderful glimpse of
turn-of-the-century gracious living.
December
6, 2002
History of CHS - Clearwater High School, organized in 1905 first
met in the oldest structure of the present South Ward Elementary group.
Three girls comprised the first graduating class of 1911. During the
1920's the school became a member of the Southern Association of Schools and
Colleges.
Since then, until our graduation, the following men served
Clearwater High School as principals:
D. M. Hollins, J. I. Reece, E. W. McMullen, W. B. Feagle, R.
T. Glenn
In 1925 the high school moved to the red brick building on Greenwood
Avenue. In 1954 the senior high school moved to its present location.