Florida Keys Sea Heritage Journal VOL. 24 NO. 1 FALL 2013 USS SHARK OFFICIAL QUARTERLY PUBLICATION OF THE KEY WEST MARITIME HISTORICAL SOCIETY Key West On the Edge By Robert Kerstein Over its history Key West has been many different things to many different people. Situated on a small island, only two miles wide and four miles long, and bounded by the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean, it was once the largest city in Florida; at another time one of the wealthiest cities, per capita, in the United States; and at yet another time, one of the poorest. Blessed with its beautiful setting and tropical climate, Key West has, like many attractive tourist destinations, undergone a mighty struggle over its identify. Buffeted over the years by economic forces and national cultural changes, not to mention the occasional hurricane, Key West has long been one of America’s most unique and intriguing places. In 1983, it elected Richard Heyman, the first openly gay mayor in the United States. And in 1989, citizens chose Captain Tony Tarrachino as mayor, who, as described by the Washington Post, “had been a … gambler, gunrunner, saloonkeeper, fishing boat captain, ladies’ man and peerless raconteur.” Historian Charlton Tebeau concluded that during the decades (Continued on page 3) The cover of Key West On the Edge. SocietyNews by Tom Hambright Key Wester Strikes Gold The Fall and Winter 2012 few days since on their way to New issues of the Florida Keys Sea York, with an amount of gold which Heritage Journal published Mary we believe, to be unequalled in the Haffenreffer’s transcription and records of individual successes in description of the correspondence mining. They had with them dust between Thomas Ferguson and his to the value of 160,000 dollars, wife Rosalinda, written when he all obtained during the summer sought and struck gold in California, from two claims on the Yuba river. while she and their children These lucky individuals are Messrs. The Florida Keys Sea Heritage suffered poverty in Key West. Colin Thomas J. and Daniel H. Ferguson, Journal is published quarterly. Ferguson, a descendant, sent the formerly of Danbury, Conn. They Subscription is available through Society the following article from carried their treasure to Benicia membership. Copyright 2014 by the Daily Alta California newspaper upon the mules which brought the Key West Maritime Historical of November 18, 1850. it from the mountains, and it is Society of the Florida Keys, Inc. probably the heaviest importation The art on the masthead, the USS LARGEST YET that will be made for some time into Shark, was drawn by Bill Muir. Two gentlemen of our that grand port of entry. [Daily Alta acquaintance passed this city a California, Nov 18, 1850] Editor: Tom Hambright ForgottenSoldiers Letters and articles are welcome. The Summer 2013 Florida Keys Plummer, a White physician. The Please write to: Editor, Florida Keys Sea Heritage Journal published an officials of the organization were Sea Heritage Journal, KWMHS, article about the Forgotten Soldiers often Black. The Key West chapter P.O. Box 695, Key West, FL of the 2nd Regiment South Carolina GAR appears for the last time in the 33041 or visit our web site Volunteer Regiment. The article 1911 City Directory. Keywestmaritime.org. begged the question: how many of these men returned to live in Key The following is the list of Key West Maritime West? After a search of census possible Black Civil War veterans Historical Society records, city directories, Civil and the record(s) consulted: Board of Directors War service records, and Federal Stephney Austin (1880 U.S. pension files, I have compiled the Census) President: Corey Malcom following list of probable Black John Bolton (Florida State Vice President: Bill Verge Civil War veterans in Key West. Census 1885) Secretary: Andrea Comstock One record that has not been Allen Dean (1870 U.S. Census, Treasurer: Tom Hambright found is a membership list of the Pension Files 1861-1934) Major B.C. Lincoln Post No. 3 of Manuel Dean (1870 U.S. Census, the Grand Army of the Republic Florida State Census 1885, Pension George Craig (GAR) The GAR was the national Files 1861-1934) J. Gregory Griffin veteran organization of the Civil James Frazier (U.S. Census Bill Grosscup War, which was very active in 1880) Mary Haffenreffer community and political life. The Samuel Gabriel (Florida State John Jones Key West unit is often listed as a Census, U.S. Civil War Service Sheri Lohr Black unit, but the Commander Records of Union Colored Julie McEnroe for many years was Dr. J.W.V.R. (Continued on page 13) Windy Tucker John Viele New Members Robert J. Wolz Jan and Donald Allman, Fort Myers, FL. 2 - FLORIDA KEYS SEA HERITAGE JOURNAL - FALL 2013 (Key West from page 1) before the Civil War, when the wrecking industry thrived, Key West could be best “understood as a cosmopolitan, even international island of economic, social and cultural activity, unlike any other in Florida and having little contact with it.” By the 1880s, the cigar industry had taken the place of wrecking as the island’s primary industry, drawing thousands of Cuban immigrants to the island. Still, many observers found the island attractive and different. In 1884, the author of a guide to fishing and camping in Florida called it a “quaint and charming city, full of oddities and incongruities.” Four years later, Jacksonville’s Florida Times- Military men in a Duval Street Bar. Photo credit: Monroe County Library. Union, wrote that “Nowhere within the boundaries of the United States Administration (FERA) in Florida wrote in a letter to a friend, “It’s the can be found a place resembling initiated a successful effort to attract best place I’ve ever been anytime, (Key West), with its row of frame- tourists to the island in 1934, some anywhere, flowers, tamarind trees, built buildings, its hundreds of Conchs, as well as some visitors, guava trees, coconut palms…Got cigar factories, its cosmopolitan including world-renowned poets tight last night on absinthe and did population, and its thousand and one Wallace Stevens and Robert Frost, knife tricks.” other peculiarities which claim the criticized changes in the town. Even after the growth of tourism attention of the stranger.” A woman Stevens, for example, claimed in in the mid-1930s, others continued visiting Key West in 1886 also 1935 that “Key West is no longer to praise Key West. After Martha emphasized it uniqueness, calling quite the delightful affection it once Gellhorn, who was to become it “an odd and novel place, and the was.” Hemingway’s third wife, arrived more interesting on that account. Still, neither the railroad, nor on a visit to Key West in 1937, There are peculiarities here that the Overseas Highway, which she wrote to Eleanor Roosevelt, strike a stranger very forcibly. Key linked Key West to the mainland “I’m in Key West: to date it’s the West is intensely unlike any other in 1928, albeit with a 40-mile best thing I’ve found in America.” place in the Union.” gap that necessitated the use of And after Tennessee Williams first Even before Key West attracted car ferries, detracted from many experienced Key West in 1941, he many tourists, however, the fear visitors’ fascination with the noted, “This is the most fantastic that the island would lose its island city. Writer and inventor place that I have been yet in unique flavor was voiced. After George Allan England wrote that America.” Henry Flagler’s Florida East Coast Key West is “different from all Key West changed during the Railway reached the island in 1912, other cities, filled with beauty and war years and post-war decades the concern was raised that “The with curious, unique pictures… in ways that many felt enhanced whistle of the locomotive will be somewhat a state of mind, unique the allure of the island. In his heard in the land and another queer and unapproachable…save by memoir “A Pirate Looks at 50,” corner of the earth will be put on those who love and understand the Jimmy Buffett recollected the Key the civilized map.” After Julius tropics.” Ernest Hemingway arrived West he first observed in the early Stone, the federal administrator in Key West in 1928 after spending of the Federal Emergency Relief much of the decade in Paris. He (Contined on page 4) FALL 2013 - FLORIDA KEYS SEA HERITAGE JOURNAL - 3 The Flag of the Conch Republic. Photo credit: Monroe County Library. (Key Weest from page 3) stationed at Boca Chica Air Base, United States, but not before the Truman Annex, or Trumbo Point. Conch Republic’s Minister of 1970s: “Living in Key West in the By the end of the 1970s, the Defense hit a U.S. Navy officer with early seventies was not like living military’s presence on the island a loaf of Cuban bread, his version of in America. It was a hybrid culture was less significant due to the having “fired a volley.” where you were linked to the future closing of Truman Annex in 1974. Key West initiated the mock by FedEx service…while Cuban Although shrimp boats still were secession to protest a U.S. Border coffee and guayabera kept alive present in large numbers on the Key Patrol roadblock near Florida City the flavor of the ethnic past…There West Bight, their numbers were on U.S. Route 1 that had been that were the drug smugglers… In the diminished during the 1980s. It was ostensibly had been established to early days they used to unload at clear to many that tourism would search for illegal aliens, but that also the dockside in broad daylight, need to be the key driver of Key searched for drugs in cars driving and nobody much cared… The gay West’s economy.