1644-9 Middletown, N.J. ` i/••.(/-ta ' ••%c. . 'Neut. A /Leccw .— ` - II ':e1 -c9 v ,,1r-ie“a"4 la.l4. neityj
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---The` BEACHCOMBER • BEACHCOMBER
- ijzi
By WESLEY STOUT : -
0v By WESLEY STOUT ' 4_
• . •- - • {mat wouldyou saythat 65 miles of beach-
=_ Part III: When coconuts had failed them, Nate
Field, John Collins, J.T. Lovett, George E.Tilton front, Key Biscayne to above Jupiter, is worth
• and David Baird. all Jerseymen, had launched today? QQ
South Florida's first real estate development, Not as much as the national debt, maybe, but d
pt f.Hypoluxo Beach, each putting in $4,000. billions, anyway. Ni
1
Buying the George R. K. Charter homestead • i right.
T. Field and his partners owned it --Elnat ,�
. in the winter of 1891-92, they began clearing outright. Field's granddaughter, Dirs. Joseph ft.
'
streets, building a seawall and startinga hotel; .Tottenhoff, nee Priscilla Poindexter, and her hus• .
)„, , "...r, -. What with the panic of 1893, the promotion failed; • hand, now live in Miami recent corners from a
the hotel nowadays, the Manalapan home of the f f. Chicago suburb. So do a great-grandson, John P.
" Jerome Gedneys.
�__y Tottenhoff, and a great-great-granddaughter.
The partners thought themselves luck}.to sell - * * *
-for exactly what they had put in. The times being 1 ' Henry Lum, a California Forty Niner, took
what they were, Field insisted upon converting a ,his 15-year-old son, Charles, by steamer to Key `
W• check into gold and carrying the bullion himself West in 1868, chartering a sailboat and cruising
•to New Jersey. Moreover, he traveled by ship, the Bay.
from Jacksonville, reasoning that a thief would There he saw three coconut palms in a cluster
•
have nowhere to hide at sea. — - on Miami Beach, Copra was in high demand. On -_ -
• * * * -, returning to Red Bank, N.J., he bought a stretch
• ''r ,v Field died at 80 in his chair in Ms West Palm r. of beach from the government for 35 cents an �'
Beach hotel Feb. 6, 1919, leaving a $200.000 estate, acre. ,O
si....t
; Virtually the last of his Florida land, 17-miles of �"" - Lum had no capital and was 12 years in inter-
beach from Pompano north, was bought in Feb-: i esting two other Jerseymen, Field a Middletownruary, 1921, by Harry Kelsey, Boston promoter of :P"'"'"'"9
nurseryman always called Nate, and Ezra Os-
Kelsey City, today's Lake Park. born, who bought all unclaimed beach from
...ri
By the terms of the will, his funds were in vested in mortgages, the estate to be distributed
Cape Florida Light to Jupiter Island, paying 75-
cents to $1.25 an acre. -
as the heirs reached the ages of 21, 31 and 40.: (When Congress opened the Public Domain to
settlement in 1796, almost a centuryearlier, it
Many of the mortgages soured in the depression,
• " the heirs getting only a part of what tie had • set the price of land at $2 an acre.) Q`
worked so hard and frugally to accumulate.
g Y .
Frugal with himself, he was generous to oth- The partners hired 25 crewmen from Jersey
ers, especially the family. Mrs. Tottenhoff tells lifesaving stations, bought and repaired con- TO
of being cautioned by her mother to say "Yes, . demned U.S. lifeboats, a knockdown house, mules,
' sir" to her grandfather when he visited them in 1 tents. wagons, tools and food for 100 days, load-
1
LI
Denver; if she did, he would have a present for • in g all aboard a Mallory 'steamer for Key West. •
I her, she was promised. The child expected a_� y,--_C ha>Letuug a•solxx,nea for the Bay, they unloaded --.• , :1: .11
" dime,or quarter at most, but the present was ' all through the sari and began clearing the Lum-
an Elgin wristwatch. ' • mus Park site, where Capt. Dick Carney of
Middletown, put up the 12x22 prefabricated
Priding himself on being a trader, he never house.
While they slashed at the dense growth, the i�
sold anything for less than he had paid, if
he could help it. When Mrs. Tottenhoff and her schooner made three voyages for nuts, to Triol-
mother spent the winter of 1915-16 with him at dad, Cuba and Nicaragua, bringing back 334,000
West Palm Beach, he bought his granddaughter in all. r,
a second-hand bicycle for $6. to pedal to school. As with the Dutch tulip madness, coconuts
After they had returned home in the spring, he , . were to make them effortlessly rich. One version
sold the bicycle for $7. _ i is that they were led to believe that every tree
He wrote later, grumbling that the hotel had L. , would produce a nut a day. A more probable one •
• charged him $45 a week for rooms and meals for is that each would bear 100 nuts yearly, a total of
the three. Mrs. Tottenhoff and her mother also . 33,400,000: and all the owners had to do was to
had been his guests at Mrs. Forssell's Green Tree r ' pick them up and ship them. `1�
Inn, Miami, when the granddaughter was four or As an experienced nurseryman and man not 3
five• r.���� given to romantic enthusiasms, his granddaugh- 1,
ter finds it hard to believe that Nate Field would
Nate Field was a knowing enough nurseryman have accepted either figure without investigation.
to have brought Blue Spruce trees from the Colo- In three years they had planted all 334,000, as
rado mountains and made them thrive in the sea- far north as Delray, and were virtually broke,
level sands of New Jersey. His granddaughter, the cost twice their calculations. Meanwhile,
who had thought of this tree as living only above Field had returned to New .lersey and got $5,-
5.000-feet, was astonished when she first saw his • 000 from his fellow nurseryman, John S. Collins
at Middletown. • of Moorestown; and in his absence the Lums <-
• He and his wife had lost three young children • Interested a drop-in. Henry Robinson, a New �. 34
wi•.hin five years, 186'44. Then both his wife vici - • -. .
CA 1.111,1 u«ti ,, ,°°', •�°°�� +•�••• •.•••,•• ••� ••.... --- Northerners had invested in the coconut golconda.
er recovered. Music having a melancholy effect. It was a pathetic failure. Even 100 nuts year-
upon him, he never thereafter allowed playing or • ly from each tree was six times the average
singing in his home. yield: the cocci palm is seven years or more in
* * * 1 bearing under ideal conditions; and only the
On her father's side, Mrs. Tottenhoff's Poin. tropical nut has copra value. South Florida nuts
dexter and Timanus ancestors were Floridians are low in oil content.
. before the Civil War, living at Jacksonville and - But this was academic, for few trees grew;
( t
Fernandina. Her great-grandparents, Col. and rabb is and coons ate the tender sprouts as fast
Mrs. Henry Timanus, are buried in Fernandina); • as they popped up.
••historic Bosquebello Cemetery. • Commodore Ralph Munroe found Mrs. Field
• Yellow fever in 1857 drove Col. Timanus from ' and two small daughters camped on the Boca 4,4
Jacksonville to Fernandina, from where the tam' Raton rocks in the winter of 1885-86. overseeing a
• - '• ily fled four years later from the Union occupa• crew of 15 or 20 quartered in the knockdown
tion. They returned to Fernandina after the war, r house brought up from the Bay. The daughters
434 •/) . .
. thou h all their property had been seized, stolen
g P Pe Y I were Mary Matilda (Mamie) and Annie Frances t
or burned. t (Frank). the latter Mrs. Tottenhoff's mother. - .4.
'•••• rn
The last nut planted, Dick Carney moved the
.. ... - .-.. -_ ._ _-- house back to Miami Beach, where it was the .--S4- only building until Charles Lum brought his bride I _
°" '^ ,-1, ` - - down in 1886 and built a 2-story frame. Both „ J `"'� -�"
hr+ner.: lolnr .,.,.rn h,,•.-,..1 0 , r•.. ....., r-. �fC�
„.
i .
ORT LAUDERDALE NEWS -T h e
s THE GORE PUBLISHING COMPANY ' •
BEACHCOMBER
J. W. DICKEY,Chairman of the Board W. W. STARR, Vice-Pres. Advertising '
T. T. GORE, President J. MILLARD CAIN, Vice-Pres. Circulation
J. W. GORE, Editor and Publisher FRED PETTIJOHN, Executive Editor * *
' AIOA'DAY, NOVEMBER 26, 1962".q'''
` • _ • Editorial, .r ;. . By WESLEY STOUT • .
, Page Eight _ ” .
. Classified Departments -- Dial JA 3-5425,6 . ..,; • • • �\\\\\\\\�\\�\��u\' aa�a�\\ .
- . • All Other Departments -- Dial JA 2.3711,',-%:` ••.,-,
370 S.E. First Ave., Ft. Lauderdale > ' ,
MEMBER OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Part II: John Collins meanwhile had come
down from New Jersey to see what had become
The Associated Press Is entitled exclusively to the use for publication of all'''of his money. The cost of clearin I
the local news printed In this newspaper as well as all AP news dispatches. g and by hand
All rights of publication of special dispatches are also eserved ., • ran from $70 to $300 an acre. Collins brought
NEWS Hollywood Bureau, 505 S 21st Ave.,—Dial Hollywood WA2-15atl.l • down 16-ton steam tractors which cut clearing
_NEWS West Hollywood Bureau, 1439 $ State Rd. 7, Dial Hollywood YU 3.7050..
NEWS Pompano Beach Bureau, 2501 N Federal Hwy., Dial Pompano Beach costs to $30.
WH 1-7800. __ y. Coconuts having failed them, Collins pro-
NEWS•SENTINEL Palch murBeach2Bueau, 301hNADixia Hwy TE3-9933. S
• er ` .:,'�,, posed to plant avocados, an unproven crop, on a
mile-long and 700-feet wide tract, now the heart
,.. .of Miami Beach. Nate Field wanted to plant -
grapefruit,.a proven crop. Neither had a high
`; opinion of his fellow nurseryman's professional
' competence.
+. One was daring, the other cautious, incom-
_..__ . _ _ ___ _- - _— -_ -- palible partners., The avocados getting off tt
a bad start, hurt by salt and blowing sand, first
Osborn, then Field sold their interests in the •
, 4.5-mile Miami Beach strip to Collins, who later
found the answer to salt and sand in Australian
• . : Pine windbreaks. Some of these trees still line
Pinetree Dr. • .
Nate Field and Ezra and Frank Osborn seem
to have been first to plat Miami Beach. a plat
which vanished and was not foundjn Dade Coun-
' ty's records again until 1923. Abstract of title
shows that Field deeded a lot. 100-feet on the
ocean and 300 deep, at Twentieth St., to his only
living daughter, "Frank," mother of Mrs. Totten-
•
hoff, in return for secretarial work he valued at
$150. .
p-
In the earliest letter Mrs. Tottenhoff has of
. .her grandfather's, written Dec. 27, 1905, from
E. A. Forssell's Southern Rotel, Miami, he save
he was running free boat excursions to the beach
and getting prospective lot buyers: and told
.
• a " r. flk tu-scka-priee-on-herlot.aud`he would
:find 1 buyer.. : •
-
But after Collins became sole owner of the
' 4.5-mile strip, he replatted, mislocating the
•
' daughter's lot and running Twentieth St. diagon-
. ally through it. Every sale of adjacent land in
later years included a specific exception of Lot
6. Block C, in dispute. But with the title clouded,
the lot stood vacant amidst the Roney Plaza
•
area. In 1925, $100,000 had been offered for it. The
title continued clouded until 1930. when Mrs. Tot-
' tenhoff accepted $25.000 for a quitclaim deed.
- .- • • -- - -•.• • -• -� $6.700 of which was hers after legal costs were
paid.
•
* * *
• A Dec. 19, 1912, Field letter says: "Green
1 told me he was almost certain to sell front Delray 1"'
to Boynton. and I fixed a price south of Delray
to Boca Ratone at $125 an acre."
A letter of a week later says: "Collins made
me sell the last half interest in Miami Beach
to him."
A letter of the following February on the sla-
ir.:
- tionery of Collins' and Pancoast's Miami Beach
Improvement Co., refers to "a Fisher (Carl) idol
- will be here in a few days." and trontinues: "Got
an inquiry for land atlos'P ltinvi.,.••r t-,'..f ./i..;..,1
tt at 44th an Pere.
- Two weeks later he was writing: "Collins has
• sold 1,800-feet off his south line to some Fisher.
whom I have not yet seen, who has taken much
off his hands. This sale gives Fisher control of
. the mouth of the canal and the east end of the
Bay bridge; and Collins did not see the situation
.' until I called his-attention to it."
The letter concludes: "Marshall has just .
• come to see me about some land about New
i River."
Soon Field was fearful that the bold Collins
I _ 1', would go broke. "1 hope not." he wrote, "as lie
;. t •
owes me $7,000 yet on the Miami Beach land. I
• have a mortgage on all the rest I sold him, and
t shall ask him for security on the $7,000.
a
(more tomorrow)
--- . _--- L__ m,,.
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