1672-6 History-City of Miami Beach 1 i
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that CHAPTER VII
boat
is in THE COCONUT PLANTERS
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ON THE Fourth of July, 182o, Henry B. Lum was born on a
farm in Pennsylvania at Black Walnut on the Susquehanna
River. At sixteen he worked his way to Baltimore, Maryland,
aboard a lumber raft. Here he taught school for one term and then
walked to Bloomington, Ohio, where he bought an acre of land
and started a nursery.
When the gold fever struck he became a Forty-niner, walking
and working his way to California. He hit no pay dirt, so he
opened a bakery and within a short time had taken in some $2000
worth of gold dust, which enabled him to return to Ohio and start
another nursery, this time on 5o acres of land at Sandusky.
In 1852 he married, and in 1868 he and his 15-year old son if
Charles made their first trip to Florida. In 187o these two went
to Key West on a Clyde steamer and from there came to Miami
in a i 6-foot sailboat. They visited the beach and found three coco-
nut
trees growing at Brahman's Landing,* which immediately
gave them the idea of starting a coconut grove here.
They went north and did not return again for 12 years, but in
the meantime the two bought a considerable tract of beach land
from the government for 85 cents an acre (most of which was later
to comprise the Ocean Beach development). In this interim the
more they studied the situation the more enthusiastic they became.
The land was so cheap it was almost being given away. Coconuts of
the best varieties suitable for seed stock were to be had for a mere
pittance in the West Indies. It appeared that they merely had to be
planted and Nature would do the rest.
They interested Ezra Osborn and Elnathan T. Field, of
Middletown, New Jersey, in the venture and these two formed a
company and got the financial backing of some of their local
•The old wharf used by excursionists from the mainland.
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