History of Hillsborough County, Florida; narrative and biographical

Front matter

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Dedication

This book is dedicated to those pioneer men and toomen of a bygone centurp who, bp their courage, integrity, and (ndustrp, go well laid the foundations on which their children and successors are building a great and prosperous

Dillsborough County.

«« Legend of the (‘erokee Rose” €

Table of Contents

NOON RRO UURE AN A eae eee me et TN SPANISH EXPLORERS penne: 5 sae

Fort BRooKE AND EARLY TAMPA............ A ae eee

PLant City oF Topay, CENTER oF East HiLttsporoucH County. . GrowTH OF TAMPA FROM VILLAGE TO TowN To CiTy............ A Dk on Ta. ne naS IRMA Seige AR ee a ire pues gL og WER Ras ois ee REN URS OM A PORT 6 d's secre wy nt ekw bees dgbincsedes West Tampa, A City MApE To Fit AN OPPORTUNITY............ gO ag eee (QE EL rg het ee ee a OEIC VENTER 2s gn dit es ee gt Fo oss WHER vee a a eh be Forty YEARS oF SCHOOL DEVELOPMENT............ 000 cee ceuece

Foreword

AVING been for more than twenty years a resident of the county-seat of

H Hillsborough County, and during all of those years busily engaged in the

service of the public school system of the county, I have grown to feel

a deep and abiding interest in all those conditions and enterprises that have helped

to assure the growth of the cities, towns and villages in this favored section of Florida.

During those sixteen years that I served as Principal of the Hillsborough County High School and the years since while supervising the high school work in the county I have been so fortunate as to become acquainted with many of the last survivors of the pioneer life of the middle years of the nineteenth century and have heard from their own lips many of the incidents so full of human interest that I have recorded in the following pages.

It has also been my good fortune to know rather intimately most of those men and women who have for the past two decades been leaders in the commercial, industrial, social, educational, and religious development of Hillsborough County to its present commanding position among the counties of Florida.

I have endeavored to present a series of pictures of the life of the different periods of the county’s history as accurately as is possible, depending on written records and information received from those who lived in and had a part in events of those earlier times.

Every attempt has been made to avoid mistakes and the perpetuating of erroneous traditions.

For the earlier history state, county, city, and school board record books have been read with great care, so that correct statements could be made of the early events in the county and, wherever possible, such incidents recorded as would give a human touch to the narrative. Usually the source of information is given in the text, but I wish here to make acknowledgment of those sources from which information was obtained and of those men who have helped to make this book possible.

Mayor D. B. McKay, proprietor of the Tampa Daily Times, kindly gave my assistant, Mr. James Shaw, access to all the material which has been gathered and

well preserved in the office of the Times. This includes files of those earlier papers which were the first periodicals published in Tampa. Honorable Stephen M. Sparkman prepared a complete statement of the development of the deep water channels up the bay of Tampa. His long years of service as Chairman of the Rivers and Harbors Committee in Congress made him the best authority on that subject.

Congressman Herbert J. Drane, who as a young man participated in the building of the first railroad to Tampa, furnished authoritative information about that important event.

Honorable Peter O. Knight generously took time to prepare statements about the history of the urban railways of Tampa, and of the building of the Seaboard Air Line Railroad to Tampa.

Honorable Perry G. Wall furnished valuable help in preparing the account of the Spanish War period. |

Mrs. Fannie Haya was most helpful in supplying information about the establishing of the cigar industry in Tampa.

The memoirs of Mrs. Nancy (Collar) Jackson, loaned by A. J. Barclay, were an invaluable source of information about the early days in Fort Brooke.

Mr. C. A. Winchell, formerly an employee of the Tampa Daily Times, kindly placed at my disposal extensive notes prepared by himself on the early days of Tampa. 7

Mr. Wayne Thomas, Editor of the Plant City Courier, was most helpful in furnishing much of the material for the history of Plant City. Col. G. B. Wells, a pioneer of the county, gave the benefit of his great store of information about county affairs.

The reminiscences of his early life, as given by Mr. D. B. Givens, have helped to add to the human interest of the narrative.

The biographies in the biographical section of the book have been carefully prepared from information furnished by the subjects themselves, or in the cases of those who are deceased, by members of their families.

Grateful acknowledgment is given:

To the members of the Advisory Board who have materially assisted in the preparation and publication of this book;

To those who have furnished information for their own biographies or for the biographies of members of their families ;

To the Clerk of the Circuit Court, to the Superintendent of Public Instruction, to Dr. Sack, Statistician of the Board of Trade, and to countless others who have in various ways rendered valuable assistance.

Especial recognition is due Mr. James Shaw, my invaluable assistant, who has gathered a large part of the information given in the history, and who assisted in the preparation of several of the chapters covering the modern development of the county.

Credit is due Miss Harriette Rothschild, who prepared much of the material for the history of Plant City and for the chapter on the commercial growth of Tampa. no Hl Fae

Tampa, Florida, January 1, 1928.

HISTORY OF HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY a FLORIDA i... 0: Part I

NARRATIVE e. ; Ab a

History of Hillsborough (County, Florida CHAPTER I.

SPANISH EXPLORERS.

HILE the history of Hillsborough County, now the center of population \ \ and industry of the West Coast of Florida, begins a little more than a century ago, yet there is one short but most interesting introductory chapter dealing with a period three hundred years earlier.

We are all familiar with the romantic story of Ponce de Leon, who in his search for the fabled fountain of youth landed on the east coast of the peninsula of Florida on Easter Day, 1513. This, the first known visit of white men to this region, resulted in the name “Florida” being applied not only to the peninsula but to a large part of what is now South Eastern United States.

A few years later Panfilo de Narvaez (appointed to succeed Hernandez Cortez in Mexico) landed on the Gulf Coast of Florida as the leader of a considerable expedition which he expected to conduct by a few days’ march to Mexico. The place of landing cannot be definitely fixed. De Narvaez records that they landed at the head of a large bay. The bay referred to might have been Charlotte Harbor, Clearwater Bay or Tampa Bay. It would seem most likely to have been either Clearwater Bay or Tampa Bay. In either case it was in what was later Hillsborough County. He landed on Good Friday, April, 1528. Soon after, from some point in what is now Hillsborough County, he, at the head of his band of adventurers, started on what he supposed would be a few days’ journey around the Gulf of Mexico to the Spanish settlements in Mexico. In course of time de Narvaez and his followers became scattered and all perished except one Cabeza de Vaca and three others, who, after several years of most amazing adventures, made their way for more than fifteen hundred miles to join their Spanish friends in Mexico,

Cabeza de Vaca returned to Spain and by clever dissimulation caused it to be believed that the region which he had traversed in his remarkable journey was a land rich in gold and silver.

Hernando de Soto, recently returned with great wealth from Peru, where he had been second in command to Pizarro, the conqueror of the Incas, now already preparing for another expedition in search of adventure, conquest and wealth, hearing the accounts of Cabeza de Vaca determined to visit the same coast from which de Narvaez had started out on his ill-fated journey. He had been appointed Governor of Cuba and Adelantado of Florida.

Early in April, 1538, in command of six hundred men and seven ships well equipped for their journey and expected conquest, Hernando de Soto set sail from the Spanish port, Sanlucar. After a pleasant voyage, including an eight-day stop at the Canary Islands, he entered the Harbor of Santiago de Cuba on the day of Pentecost. A few days later he sent the fleet with most of his followers around the island to Havana. With one hundred and fifty of his five hundred men de Soto marched overland to Havana, a city which he describes as about the size of Santiago, each having seventy or eighty dwellings. _

After establishing himself as Governor of Cuba de Soto on May 18th, 1539, set sail with a fleet of nine vessels for Florida. For those days his following was unusually large and well equipped.

One week later, on May 25th, 1539, de Soto, with his hundreds of followers with guns and horses, landed on the shores of a bay which they named Espiritu Santo. It is generally believed that bay was Tampa Bay and that the exact spot of the disembarkation was either near the present site of Safety Harbor or even more probably the mouth of Hillsborough River where the great City of Tampa is now located. |

~ An Indian village called Ucita, after their chief, was near the landing place. The Indians fled at the approach of the Spanish ships. The Spanish writer who left a record of de Soto’s-expedition says: “The town Ucita was of seven or eight houses, built of timber and covered with palm leaves. The cacique’s house stood near the beach, upon a very high mount made by hand for defense. At the other end of the town was a temple, on the top of which perched a wooden fowl with gilded eyes.”

In other records a village called Hirrihigu is mentioned as not far from de Soto’s landing place.

Several unsuccessful attempts were made to capture an Indian to serve as interpreter and guide. The harsh methods used by the Spaniards, as happened with most other European explorers in America, resulted in an attitude of fear and hostility on the part of the Indians. No doubt many of the bloody deeds of later years were the direct results of this unwise treatment of the Indians by the European explorers. Although the Spaniards, encamped in and near the Indian village, could secure no native for a guide, they were one day greatly surprised to find a white man among the Indians. This was Juan Ortiz, who had been left behind by de Narvaez and captured by the Indians, with whom he had lived for twelve years. Ortiz told de Soto that he had heard of sources of gold in the regions to the north. Influenced by this report de Soto soon after led his company on that romantic and tragic journey from whence he was never to return.

Thus, soon after the first visit of Columbus to America was the curtain lifted to allow two short glimpses of the site of what was to be the county seat of Hillsborough County. Then the curtain drops and for three hundred years history affords us no clear sight of what was happening in the forests around the picturesque lakes and along the shores of beautiful Tampa Bay. We can not, however, doubt that the splendid harbor was many times visited by the Spanish adventurers and the old English Sea Rovers. In fact, some have been so convinced of the truth of traditions about buccaneers, pirates and merchantmen of former centuries that the shores of the bay have been well searched for traces of pirate treasures.

There are occasional references in early Spanish documents to the Indian village of Tampa which lead us to believe that even then the shores of Tampa Bay were the site of important settlements and enterprises of the aborigines. In an

PART I—NARRATIVE 15 ee i AU Se SASaTBSS £2 Sa a i a an NR a address to the King of Spain, signed by Dr. Pedro de Santander, and dated July 15, 1557, there is described a plan to establish settlements in various places in Florida. It was proposed to exterminate the idolatrous inhabitants and possess their lands. One of the places mentioned as sites for colonies was at Tampa Bay where the author of this address thinks “many slaves can be had.”

One of the most interesting bits of Florida history on record is a memoir of Hernando d’Escalante Fontenado, born in 1538, on the country and ancient Indian tribes of Florida. In this memoir the author speaks of ‘Tampa as one of the most important Indian villages on the peninsula in the latter part of the sixteenth century.

When the first settlers from the United States came to the shores of Tampa Bay they are reported to have found a small settlement of three or four families called “Spanishtown” and located near the mouth of Spanishtown Creek in what is now the Hyde Park section of Tampa. The men of these families, who were fishermen and oystermen, claimed to be of Spanish ancestry, and that their ancestors had lived on that site for hundreds of years.

The shores of Lake Thonotosassa (more correctly spelled Tenotosassa) a hundred years ago were found to be the gathering place of all the Seminoles each year for their “Green Corn Dance.”

These glimpses of the ancient Indian village, undoubtedly on the site of some part of the City of Tampa, remind us that the location of centers of population and industry and trade are not accidental, and that the same reasons that influenced old Indian chiefs to establish their villages and strongholds at the mouth of the river entering the fine bay, have in a later day resulted in the building of the modern commercial center of the West Coast of Florida.

CHAPTER II. Fort BrooKE AND EARLY TAMPA

E HAVE seen that for generations, probably centuries, before the Spanish \ ," | conquistadors came to Florida in search of wealth, adventure and new worlds to conquer and new states to found, there had been inhabitants whose romantic history can only be guessed at. When the white man first came he found many small, but well established, if widely scattered, Indian villages. The numbers and size of the shell mounds indicate that there had been inhabitants of the Ocean, Gulf and lake shores of Florida for many centuries. These inhabitants were Indians of various tribes—Muskogans, Tomokans, Caloosas, Creeks, Seminoles, and others—who lived by hunting and fishing. In some places were found evidences of the cultivation of Indian corn and the Green Corn Dance had been a well-established annual ceremony long before the Europeans first landed on the peninsula of Florida.

The village which De Narvaez and De Soto found at the mouth of the Hillsborough River was but one of many situated along the shores of Tampa Bay and of the nearby lakes.

During the three centuries from the day when De Soto and his men marched away into the wilderness to the north and west, to the time when American soldiers under orders from the United States War Department established a station at the head of Tampa Bay, it is evident that the Indians had changed little and probably had progressed not at all. There was still, in 1823, an Indian Village on this site just as there had been three hundred years earlier.

Florida had during those centuries been first under the supremacy of Spain for about two centuries, then under the British for some twenty years, then again under the Spanish from 1780 to 1821, when Florida was purchased from Spain by the United States. The peninsula was overrun by Indians and runaway negro slaves from the adjoining states to the north.

Formal territorial government was established in 1822 with William P. Duval as governor. It was found necessary to establish military posts or forts in order to protect the settlers from extermination by the Seminoles who were then the leading tribe in that section.

The advance outpost to the south was established on the present site of the City of Tampa when on March 5, 1823, four companies of United States troops from Pensacola, in command of Colonel George M. Brooke and Lieutenant Gadsden, landed from their vessels and moved to what later became known as the Garrison district. Immediately the men started clearing away the brush and cutting away the logs for the erection of Fort Brooke, which was to be a permanent post for the headquarters of enough soldiers to render the surrounding region safe from marauding Seminole Indians. Exchanging courtesies, Colonel Brooke named the landing place of the party “Gadsden Point,” while Lieutenant Gadsden named the spot selected as a military station “Fort Brooke.”

Part I—narrative 17

Colonel Brooke, acting under orders from the War Department, selected a site, sixteen miles square on the east side of the Hillsborough River at its junction with the east arm of the bay, as a military reservation. Up until 1830 no one could settle on the reservation except as a tenant. The Garrison was the name given to the section in the environs of the fort extending from the present location of Whiting street to the bay. For years few lived outside of the garrison, the exceptions being one or two families on the shores of the bay to the east and the members of a small colony who comprised the Spanish settlement on Spanishtown Creek, the bayshore section of what is now Hyde Park.

With unfriendly Indians all about, the interests of public safety demanded military protection, and this was best obtained at the Fort itself. Here also was the original burying ground of this section, the location of which was later changed to a spot just outside of the fortifications, near the place where the old Masonic Lodge building used to stand, the northeast corner of Whiting and Franklin streets.

With the establishing of this station and the advent of the soldiers sent to quell the Indian disturbances, came numbers of civilians, who, settling here in various capacities, constituted the nucleus of the first colony in Tampa or Fort Brooke as it was then called. Included among these pioneers were the Jackson, Ferris, Collier (or Collar), Haskins, Givens and other families. All of these names appear often and prominently in the records of the growth and development of Hillsborough County.

In 1900 there was living in Tampa a member of one of these families, Mrs. Nancy Jackson, the daughter of Levi Collar (or Collier), one of the earliest civilian settlers of Hillsborough County. An interview with Mrs. Jackson was published in 1900, from which the following information is derived. This is given at some length as, not only does it give valuable historical information, but it presents a vivid picture of the hardships and dangers of pioneer life one hundred years ago in Florida.

In 1814 Levi Collar married Nancy Dixon and settled near the Saint Mary’s River. At that time border warfare among Indians, Spanish, English and Americans made this a most dangerous place in which to live. The Indians, incited by desire to secure pay then offered for American scalps, caused a veritable reign of terror. Many of the settlers fled southward and on this flight, near the Withlacoochee River, in a deserted house by the way, Nancy Collar was born in 1815. For some years, until 1822, the Collar family were located in Alachua County. Mr. Collar on his farm raised food for his family and cotton for their clothing. He ginned this himself, then mother and daughter spun and dyed it and had it woven into cloth for garments for the family.

Failing health caused Mr. Collar, in 1822, to seek a place for a home on Tampa Bay where he expected benefit from the salt water. He journeyed alone to the bay and picked out as a site for his home a beautiful little hummock close to the mouth of the Hillsborough River. He returned to his home, failing to file on the land, and when he came again next year with his family found the United States soldiers had selected this same tract of land as the site for their military post.

He made a temporary home near by and later a permanent location about six miles to the east on the shores of the bay. When the Collars came to Tampa there were only two other white families there besides the soldiers.

For a dozen years all went well with the settlers. Mr. Collar became a prosperous farmer with a ready market for his produce either at the fort or on the war vessels that often anchored in the bay.

In 1835 the Seminoles started on the warpath. The Collars and their neighbors, warned by a friendly Indian, hastily prepared to go to the fort and at the last moment were forced to flee in boats sent from the fort and to leave all their cherished possessions. Their buildings and all their crops were burned and they barely escaped with their lives. They were received and protected at the garrison. Mr. Collar became a guide and his family lived at the Fort.

This outbreak, known as the First Seminole War, lasted from 1835 to 1842 and was caused by the suspicions of the Indians in regard to the carrying out of treaties between the Seminoles and the United States as a result of which treaties the Seminoles had agreed to move West beyond the Mississippi River where land was offered them.

Many of the Indians were unwilling to leave the home of their ancestors from time immemorial and under the leadership of that picturesque and able Indian, Osceola, they began this seven years of bloody warfare against the whites. In the late months of 1835 General Thompson was murdered by the Seminoles at Fort King, the future site of Ocala. This seems to have been the beginning of hostilities.

Fort Brooke became during this war the chief depot of supplies for the United States troops. At times there were as many as 3,000 soldiers stationed here. Fort King, almost exactly one hundred miles to the north, was the station of next importance. Between these two forts was almost unbroken wilderness. A few settlers or small groups of settlers were making a good living from the productive soil. On the report of the outbreak of hostilities most of these settlers hastened with their families and movable possessions to the military posts for protection. A military road, known in Fort Brooke as the Fort King road, had been laid out through the wilderness. However, this was little more than a trail. In December, after the murder of General Thompson at Fort King, there came an order to the commander at Fort Brooke to send one company of soldiers to Fort King. There were then stationed there two companies under Majors Belden and Dade.

There are several conflicting accounts of the choice of Major Dade as the leader. The following seems most probably the true one: It was realized by all that the expedition would be a most hazardous one. Major Belden’s wife was about to become a mother, and Major Dade, who was a man of splendid physique and great personal courage, gallantly declared that he would not consent to Major Belden’s commanding the expedition. He insisted on setting out with his company on the perilous march.

And so, on December 23, 1835, a detachment of United States soldiers under command of Major Francis L. Dade, left Fort Brooke for Fort King, the future site of Ocala, one’ hundred miles from Tampa Bay. The force of one hundred

PART I—NARRATIVE 19 and seven men, with one six-pounder, set out through the wilderness fully aware of the fact that the Seminoles had declared that they would allow no armed force to pass through this country without attacking it.

The details of the massacre of this brave band of men, which was the first instance in the history of our country where a force of United States soldiers was annihilated by Indians, is perhaps best told in the language of a synopsis of the event contained in a document placed in the memorial erected in memory of the participants in 1845, at West Point Military Academy. The document reads as follows: .

“This monument is erected by the officers and men of the Second and Third regiments of artillery and the Fourth regiment of infantry, and by the medical staff, in memory of their comrades who fell in battle with the Seminole Indians of Florida on December 28, 1835. The detachment left Fort Brooke, Tampa Bay, for Fort King, Fla., distant one hundred miles, on the 23rd of December. The force was small—107 men—and one six-pounder, the road abounding in thickets, hammocks and places of concealment, and the Indians, numbering above fourteen hundred warriors, war-like and well armed, had declared that they would allow no armed force to pass through their country without attempting to destroy it. Fully aware of the danger of the march and expecting a severe conflict, though with a hope that a portion of the command would get through, this little band departed in obedience to orders by those who knew not so well the strength and disposition of the enemy. The writer of this accompanied the detachment to their first encampment and received directions from two of the officers to settle up their affairs in case they did not survive. Thus forewarned and on their guard they advanced into the country.

“On the morning of the fifth day, December 28th, at about 8 o’clock, when the command had marched some four miles from its last encampment, seven miles north of the Withlacoochee, and was about sixty-five miles north by east of Fort Brooke, the Seminoles opened a murderous fire from the palmetto thickets and brushes. Major Dade, the commander, with the advanced guard two hundred yards in front of the main body, Captain Frasier and the leading files of the main body, all fell during the first fire. Part of the detachment then extended, the six-pounder field piece was brought into action and after a conflict of more than two hours, the Indians retired, leaving but thirty-odd of Dade’s command still alive.

“The survivors, many of them wounded, felled some trees and were forming a small triangular breastwork when the Indians, who had been withdrawn by their ‘chief, Jumper, and were told by him they had killed enough for one day, received a large accession to their force under Alligator, who assumed command, renewed the conflict (about 11 a. m.) and in a little while all our men were killed or disabled. Two private soldiers escaped during the first engagement and reached Tampa on the 29th and 30th (Thomas and Sprague, of B Co., Third artillery). Two others, Ransom Clark and Edward de Courcey, who were shockingly wounded and left on the ground as dead by the Indians, started to return the next morning. They were discovered and pursued by a mounted Indian and separating for safety, De Courcey was overtaken and killed and Clark escaped and on the afternoon of the 31st reached Tampa Bay. Clark recovered and gave a very connected account of the conflict and its termination.

“The ground was not visited by anyone until the 20th of February following, when the bodies were found as they had fallen.

“This event, succeeding a peace of thirty years, created a strong excitement throughout the land and large bodies of volunteers marched into Florida to punish the Seminoles. Seven years of war, with a great expenditure of life and treasure, followed and as the Indians surrendered or were caught, they were removed to the Arkansas. Peace was made in 1842 and about one hundred warriors, with their families, yet remain in Florida south of Peas Creek (Peace river), Tatahk Chopko-hatchee, at this day, May, 1845.” ,

Fred Cubberly, in the same senate document in which was printed the above copy of the record deposited in the memorial, states that the number of warriors was one hundred and eighty in number, stating, however, that they also had with them a “large number of negro slaves and retainers.” Green’s history quotes Alligator as stating that their warriors numbered one hundred and eighty and also gives the number of negroes accompanying them as fifty.

Within a few days of the date of the Dade Massacre several other more or less successful attacks were made by the Seminoles on bodies of soldiers or on unprotected settlements. The next seven years was a period of anxiety, distress and tragedy throughout the whole territory of Florida. It was no uncommon occurrence at Fort Brooke for refugees, destitute and often wounded and dying, to come there for protection. General Zachary Taylor, afterwards President of the United States, became commander of the fort in 1837. In October of the same year Osceola, the able leader of the Seminoles, was captured, and while the war continued several years longer, there was somewhat of a cessation of active hostilities for a year or two. During this time Nancy Collar, whose fortunes we have been following, now married to Robert Jackson, took up her abode with her husband and child in a house near the mouth of Spanishtown Creek on the west side of the Hillsborough River. This indicates that the establishing of homes outside the Garrison had already begun and that the foundations for the building of a city were being laid. Another indication of the spread of the settlement is the fact that a stockade of logs was built on the site of the present Tampa Bay Hotel as a means of protection against Indian attacks west of the river.