Even before Sarasota was incorporated as a town, community spirit was strong. People helped their neighbors without being asked to do so and donated money, property and/or manpower for the common good.
This issue of “Settling” is devoted to biographies of a few persons who have contributed to the growth of early Sarasota but whose names have not been included in the narrative thus far.
JOHN BLACKBURN
John and Belinda Blackburn came to the Horse and Chase Area (now known as Nokomis) in 1881 with their 15-year-old son George. John was a farmer and cattle broker from Iowa. Jack Webb, the youngest son of the Spanish Point Webbs helped them build their first house.
John grew potatoes, sugar came and bananas and built a large sloop that carried heavy loads of hogs, chickens, fish, produce and syrup to Tampa area markets and brought back, tourists, lumber and hardware. George was elected to the Town Council in 1902.
LEWIS COLSON
Lewis Colson and his wife came to Sarasota in 1884 with Richard Paulsons’ team to survey 50,000 acres for the Florida Mortgage and Investment Company and plotted the town of Sarasota. Lewis drove the stake in the ground at Five Points to mark the center of the town.
Lewis and Irene were among the early members of Sarasota’s black community, then called Overtown. Irene was the community midwife. Lewis donated property that they had bought to the Bethlehem Baptist Church. Lewis, a lay preacher, was the first minister. The church at the corner of Central and Seventh Streets was the community center for education, cultural and recreation activities.
JOSEPH HALTON, M.D.
Joseph Halton was born in England in 1881, arrived in the United States with his parents and grew up in Ohio and Indiana. As a boy, he worked for 12 ½ cents per hour, saved $130, and enrolled in the medical school at the University of Cincinnati.
Immediately after graduation in January 1907, he came to Sarasota, a city of 1400 people. He was met at the depot by a citizen who said that his mother was bleeding to death. Dr. Halton jumped into a boat with the man, went to Siesta Key, and saved the woman’s life. that act established his reputation in Sarasota.
A year later, with the help of Sir John Gillespie, Joseph and his brother Dr. Jack Halton founded the Sanitarium at 300 North Gulfstream Avenue, Sarasota’s first hospital.
Dr. Joe made regular calls as far away as Bradenton and Venice with horse and buggy. When the call was for childbirth, he went by horseback because it was faster. He said, “I’d make a call to one house in the country and before I could get away from there, a messenger would meet me and tell me to stop somewhere else.”
During his years as a physician in Sarasota, Dr. Halton performed over 1600 operations for needy children and secured free hospitalization and nursing for them.
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