CHAPTER SIXTY THREE: IT'S THE KEYS

CHAPTER SIXTY THREE: IT'S THE KEYS

Yesterday and today I set out to learn some history about “the Keys”. What I now know from the Crane Point Museum and Nature Center in Marathon is that Native Americans lived in the Middle Keys – Marathon and Key Vaca – since at least 2000 B.C. They were hunters, gatherers and fishers. And they loved their sea cows, or manatees. There were plenty of them, so they were fair game back then. Today, you can’t even pour fresh water off a dock to slake their thirst – it’s verboten. I don’t think you are even supposed to look at them too long, lest they attach to a human being and become less wild. “Cow” in Spanish is”vaca”, ergo “Vaca Key”. “Key” is taken from the Spanish for “cayo” or islet.

The Keys Native Americans, identified as the Tequesta and the Calusa tribes, traveled all over the South Florida coast and islands fishing and hunting. The Calusa lived on the lower Gulf Coast. The Tequesta lived on the lower east coast starting around Biscayne Bay. The first Europeans to disturb their culture were the Spanish, perhaps Ponce de Leon, in the 16^th century. He sailed by the Keys in 1513 and named them Los Martires – The Martyrs – no one knows why. Even though Spain claimed dominion over Florida for 250 years, it did not try to colonize most of the area, because Florida was not rich in gold, silver or all the other riches that Spain was hauling out of Central and South America. Their ships had to sail past the Keys, and when they wrecked with their cargoes of gold and silver, the Keys Native Americans got involved in the “wrecking” trade, salvaging what they could find from the wrecks to help survive.

In 1575 Hernando d’Escalante wrote of the Keys Indians the following: “Indians are on these islands, who are of a large size…these Indians have no gold, less silver; and less clothing…the common food is fish, turtle and snails. The Indians of Florida are great anglers, and at no time lack fresh fish.” At age 13 D’Escalante had been aboard a Spanish ship that wrecked, and he was “captured” (rescued?) by a Native American group, which whom he lived until age 30. Fortunately, he did not give his foster family any decimating European diseases. And the Keys Native Americans continued to live rather peacefully for another century or more. However, they were not immune to the diseases brought to their country from other Spanish visitors, and many of the Keys Indians died of those diseases in the 1700’s. Add to that the migration south of the Creek/Seminole tribes who were being pushed out of Central Florida, and who in turn pushed the Tequestas and Calusas further down into the Keys and ultimately, to Cuba. A report from 1775 reads in part: “Cayo Hueso (Key West) and Cayo Vaca (Key Vaca) were the last refuges of the Culoosa nation; but even here the water did not protect them against the inroads from the Creeks and in 1763 the remnant of this people, consisting of about 80 families, left this last possession of their native land and went to Havannah.”

In the early 1800’s, even before the United States took possession of Florida, fishers from New England traveled to the Keys and built settlements, while they fished the waters around the Keys during the winter. Fishers from Mystic, Connecticut established a settlement on Key Vaca in 1818, but then moved further down to Key West, because it had a better harbor. The next group to migrate to the Keys were Bahamians, who had made a lucrative business from salvaging wrecks in the Keys. But when they were prohibited from doing any salvage work in the Keys in the 1830’s, many of them simply moved to the Keys, took up residency and continued to do their salvage work as residents of Florida. Their 1840 settlement was called Conch Town. They were driven away that same year by Indian raids, according to the history posters at the Crane Point Museum, and they headed to Key West.

How did the people of the Keys fare during the Civil War, you may ask? From the beginning of the Civil War until the end, the Union troops were in control of Key West. The United States had started to build Fort Zachary Taylor in Key West in 1845. It was not completed by the start of the Civil War, in part because the thick brickwork that the builders thought would prevent penetration had turned out not to be strong enough against the newest weapons that were being developed. We visited Ft. Taylor today, and I can report that the brickwork is beautiful. It’s still there, and there’s not a cannonball dent in any of the 5 foot thick walls. Ft. Taylor is primarily a museum of art and history, although you can also get one of the most splendid ocean views by climbing to the top of the adjoining citadel. The view is not what Captain John Brannan was interested in on December 11, 1861, when he and his 44 Union soldiers secretly marched through the streets of Key West at night to get to the fort and take control for the Union. There were no Confederate troops whatsoever in Key West, but a lot of the Key West residents were Confederate sympathizers and had relatives in the rebel army. The sympathizers concerned the Union Army to the point that on February 17, 1963, Captain Joseph Morgan issued General Order No 10 which ordered the families “(white)” in Key West who had sons, brothers or husbands in “Rebel employment” to get on board the first available boat to be taken to Hilton Head, South Carolina, so they could be “placed behind rebel lines.” What a treat! The Order actually put “white” in parentheses, like any Black families were going to go behind rebel lines?

In the 1890’s and early 1900’s Bahamians settled again in the Marathon/Key Vaca area, and the home built by George Adderley around 1890 still stands on the Crane Point acreage, known as the Crane Point Hammock. I saw that home yesterday, as I took a mile and a half walk around Crane Point. The walls still stand. They were made of “tabby”, that mix of rocks, shells, mud and sand which has held together for more than a century. Adderley was a farmer and a fisher, and he also sold sponges and charcoal to buy the things he did not produce himself. He made the charcoal from burning buttonwood that he had collected and burned in huge smoldering piles 24/7.

What really opened up Marathon and Key West to a whole horde of tourists, who still cram themselves on to Route One every weekend to head to the Keys was the Overseas Railroad, first known as “Flagler’s Folly.” Henry Flagler had founded Standard Oil with a guy named J.D. Rockefeller. He had made his millions in the oil business, but he also liked to build railroads. He had already built a railroad down the east coast of Florida from Jacksonville to Miami and, of course, he also built Flagler hotels alongside those railroad tracks. At the age of 75, in 1904, he was far from done with his railroad empire. He decided to build a railroad from Miami to Key West. He thought the railroad would stimulate trade between the U.S., Cuba and the other Caribbean nations. It took 8 years to complete this 156 mile railroad. In fact, one of the workers, who was being pushed very hard to complete the railroad, exclaimed: “Building this railroad has become a regular marathon!” You guessed it – that’s where the name, Marathon, came from. Building the railroad was extremely hard – and dangerous – work. Over 200 workers died during the eight years of railway construction. But on January 22, 1912, Flagler himself rode the first train into Key West. Yep, he was 84, and he died a year after that. But his railway workers died at much younger ages, as they suffered from lack of fresh water, insects, disease, and three horrendous hurricanes during the building of the railroad to Key West.

The railroad itself did not have a very long life. A hurricane with nearly 200 mile an hour winds came directly at the Keys in 1935, killing more than 500 people in its path and putting an end to the Overseas Railroad as well.  

According to the historical sketches at the Crane Point Museum and the Fort Zachary Museum, not much happened in the Keys until World War II. But these little islands went “Boom” during the war – the overseas highway was rebuilt, electricity came to the Keys, a water pipeline came all the way down, and they built an airport. If you do all of that, what do you get? A population “Boom” too. And it’s been booming ever since. Yes, some parts of the Keys look pretty rundown. Even some formerly cute little cottages on side streets in Key West are boarded up. But check out Duval Street – teeming with touristas. That’s why it’s such a treat to visit the museums in Marathon and Key West. Sure, a few other people visit them too, but that’s not where the tourist action is. It’s not by the bird hospital at Crane Point, where lots of pelicans, a kestrel and other exotics are getting well enough to rejoin the wild. It’s not on the second floor of the citadel at Fort Taylor, where the welding wonders of an underappreciated artist name Stanley Papio are on display. Funny story – the Admiral recognized the artwork as reminiscent of the Key Largo artist, who had been arrested many times for filling his yard with his art work. His house and yard were very close to the house of Jimbo, the lobster boat captain for whom the Admiral worked in the 70’s and 80’s. To the municipal leaders of Key Largo, Papio’s art looked like “junk” and he was arrested for not cleaning it up. So he declared his house a museum, and they couldn’t arrest him anymore. In addition, his work is really good, so now the Key West Museum has grabbed up a lot of it and they’re getting a federal art grant to maintain it. Too bad Mr. Papio died in 1982, but he was already getting some acclaim before his death. Check out some of his pieces on the internet, if you can find them.

Note to Royal: Have you thought about declaring your yard a museum?

The other part of Crane Point is the natural part, the birds, butterflies, reptiles and tree hammocks. Crane Point has one of the few remaining palm hammocks, which is a “low hammock”. I haven’t looked up the origin of this word “hammock” for a grove of trees, but it appears that every hammock I have visited has trees whose branches bow into arcs and form a curved branch ceiling above you. The Keys also have some “high hammocks”, which are not common anywhere else, and they include mahogany, wild tamerind, willow bustic, pigeon plum and white stopper. I would not recognize any of these trees if I bumped into them. And yesterday apparently I walked under them for about a mile.

The 63 acres that comprise the Crane Point Nature Center were bought by the Florida Keys Land and Sea Trust in 1989, in their words “saving this …ecological and cultural treasure from being developed into private homes and shopping malls.” Hear! Hear! As we drive up and down Route 1 in Marathon, we see the ravages of no zoning laws. It’s heartening to know that there are conservationists here who have been working to protect some of the jewels of the Keys. Just keep Governor Scott and his business cronies away from here – the water in the ocean and the bay still looks pretty clear. I’m sure they could figure out a way to muck it up. It still amazes me that when you live in an area that is endowed with exquisite natural resources, you don’t set as your number one priority the preservation of those natural resources.

“It’s the Keys”. That’s the statement that is made at least five times a day to explain why things aren’t running efficiently, why everyone is late for appointments, why people don’t follow through on what they say they will do, why people are here one day and disappear for the next three, why people in their fifties are working 20 hour a week dock jobs and not making ends meet, why everyone says “no worries” and really means it, why one day starts blending into the next and repairs don’t get done and nothing moves forward. You get it, “it’s the Keys”. Well, I just hope there are still enough people in the Keys, no matter how laid back they appear to be, who actually love this place and want to preserve the beauty that remains. Because the Keys are nothing without their natural beauty. You can keep your Stevie Nicks tribute bands and your tiki bars and your sandals and t-shirt stores – just make sure the pelicans, egrets, herons and eagles can continue to thrive here – under the hammocks. That’s the Keys, Baby. That’s the Keys.