THE SETTLING OF SARASOTA (14th in a series)

In the last installment, you read about Sarasota’s first train, the “Slow and Wobbly”. This link between Bradentown (now Bradenton) and Sarasota was Sir John Gillespie’s attempt to assure Sarasota’s survival.

After less than three years of spasmodic trips, the Slow and Wobbly was retired. Construction had stopped, the workers had gone and there was little money to spend. The engine and flat cars were left to rust. Gillespie’s problems were multiplying.

His wife Mary was a cantankerous woman who enjoyed frequent nips of scotch or bourbon or rum often resulting in, shall we say, embarrassing situations. Sir John, an ardent Episcopalian was serving as a lay reader at church services one Sunday and Mrs. Gillespie strolled in after services had begun and took a seat close to the pulpit. She opened a large red parasol and held it over her head until services ended. She then stood up, closed the parasol and said “nice going darlin” and left the building, weaving down the wooden sidewalk towards the De Soto Hotel (inset).

Some months later, in an effort to get a church in Sarasota, Gillespie invited an Episcopalian bishop to be his guest at the DeSoto Hotel. The bishop arrived accompanied by a large group of church dignitaries. While he was seated in the dining room Mrs. Gillespie entered, lurched into a waiter who spilled the entire contents of a soup tureen on the bishop’s lap. The bishop rose, said nothing, left the dining room and the DeSoto Hotel the next morning. Sarasota did not get its Episcopalian church that year.

As a result of Mary Gillespie’s shenanigans, the couple he had hired to manage the DeSoto Hotel left it in 1891 and built their own fancy hotel; the guests moved and soon the DeSoto closed.

Sir John and Mary moved to Bradentown for a short time, after which they returned to Scotland for a visit. When Gillespie returned to Sarasota a few years later he was alone.

The winter of 1894-95 was the coldest in the state’s history. Temperatures fell to 17 degrees, killing the vegetable crop and ruining the season’s citrus crop. As a result, in 1895, fishing was the only economic stimulus remaining and Sarasota was referred to as a fishing village. Fortunately the trees in the groves escaped being killed by the frost; citrus growers from farther north in Florida moved to the area and started new groves.

Until then, fish caught in the Sarasota area were gutted and salted for transportation to other areas. Beginning in 1884, the demand for salted fish declined because fresh fish shipped in ice had become available. Ice plants were being built in Tampa but economical transportation of ice and fish did not yet exist. In 1895, channels were cut in Sarasota Bay that allowed steamers to take the inland waterway from Tampa directly to the dock at Sarasota. The bill from the U.S. Swanee Dredge was $9,998.43.

Harry Lee Higel came to Sarasota in the early 1890’s and bought the dock at the end of Main Street that was built by the defunct Scottish Colony. He became the agent for the Tampa line whose steamship, “Mistletoe”, made its maiden trip on Monday, October 7, 1895, to pick up fresh fish. The scheduled stop developed into three visits per week.

On each trip the captain blew the whistle as the ship was coming down the bay and many of the town’s residents turned out to see if new tourists were aboard.

The community now had a dependable connection with the outside world. Sarasotans could sell their vegetables and fruit in Tampa and buy goods in the “big stores” there with the proceeds.

To be continued..

Copyright © Leland G. Desmon. The information on this page may not be reproduced or republished on another webpage, website, or other printed material. Please LINK TO US instead.

Photo credit: Sarasota County Historical Resources

THE SETTLING OF SARASOTA (11th in a series)

The photograph (inset) was taken of the Whitakers, the Brownings, and other Sarasota pioneers on a Sunday afternoon in 1886 the fan in the hand of the man in the left foreground. The head-to-toe clothing and the mosquitoes made the fan a requirement.

Beginning in the fall of 1886 Sarasota was the fastest growing community on the West Coast of Florida south of Tampa. The DeSoto Hotel was under construction streets were opened in the woods, and homes were being built.

Craftsmen were paid $2.00/day, laborers $1.25/day, in cash. The first school, a one room building 16 X 25 feet was built on the south side of Main Street and paid for by Sir John Gillespie, an official of the Florida Mortgage & Investment Co. (FMIC). The photo of Sir John was taken in 1886.

He introduced golf to Florida on May 16, 1886 by “laying out” a two-hole one-fairway course on what is now Sarasota’s Main Street. The 2007 edition of the yellow pages lists over 65 golf courses in the Sarasota, Bradenton, Venice area, and John Gillespie designed quite a few of those built between 1888 and 1918).

On February 25,1887, Gillespie’s DeSoto Hotel opened with a Grand Ball that was attended by 200 persons, many of whom arrived on horseback. Some celebrants needed a few days before attempting the ride back home. The DeSoto Hotel was located at the foot of Main Street, had 30 rooms, a large lobby, and a dining room. It was said to be the finest on the West Coast of Florida; the rent was $2.00 a night. (Later renamed The Belle Haven Inn).

The mail arrived in Sarasota from the community of Manatee three days a week. It was then transported by horse and buggy. Since there were no bridges, the driver would ford the creeks at the shallowest places. Whenever the water rose above the buggy’s floor, the mailman would stand on the seat to keep dry.

On May 14, 1887, Charles Whitaker was appointed postmaster and the post office was moved to the Whitaker store on Main Street. The Sarasotans now could get their mail without trudging through the woods to the Abbe store, more than a mile and a half away. Alex Browning, son of a pioneer family, once remarked that you knew where people were visiting by where their horses were tethered. I suspect that this may have caused a rumor or two to be started.

Many of the workers who came to Sarasota for the good wages were rough characters and said and did things frowned upon by the good people. Construction continued at a rapid pace, however, and buildings were erected on the north side of Main Street between Palm and Pineapple Avenues. One of them was built for John Iverson who had just married and wanted a “new Home in town” for his bride. After many years, C.V.S. Wilson, the founder of the Sarasota Times, used the house as a print shop. The Florida Mortgage and Investment Co. built a two-story office building on the corner of 8th and Central. Gillespie had his office there.

On September 10, 1887, Elaf Green, a carpenter who had come to Sarasota with his family to work on the DeSoto Hotel stopped at Whitaker’s store and calmly remarked that he had just killed his wife, son and two daughters. Sheriff Watson, whose office was in Bradenton, was notified and he rushed to Sarasota and placed Green under arrest. The sheriff and Green were in a buggy headed back to Bradenton when Green threw the sheriff out of the buggy, grabbed his rifle and raised it to fire when Charles Whitaker who was following on horseback shot and killed him.

SARASOTA WAS INDEED A BOOMTOWN!

Photo credit: Sarasota County Historical Society

Stay tuned, more to come..

Copyright © Leland G. Desmon. The information on this page may not be reproduced or republished on another webpage, website, or other printed material. Please LINK TO US instead.

THE SETTLING OF SARASOTA (9th in a series)

THE DEMISE OF THE ORMISTON COLONY

The last installment of “Settling" ended with the 68 Scottish colonists experiencing a snowfall on January 9, 1886. Dead fish washed ashore and Selvin Tate, the nephew of the Archbishop of Canterbury and promoter of the Florida Mortgage and Investment Company (FMIC) disappeared. The high hopes of the colonists, who had left Scotland three months ago, were dashed.

One reason for the failure of the colony is that the families were of the upper middle class. Not one had ever been a farmer. If housing had been available as promised, the colonists might have stayed. Nearly all had left by May 1, 1886.

Weeks before the intended arrival of the Colonists, Sir John Gillespie an official of the FMIC had ordered A. C. Acton, their local manager, to erect temporary housing for the colonists. He was also ordered to have a dock ready to moor the arriving shipload of Scotsmen. Acton was a very sick man, however, and unable to get much done.

In January 1886, John Hamilton Gillespie, Sir John Gillespie’s son was sent to Sarasota to relieve Acton and he began to lay out roads and sidewalks in the “downtown” area, build the DeSoto Hotel on Main Street (inset ca.1886), and more. A number of the colonists were employed in the building program.

Had the “Colony” arrived six months later, or the construction begun six months earlier, it might have been a success. Lumber for the dock and hotel was brought by schooners to the foot of Main Street, thrown overboard and floated to shore where it was transported by mule “powered” wagons to its final location.

Construction of the dock was backbreaking work that required the workers to stand in the cold water as deep as chest high. For this they earned $2.00 for a long day. A warehouse was built at the end of the dock to house merchandise.

Immediately upon its completion the side-wheel steamer Erie began making regular stops at Tampa and Sarasota.

In 1886, Dr. Thomas Wallace, who came with the colonists had a 1½-story house built on Main Street and placed a cot in one of the rooms where patients could be treated. He also established the first drug store.

Furman and Bill Whitaker opened the first General Store, aside from the Company Store. Hamlin Whitaker opened a market where he sold meat from a freshly butchered steer (ice was not available).

The first blacksmith, cobbler, and wagon builder whose name was Jack Tatum, came to town in 1886. He could shoe the most stubborn mule, remake any part of a wagon, mend any saddle and fix any sewing machine. It was said that he had a “wheel” left over after fixing a clock and it still kept good time.

In 1888 the FMIC issued a promotional booklet touting the weather, investment and recreational opportunities. It pointed out that Massachusetts’s death rate was 1 in 254, New York’s was 1 in 473, and Florida’s was 1 in 1,457. Establishment of these numbers was not explained.

In 1894, the Inn on Main Street hosted its’ first convention, a group of Baptists. The DeSoto Hotel had 30 rooms to rent.

The DeSoto Hotel and its furnishings cost 5,000 pounds (about $15,000). Tourists returned annually to spend 2 or 3 months to shoot birds, catch fish, and sail the calm waters of Sarasota Bay. Others came to fight tuberculosis or rheumatism.

Steamers carried passengers from the dock at the Hotel’s front door to the Tampa terminus of the railroad. The Mary Disston, known as the Dirty Mary, that also hauled freight, was one of the steamers.

Sarasota was becoming a “boom town.”

DeSoto Hotel - Credit: Sarasota County Historical Resources.

To be continued..

Copyright © Leland G. Desmon. The information on this page may not be reproduced or republished on another webpage, website, or other printed material. Please LINK TO US instead.