A daylong party, 1892 style

The Tatler newspaper covered entertainment
and society news. (Photo credit:
St. Augustine Historical Society)

Presidents Day 2026 was basically a day off for some workers and a reason for stores and online sellers to advertise. I don't recall any celebrations even in my youth.

The scene was markedly different in 1892 St. Augustine. The Feb. 27, 1892, edition of the city-based entertainment newspaper, The Tatler of Society in Florida, gushed in its coverage of Feb. 22 Washington's Birthday events. 

Back then, one day wasn't dedicated to all presidents. Some states observed Lincoln's birthday, but Florida wasn't one of them. Florida had been part of the Confederacy. The big bash Feb. 22 was a Military Ball, but the newspaper in its commendations of service members couldn't bring itself to print the words Civil War or War Between the States. Instead, it noted an officer who served with distinction "in the late conflict." 

But the city lauded the military. Oil magnate and developer Henry Flagler sponsored the Military Ball at his posh Ponce de Leon Hotel. He staged the event in honor of officers of the Fifth United States Infantry. The infantry was stationed at the city's St. Francis Barracks.

The ball was the culmination of daylong special events. The Tatler devoted more than three pages of print to it. More than two of those pages focused on detailed descriptions of attendees' ball gowns. Really. On and on it went.

Coverage included recognition of the military officers, listed by name, and a full rundown on music provided by the Fifth Infantry Band and the Ponce de Leon Orchestra. The music was continuous as attendees danced, ate at midnight, danced some more and enjoyed fireworks after that.

The menu received one paragraph of coverage. After reading it, I'm glad. The first line spoke of "a pyramid of grouse and partridge patties, a pretty brown pig beneath it..." Capon and quail were also available. I'd have headed right to the tables of salads, sponge cake, chocolate and ice cream. No word about beverages but I'm sure there were plenty.

The Tatler gave some space to the day's other events. They included an afternoon Children's Ball that started with a Grand March. The event was attended by 275 youth who "were beautifully dressed" and danced to the waltz, polka and cotillion music performed by the Fifth Infantry Band.

That band had a seriously busy day. It started with morning performances at the Cordova Hotel, which was a step down from the Ponce in status. The band then performed at the Children's Ball and finally at the Military Ball. I hope everyone appreciated their efforts.

In addition to scheduling morning music, the Cordova offered its guests a special 6 p.m. dinner. Washington's portrait adorned the souvenir menu cover. Afterwards, an orchestral concert featured "patriotic airs in an artistic manner." Smaller musical gatherings in the hotel's parlors followed the orchestral performance.

That wasn't all. Throughout the day, the city residents and winter guests "visited the different entertainments about the city," including baseball games. 

All in all, a hearty celebration in honor of our nation's first president. The Tatler acknowledged in its editorial that some people felt daylong celebrations were time wasted. The editors pushed back and stated that, instead, much is gained. "Everyone is stronger and better and wiser for an enforced rest."  

Those words still hold true more than 130 years later.

America 250: Florida was loyalist British colony

The book, The 14th Colony,
explains what happened in Florida
during the Revolutionary War

I'm shifting the blog's time parameters for today's post. We're going all the way back to the Revolutionary War period. That's because 2026 marks the 250th observance of our country's founding.

Many people don't know that Florida remained a loyalist British colony during the war. The "original 13 colonies" on what is now continental U.S. soil were actually 15 colonies. Florida was considered two colonies at the time - West Florida and East Florida. 

George Washington ordered patriot invasions of East Florida five times. Yes, five times. He had his sights on St. Augustine, primarily. Washington wanted British East Florida's arms and ammunition, and control of the Castillo de San Marcos fort. 

The invasions failed for various reasons. They included misinformation, miscommunication, a daunting terrain and even political infighting. The vitriol between two top commanders of one of the planned invasions got so bad they ended up in a dual. One of them died.

I'm a fan of Florida domestic and social history, but not of war history. All this information was news to me. I first learned it from a 32-page book by Dr. Roger Smith, The 14th Colony, The American Revolution's Best Kept Secret (Colonial Research Associates, Inc., 2011).

I also discovered that Smith's doctoral dissertation on the subject is available online and is 10 times longer than the book. I haven't yet read that.

According to the book, St. Augustine was so important that "George Washington mentions St. Augustine in over 80 letters to the Continental Congress or his general staff as either a military target or military concern." (Page 6) 

The patriots never secured St. Augustine. In fact, after the fall of Charleston in 1780, the British captured several prominent patriots and imprisoned them in St. Augustine. The prisoners included three signers of the Declaration of Independence. I learned that from the book, Patriots in Exile: Charleston Rebels in St. Augustine During the American Revolution, by James Waring McCrady and C.L. Bragg (University of South Carolina Press, 2024).

During the war, St. Augustine's population swelled with refugees. According to AI, the number jumped from a few thousand to more than 17,000 by the war's end. The St. Augustine Lighthouse's website breaks down the influx. Many were loyalists fleeing other colonies. A significant percentage were the enslaved people they brought with them. And about 600 were indentured Minorcans, Greeks and Italians who fled inhumane conditions on a New Smyrna Beach plantation. 

To me, one of the most interesting things about the entire population is how multicultural it was. In addition to the newcomers, some of the regular inhabitants were Spanish residents who had stayed when Spain ceded Florida to Britain in the 1760s. And local indigenous peoples regularly frequented the city.

Britain ceded Florida back to Spain after the war. (Spain had captured West Florida in 1781 as an ally of France and as part of their own campaign against Britain.) The loyalists melted away. St. Augustine's fascinating history remains.

Finding frontier joy

Citrus groves surrounded by pine forests
were a common sight in pioneer Florida.
Image credit: Florida Memory state archives,
https://www.floridamemory.com

Women in the 19th century had little legal or social recourse when husbands decided to move their families to frontier areas. Citrus fever caused more than a few such moves to Florida. 

Relocating from a settled, populated Northern or Midwestern state to a semi-tropical wilderness was a shock to many a newcomer. Many places have local history stories of a wife who spent her first months here crying. My own town has such a story. 

Prevailing attitudes at the time assumed that women who ended up here labored unwillingly and unceasingly and were unhappy and unfulfilled. The business of growing citrus empires and settling new towns was men's work. 

Or was it? Certainly, in some cases wives and daughters disliked living in Florida. But many women exhibited resilience, resourcefulness and joy in their new life. They discovered a freedom denied them by the social rules and structures "back home."

Even the woman in my town's history dried her tears and shook off her homesickness. She set out to find every settler she could in the vicinity. Why? She was fundraising. She wanted a church built. And she succeeded.

Come to my Sunland, the letters of pioneer Julia Daniels Moseley, likewise contains vivid accounts of how she first struggled, then came to love, the area near Tampa where she and her husband settled in the 1880s. It's a book worth reading.

These weren't outlier stories. Information in an article in the Summer 2012 (volume 91) issue of the Florida Historical Society Quarterly reinforces that. 

The main focus of the article by John T. Foster, Sarah Whitmer Foster, and Roscoe A. Turnquest is about a journalist named Ellen Augusta Morgan Hill. She expanded the depth and breadth of the women's page content she wrote for the Jacksonville-based Florida Dispatch in the 1880s. She engaged with her readers and shared her strong opinions. Among them:

• citrus-obsessed husbands needed to show more consideration, courtesy and affection to their wives.
• women shouldn't be limited to housekeeping and parenting (a radical thought at the time).
• men liked Florida much more than women did.

That last statement drew letters of disagreement from Florida transplants from the North and Midwest. "Rather than listing grievances many of the women along Florida's frontier described the simple pleasures of life," the article states.

Some of the comments are almost poetic. One woman wrote: "... to you who dwell among the pines of Florida I would ask ... Did you ever sit at dusk and listen to them, how they begin to whisper...?"  Did you ever, she asked, listen to them on a pleasant day "almost sing you a lullaby as you lazily swing to and fro in a hammock?"

I have listened to pines in the Ocala National Forest. I can indeed tell you the sound of wind through the boughs is beautiful and almost ethereal. 

Another woman wrote of loving how she found "... so much to occupy her time, from my little chicks to my little babe." She went on to list things she enjoyed, from vegetable gardening to tending all sorts of fruit trees. "I feel I am the happiest woman in the world," she wrote.

Even the ever-present Florida bugs and the famous Florida heat weren't problems for these pioneers. One transplant suggested readers head to Cincinnati if they wanted to feel oppressive summer heat. Others told how mosquito nets and screens repelled the insects. One reader offered a recipe for a boric acid mixture that took care of roaches. And more than a few shared tips for ensuring a safe water supply. 

If anything, these readers said they and their families were in better health in Florida than they had been elsewhere. Several had in fact relocated due to health. And yes, citrus factored into many, if not all, of these homesteaders' lives. 

Citrus in Florida has dwindled so much it's hard to remember when groves blanketed the state. Those days are history. But people still come here for their health. And a lot of women who relocate are happy here. This writer included.

Pre-Disney Florida hype

Screengrab from travelfilmarchive YouTube
channel's 1950 travelogue about Florida
Credit: https://www.youtube.com/@travelfilmarchive

Today's focus is a bit outside this blog's usual frontier parameters. But it's too classic to overlook: a 75-year-old travel film about Florida. 

The 1950 black-and-white Let’s Look at Florida film is about a half-hour long. It's an episode in a series named Pageant of the States. I found it on the travelfilmarchive channel on YouTube. Watch it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BO33VEt-gM

Even in that pre-Disney era, the hype was thick. There wasn't a word about mosquitoes. No mention of hurricanes or humidity. Miami is described as having a median temperature of 75. Ha. I doubt that was true even in those pre-climate-change days.

More truthful and obvious was the glut of high-rise buildings already evident in Miami in 1950. The narrator said the city was growing faster than any other metro area in the United States. 

I cringed at the treatment of animals at what passed for tourist attractions. Penned alligators were prodded and poked, pelicans had obviously had their wings clipped, and dolphins (and macaws and other birds) were trained to perform for humans. Yes, I realize we didn't know then what we do now about non-human species. But I wouldn't have liked it then, just as I don't now.

On a brighter note, I laughed at the clip showing crowded shuffleboard courts in St. Petersburg. The game was midcentury America's pickleball. It was also funny to hear that St. Petersburg, a city of 100,000 at the time, described as a "pensioner's paradise." And vintage car fans will delight in the now-classic vehicles that roll through many of the film's scenes. 

In case anyone was worried, the narrator assured viewers that “Florida is still growing.” What an understatement. AI tells me the state's population in 1950 was about 2.7 million. We're at 23 million and climbing today.  

I was intrigued by the numerous comments posted by viewers. Many were from people who grew up in that world - and who mentioned how hot the climate was. Most Floridians didn’t live in air-conditioned houses then. The residential air-conditioning boom was on the threshold, but it wasn't yet a thing in 1950. Yet these same commenters treasured their memories and felt a sense of loss for a world now gone. 

Many years ago, I endured one year of Florida living in an apartment without air conditioning. A large, wood-frame 1890s house had been carved into apartments, which destroyed the air flow those old houses were known for. My two-room, second-floor apartment was brutally hot in summer even with a fan running on high in the window. 

There are some people who say you aren’t really a Floridian until you’ve lived here a while without air conditioning. So, I qualify. Yet I will always be a hybrid Floridian-New Yorker with firmly attached Brooklyn roots. Just like I’ll always be a Sicilian-Slovenian-American. 

I couldn’t find a person of color or non-WASPish ethnicity in the 1950 travelogue. A sign of the times, for sure. It reminds me to appreciate and learn about the past while embracing the good that progress has brought. And to sort through and call out the negatives that come along with them both. 

Miami as you've never known it

Hard to recognize: Here's what the mouth
of the Miami River looked like in an 1869
sketch by Dr. Jeffries Wyman. 
Image credit: Harvard University, via a
2000 article in The Florida Anthropologist

It's hard to imagine Miami ever being as undeveloped as depicted in the sketch that accompanies this post. I don't need to feature a photo of the modern Miami skyline for readers to know what I mean. Yet this is how that corner of Florida appeared in 1869, when Dr. Jeffries Wyman made the sketch.

Wyman (1814-1874) was well known in his day. He was a noted pioneer anthropologist, Harvard professor and first director of that university's Peabody Museum. He visited Miami in 1869. That visit drew renewed attention more than a century later. A Miami-Dade County official named Christopher R. Eck was intrigued because the 1869 visit was likely the first time an academically trained archaeologist explored the area. 

Eck reviewed Wyman's diary and notes from the trip and wrote an article that appeared in the December 2000 issue of The Florida Anthropologist, Vol. 53. The information in this blog post is from that article. The article focused primarily on the scientific side of the visit. My interest, as usual, is on the day-to-day aspects of daily life.

Wyman traveled by boat, aboard a yacht owned by a friend. Water was the primary means of transportation in Miami at that time.

Here's some of what Wyman did and some things he had to say. His diary excerpts are in quotes:

March 4, 1869: "Day pleasant ... sailing most enjoyable. Caught two large fish... The cook made a chowder of one & the other ('Spanish mackerel' as the cook called it  & 'king fish' according to Capt.) was baked and was excellent eating." Wyman also saw "flying fish & Porpoises." Unfortunately, he was prone to seasickness. "I've not felt quite well on account of disagreeable motion in night."

March 5, 1869: The temperature at sunrise was 74 degrees in the cabin and 69 on deck. That's nice Florida spring weather today, too. It didn't stay that way, though. A rain squall sprang up at dusk and cut off the remaining daylight. It generated heavy seas and a brisk breeze, but the travelers dropped anchor in a sheltered spot just as daylight completely vanished. Before that, the group had spent most of the day looking for the Key Biscayne lighthouse. "Passed two wrecked vessels on the shore - did not see the lighthouse until 4 PM."

March 6, 1869: The lighthouse pilot boarded the yacht and guided the boat to the Miami River. The travelers rowed to a settlement on shore. "This village consists of a few houses built during Indian War - are in poor condition." Not sure which war he is referencing. Florida had three conflicts known as the First, Second and Third Seminole Wars between 1817 and 1858. While the houses were dilapidated, the scenery was picturesque. Wyman notes the "shores lined with mangroves, behind them cocoa-nuts..."

March 7, 1869: The group cruised up the Miami River for about 5 miles. They were joined by a few villagers including a Mr. Hunt and a person Wyman references simply as "a negro." Many thanks to writer Eck for including a detailed footnote that dignifies this person with a name: Andrew Price, an employee of Mr. Hunt listed in the 1870 census as a farm laborer and the 1880 one as a sailor. In other diary entries, Wyman mentions Price by his first name. 

March 8, 1869: "Passed the night at Mr Hunts - in a rickety house, with hogs underneath & goats running about the piazza but very tired slept well." Need we say anything more here? Welcome to pioneer Florida. Wyman went back onboard the boat for breakfast and the group sailed off, looking for archaeological mounds.

March 9, 1869: They found a large mound and spent the next couple of days making sample excavations. Wyman records the oval mound as being 60 feet long, 40 feet wide and 11 feet high. They found only stones. But those stones appear to have been placed in specific formations. Smaller stones were found atop large stones in the middle of the mound.

March 10, 1869: "Light rain, followed by great numbers of mosquitoes."

The footnotes in the article are as interesting as the main narrative. The large oval mound containing the stones likely was leveled by work crews clearing the land for Henry Flagler's Royal Palm Hotel in 1896.

I can't help but wonder what Wyman would think could he see Miami today. 

Against multiple odds

This photo of Lawrence B. Brown is
from the cover of the book
'From Slavery to Community Builder'

Born enslaved in North Florida in 1856. Died a prosperous builder and community leader in South Central Florida in 1941. We'd all do well to learn a bit more about Lawrence Bernard Brown. And you can, by visiting the website of the Historic L.B. Brown House:  https://www.lbbrown.com

Brown achieved his success and respect "at a time when it was dangerous to be a successful Black person." That quote is from the website dedicated to Brown and the large Victorian house he built. The house is now a Florida Historical Landmark. Brown himself is recognized as A Great Floridian by the Florida Department of State and Florida League of Cities.

I've been digging up Florida history for years, but it took a long time for the algorithms (current) or books, pamphlets and local histories (pre-internet) to bring Brown to my attention. He even lived for a while in the county of my residence, about which I thought I knew a lot. 

There is - or was - even a street named after him in my county (Volusia). The Brown house website says he named a Lawrence Street during his 19th century tenure in DeLeon Springs, known at the time as Spring Garden.

He'd "acquired a considerable amount of property" in Spring Garden, says the website, on which he built houses and then rented and sold them. To learn more, I plan to read the book From Slavery to Community Builder, The Story of Lawrence B. Brown. You can find more information about the book on the website.

Brown's time in Spring Garden was temporary but was a step on his journey to success. That journey began near Gainesville, where he grew up. As a free man, he applied for and received a homestead grant in Alachua County. From there, he bought land and built a subdivision in Volusia County. In the mid-1880s, the family moved to Bartow (Polk County) and that's where his legacy really took root.

Brown was a self-taught master carpenter. The beautiful Victorian family home he built in about 1892 is testament to that. But the house was abandoned and nearly lost to the elements before being restored in 2001. It's available for tours by appointment: an email, phone number and a contact form are all available on the website. You may watch a YouTube video tour linked at the bottom of this post. There's also an annual L.B. Brown Heritage Festival at the site. 

The L.B. Brown House. Photo credit: 
www.lbbrown.com

The house today is owned by the Neighborhood Improvement Corporation of Bartow Inc. If you can't get to Bartow, you can view many house photos on the website.

May Lawrence Brown's legacy continue to inspire. 

Novice life, with no AC

Vintage image of Benedictine sisters is from
the Instagram page of St. Leo University.
The post contains this and other photos
of the sisters. See it at:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DGvdNp7uNfV/

Misunderstandings abound in popular culture about Catholic religious sisters and their history. It's also true about the hidden lives of women in the novitiate, the period of time when an entrant lives in community as a hopeful but not yet fully professed member of a religious order.

This post shares some truths about the lives of Benedictine novices in the wilds of Florida a century ago. Despite the Florida boom that saw a burst of development in the early years of the 20th century, much of the land outside cities remained wilderness at that time.

The Benedictines established an academy and a convent, the Holy Name Monastery, in 1889 in the small town of San Antonio (Florida). That began their long association with what today is St. Leo University in the nearby town of St. Leo.

Insights shared here are from Chapter 2 of The Benedictine Sisters of Florida - The First Hundred Years. It covers their first 100 years at Holy Name in San Antonio/St. Leo. The undated, typewritten document likely dates to 1989 or the early 1990s. Chapter 2 is titled "Tales From the Novitiate." The introduction is worth quoting:

Novitiate memories often revolve around peals of laughter; buckets of tears; sinks full of dirty dishes; dreams realized; uninvited and inappropriate giggling; serious, even solemn, efforts at prayer; and, as a background for it all, the tension of beginning a search for God with all the professed, or as they once were called, the "big sisters", observing carefully from heights of proper religious decorum and holiness.

In other words, a lot like secular life in that it had ups and downs as all lives do. Along with moments of fun. A novice named Sister Therese illustrated that when the sisters had to physically have their convent house moved in 1911. During recreation period, she'd run the length of the building and physically jump out the front door and off the edge of the propped-up, mid-move building. Just for fun. 

The activity both entertained her seniors and earned her a reputation. 

She was also known for her singing voice. One song outlasted her novice days and became required during parties and talent shows into the 1960s. Accompanied by outlandish costumes, particularly hats, even in the days of full habits. 

The song was "I'm A Lonely Little Petunia in an Onion Patch." No, I've never heard of it either. Sister Therese was a novice in the early 1900s, so we're going back quite a while.

Sister Therese went on to serve as a school principal, registrar, novice mistress and in several other roles. Sometimes all at the same time.

The less rambunctious Sister Caroline remembered her 1920s novitiate and initiation into community living as "gentle, thoughtful, progressing week by week with the addition of more duties and supported by gradual instruction."

Squeezed in among her prayer, work, instructional and leisure time, Sister Caroline took a correspondence course in Geometry. She and the other novices were called candidates during the earliest stages of the novitiate. During her candidacy, Sister Caroline also taught Latin to primary school pupils.

Sister Rosaria recalled how all the sisters of the community came out to greet her and other postulants when they arrived in 1930. She also remembered how their instructional work about religion and religious life included an emphasis on the fine arts, particularly music. 

Echoes of today linger in Sister deChantal's memories. She was the lone postulant to enter in 1940, as are many women who enter religious life today. Sister deChantal used to take walks with an almost crippled older sister who would bend and pick up pecans Sister deChantal shook lose after climbing a tree.

To be sure, the abbess, prioress, novice mistress and longtime sisters could be strict and exacting in their instruction. Letters home were censored and returned for rewrite if they contained private community information. 

But there was also an abundance of care and understanding, love, fellowship, community and fun. That remained constant during the 100 years the document spanned. As did certain patterns of novitiate life: classes in scripture, the Rule of St. Benedict and Benedictine vows; daily prayer; domestic chores; spiritual formation; ministry work; choir practice and more. 

Interestingly, none of the novices mentioned the Florida heat and bugs. The women were focused on other things. Every day the novices came closer to their goal of divine service and consecration to God. Just as novices do today.