Florida Historical Quarterly Volume 57 Number 1 Florida Historical Quarterly, Volume Article 1 57, Number 1 1978 Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol 57, Number 1 Florida Historical Society [email protected] Find similar works at: https://stars.library.ucf.edu/fhq University of Central Florida Libraries http://library.ucf.edu This Full Issue is brought to you for free and open access by STARS. It has been accepted for inclusion in Florida Historical Quarterly by an authorized editor of STARS. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Recommended Citation Society, Florida Historical (1978) "Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol 57, Number 1," Florida Historical Quarterly: Vol. 57 : No. 1 , Article 1. Available at: https://stars.library.ucf.edu/fhq/vol57/iss1/1 Society: Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol 57, Number 1 Published by STARS, 1978 1 Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol. 57 [1978], No. 1, Art. 1 COVERCOVER Aviation was still in its infancy in Florida when J. A. D. McCurdy flew his Curtiss biplane over Daytona Beach in 1911. This photograph records that event. In the background is the Clarendon Hotel, now the Daytona Beach Plaza. In aviation history, 1978 marks both the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Wright Brothers’s flight and the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Eastern Airlines, Florida’s oldest existing air carrier. Photograph courtesy of John P. Ingle, Jr., Jacksonville. (Aviation’s Earliest Years in Jacksonville, 1878-1935, 7.) https://stars.library.ucf.edu/fhq/vol57/iss1/1 2 Society: Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol 57, Number 1 THE FLORIDA HISTORICAL SOCIETY Volume LVII, Number 1 July 1978 COPYRIGHT 1978 by the Florida Historical Society, Tampa, Florida. Second class postage paid at Tampa and DeLeon Springs, Florida. Printed by E. O. Painter Printing Co., DeLeon Springs, Florida. Published by STARS, 1978 3 Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol. 57 [1978], No. 1, Art. 1 THE FLORIDA HISTORICAL QUARTERLY Samuel Proctor, Editor Donna Thomas, Editorial Assistant EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Herbert J. Doherty, Jr. University of Florida Michael V. Gannon University of Florida --- John K. Mahon University of Florida Jerrell H. Shofner Florida Technological University Charlton W. Tebeau University of Miami (Emeritus) J. Leitch Wright, Jr. Florida State University Correspondence concerning contributions, books for review, and all editorial matters should be addressed to the Editor, Florida Historical Quarterly, Box 14045, University Station, Gainesville, Florida 32604. The Quarterly is interested in articles and documents pertaining to the history of Florida. Sources, style, footnote form, original- ity of material and interpretation, clarity of thought, and interest of readers are considered. All copy, including footnotes, should be double-spaced. Footnotes are to be numbered consecutively in the text and assembled at the end of the article. Particular attention should be given to following the footnote style of the Quarterly. The author should submit an original and retain a carbon for security. The Florida Historical Society and the Editor of the Florida Historical Quarterly accept no responsibility for statements made or opinions held by authors. https://stars.library.ucf.edu/fhq/vol57/iss1/1 4 Society: Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol 57, Number 1 Table of Contents CYRUS TEED AND THE LEE COUNTY ELECTIONS OF 1906 Elliott Mackle 1 BEGINNINGS OF POPULAR GOVERNMENT IN FLORIDA Allen Morris and Amelia Rea Maguire 19 HELEN HUNT WEST: FLORIDA’S PIONEER FOR ERA James R. McGovern 39 NOTES AND DOCUMENTS: “ROGUES AND BLACK HEARTED SCAMPS”: CIVIL WAR LETTERS OF WINSTON AND OCTAVIA STEPHENS, 1862-1863 Ellen E. Hodges and Stephen Kerber 54 FLORIDA HISTORY IN PERIODICALS, 1977 83 BOOK REVIEWS 88 BOOK NOTES 115 120 iii Published by STARS, 1978 5 Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol. 57 [1978], No. 1, Art. 1 BOOK REVIEWS T HE W ORK OF J ACQUES L E M OYNE D E M ORGUES , A H UGUENOT A RTIST IN FRANCE, FLORIDA, AND ENGLAND, edited by Paul Hulton reviewed by Charles E. Bennett THE LIFE OF HENRY LAURENS MITCHELL, FLORIDA’S 16TH GOVERNOR, by George B. Church, Jr. reviewed by Stephen Kerber INTERVENTION IN SPANISH FLORIDAS 1801-1813: A STUDY IN JEFFERSONIAN FOREIGN POLICY, by Wanjohi Waciuma reviewed by Jack D. L. Holmes FORT MELLON, 1837-1842: A MICROCOSM OF THE SECOND SEMINOLE WAR, by Arthur E. Francke, Jr. reviewed by Frank Laumer OLD MOBILE: FORT LOUIS DE LA LOUISIANE, 1702-1711, by Jay Higginbotham reviewed by Robert R. Rea CORRESPONDENCE OF JAMES K. POLK, VOLUME IV, 1837-1838, edited by Herbert Weaver and Wayne Cutler reviewed by J. H. Parks JEFFERSON DAVIS, by Clement Eaton reviewed by Richard M. McMurry MASTERS WITHOUT SLAVES: SOUTHERN PLANTERS IN THE CIVIL WAR AND RE- CONSTRUCTION, by James L. Roark reviewed by Clement Eaton B LACKS AND THE P OPULIST R EVOLT : B ALLOTS AND B IGOTRY IN THE “N EW SOUTH,” by Gerald H. Gaither reviewed by Edward C. Williamson TRAVAIL AND TRIUMPH: BLACK AND CULTURE IN THE SOUTH SINCE THE CIVIL WAR, by Arnold H. Taylor reviewed by Joe Richardson THE BOOKER T. WASHINGTON PAPERS, VOLUME 6: 1901-1902, AND THE BOOKER T. WASHINGTON PAPERS, VOLUME 7: 1903-1904, edited by Louis R. Harlan and Raymond W. Smock reviewed by Thomas D. Clark THE IMMODERATE PAST: THE SOUTHERN WRITER AND HISTORY, by C. Hugh Holman reviewed by Stephen E. Meats IN SEARCH OF THE SILENT SOUTH: SOUTHERN LIBERALS AND THE RACE ISSUE, by Morton Sosna reviewed by Augustus M. Burns III WITNESS IN PHILADELPHIA, by Florence Mars and Lynn Eden reviewed by David Colburn AMERICAN FORTS: ARCHITECTURAL FORM AND FUNCTION, by Willard B. Robinson reviewed by Albert Manucy A HISTORY OF GEORGIA, edited by Kenneth Coleman reviewed by Judson C. Ward, Jr. https://stars.library.ucf.edu/fhq/vol57/iss1/1 6 Society: Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol 57, Number 1 CYRUS TEED AND THE LEE COUNTY ELECTIONS OF 1906 by ELLIOTT MACKLE * R. CYRUS R. TEED seldom used a single word when an ornate phrase would do. By temperament he was an orator. The length of his sermons was cut to nineteenth-century fashion. His lectures on scripture were notable not only for novelty of doctrine and idiosyncrasy of interpretation but for supreme grandilo- quence. Nor did his style differ much in private discourse. Con- versation was to him but the beginning of monologue. Simple questions invariably called up complex answers. Like most orators also, like a speaker in any debate, he never said all that he thought. And what he did not say, the subject which he did not raise, during his first visits to Fort Myers, in early January 1894, is of particular importance to a consideration of his career. He did not speak of local politics. He exchanged compliments with the editor of the paper, he recorded a real estate transaction at the Lee County courthouse, he preached twice on Sunday at the Baptist church. “Those who attended,” said the Fort Myers Press, “were well pleased with the doctor’s remarks, and no one, as far as we have heard, takes any excep- tion to his religious teachings or beliefs.“ 1 Dr. Teed’s reticence was not without purpose. Had he been closely questioned on the matter of politics, and had he been disposed to answer candidly, he would have admitted his inten- tion eventually to rule the county. Less than two months pre- viously, in the pages of his religious magazine, Flaming Sword, he had revealed to his followers a plan to gather together a group of six to ten million blacks and whites, and with them to build a “Wonder City” in a place which, though unnamed, was unmistakably intended to be Lee County. 2 And before the * Mr. Mackle recently received a Ph.D. in American Studies from Emory University. 1. Fort Myers Press, January 11, 18, 1894. 2. “The Destiny of the Black Race,” Chicago Flaming Sword, November 25, 1893, 322; Fort Myers Press, October 26, 1893. [1] Published by STARS, 1978 7 Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol. 57 [1978], No. 1, Art. 1 2 FLORIDA HISTORICAL QUARTERLY year was out, when the provision for black colonists had been dropped, and only a few dozen pioneers had arrived, he re- affirmed his intention to rule. 3 But in January 1894 in Fort Myers, he would have been prudent; he would have denied even the thought of such plans. His sights were set much higher than a courthouse. Newspaper headlines in the 1890s referred to him as the Chicago Messiah. His followers addressed him as Koresh. He did in fact claim to be a messiah, one cast into the world to proclaim a scientific gospel for a modern age. He claimed also to be the prophet Cyrus reincarnate: Koresh, he said, was but the transliteration of that earlier, biblical name. He was founder and leader of the Koreshan Unity, a community of religious and celibate socialists. He numbered his adherents by the thousands, but it is safe to say that by the middle 1890s he held the allegiance of perhaps 200 souls. 4 In 1892 Dr. Teed had proposed a union of the Koreshan Unity with other utopian societies-the Shakers, the Harmonists, and Thomas Lake Harris’s Brotherhood of the New Life. News- papers made much of the idea, warning that Dr. Teed meant to form a celibate trust and charging that his sole interest lay in the assets of the Harmony Society and the United Society of Shakers. The union was never effected. Leaders of the other groups, though willing to accept Teed as a follower or even as an equal, were quite unwilling to unite behind his banner. 5 The warnings and charges were in a sense correct. Dr. Teed did intend to acquire the property of the celibate societies, just as two years later he planned to secure ultimate control of the political machinery of Lee County.