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.