CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND TEN: WHERE THE BOYS ARE

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND TEN: WHERE THE BOYS ARE

Do you remember the 1960’s, or have you read about it in your history classes? Yes, this is the 50^th year since the assassination of JFK in Dallas. And it is also more than 50 years since thousands of college kids put Fort Lauderdale on the map by coming here for spring break. In 1960 the movie, “Where the  Boys Are” came out, along with the most popular hit, same name, of the year, sung by Connie Francis, who was in the movie. Also starring in this important piece of Ft. Lauderdale history were Dolores Hart, Yvette Mimieux, George Hamilton, Paula Prentiss, Jim Hutton, Chill Wills and Frank Gorshin. So if you win the Jeopardy Tournament for Seniors with this trivia, let’s split the $100,000. Contrast the history of Rome where it all started with the wolf twins, Romulus and Remus, going back to a prehistoric time of mythical proportions, with the history of Ft. Lauderdale where its current prosperity all started with a B Movie going back a whopping five decades. Rome or Ft. Lauderdale – which would you history buffs rather visit at this time of year? Oh sure, Pope Francis makes the Rome trip more interesting these days, especially if you’re homeless and get invited to have breakfast with him. But are they showing the “Book of Mormon” in Rome? It’s playing in Ft. Lauderdale as I write. That’s the history of God, through the South Park eyes of the Latter Day Saints. Compared to the One who created Earth, Rome doesn’t seem so ancient now, does it?

To be fair, Ft. Lauderdale has a history which predates George Hamilton’s tan. As with the rest of the East Coast of Florida, it goes back to aboriginal people in prehistoric times – the Tequesta lived in the area in south Florida between Ft. Lauderdale and the Keys. I previously wrote about the Timucua people, whose civilization is featured in a Preserve in Jacksonville. The Timucua go back at least to 5000 BC, and the Tequesta can be traced back to 700 BC based on ceramics which have been found in the area. I can’t find a link between the Timucua and the Tequesta yet, but I’ll keep looking. Like the Timucua, the Tequesta did not fare well after the arrival of Europeans, first the Spanish, then the English. First, there was all that disease the Europeans brought with them and transmitted to the Native Americans, killing them off in droves. And if the germs didn’t get them, the missionaries did. The Spanish, like the Mormons, wanted to convert everyone to their religion, Catholicism. They thought they could do this best with the Tequesta by forcing them to move to Cuba for indoctrination in the Catholic faith. This policy was started in 1704. Most of the Tequesta who were uprooted from Florida and carted off to Cuba died in Cuba. The remaining survivors were returned to Florida – not sure if they had been Catholicized or not. Spain ceded Florida to England in 1763, and the Tequestas who had survived the Spanish rule were moved, again, to Cuba.

In the meantime, the Creeks from Georgia, who became known as the Seminoles in Florida, kept migrating south and settled in the Everglades and along the East Coast around Ft. Lauderdale. Just like Spain, the new American government decided it was best to remove the Native Americans from Florida and transplant them -- this time hundreds of miles away from their homes. To achieve that end, the Indian Removal Act was passed in 1830. The Seminoles took serious exception to this racist law. While staying in Ft. Myers last winter, I blogged about the First, Second, and Third Seminole Wars. The Second Seminole War hit the Fort Lauderdale area the hardest. This War lasted from December 23, 1835 to August 14, 1842 and resulted in a government “victory”, namely that they succeeded in moving 3800 Seminoles to “Indian Territory.” (And you thought “Redskins” was bad – which it is.) But before that removal, in the first major battle of the Second Seminole War Native Americans killed more than 100 soldiers under the command of Major Francis L. Dade on December 28, 1835 – this is called the “Dade Massacre”. And there was a second major Seminole assault nine days later on January 6, 1836 on the New River in what is now Fort Lauderdale. This is called the “New River Massacre.” Why is it that when the government wins, it’s a “victory” and when the Seminoles win it’s a “massacre”? Okay – this question answers itself.

In fairness to the Seminoles, here is the background of the so-called New River Massacre: A group of Creek Indians had moved in the early 1800’s from Alabama to join the Seminoles in their settlements near the New River. In 1835, white settlers killed Alibama, a Creek chief, and burned his hut. Why, we don’t know. But no good reason was advanced. The Seminoles and Creeks demanded justice. The Justice of the Peace was William Cooley, one of the first American settlers, who had acquired land on the New River in 1823. In fact, Cooley jailed the settlers who had killed Alibama, BUT they were released after a hearing at the Monroe County Court in Key West, allegedly based on insufficient evidence. The Creek blamed Cooley for the settlers’ release, claiming that he had withheld necessary evidence of their guilt. After their success in the battle with Major Dade’s soldiers, the Seminole and Creek warriors attacked Cooley’s settlement. Cooley and most of the adult men were away trying to salvage a wrecked ship, the Gil Blas. In his absence, the Native Americans entered his house, scalped the tutor and shot Cooley’s wife and infant son as she tried to flee with him. Cooley’s 9 year old son and daughter were also killed. Cooley’s house was torched. It was the only house in the entire settlement that was attacked by the Seminoles and Creeks. Thus, it appears rather clear that this attack was in retaliation for the murder of Chief Alibama and the unjust release of his killers.

Whatever the reason, Cooley was able to convince the government that the settlers needed forts built along the New River. One of the forts erected on the New River in 1838 was named Fort Lauderdale, after Major William Lauderdale, who commanded the soldiers who built the first fort on the river. There were actually three forts built that were named Fort Lauderdale (talk about leaving a legacy) and all of them were built along the New River. None of them was used for very long. They were abandoned in 1842, as the Second Seminole War was ending. The war succeeded in driving out both Native American and white settlers, so that there was very little population in what is now Fort Lauderdale until the 1890’s, when Frank Stranahan arrived to start a ferry business across the New River. The Florida East Coast Railroad (Henry Flagler’s baby) was completed in 1896 in this part of Florida. Both the ferry and the railroad started bringing people and goods into the New River region. One of the first structures built to welcome the new settlers and visitors at the end of the 19^th century was the New River Inn, commissioned by Philemon Nathaniel Bryan and erected by Ed King. It still stands today along the New River, having survived many ferocious hurricanes which destroyed the buildings near it. Philemon Bryan had been enticed away from his position as Mayor of New Smyrna by Henry Flagler to build the portion of the railroad near the New River settlement. Bryan brought his sons, Tom and Reed, and 400 African American workers to the New River in 1894 and completed the railroad in this area two years later, when the first train arrived in town February 22, 1896.

The New River Inn is where you go to start your own personal history tour of Ft. Lauderdale. That’s where I met Vanessa on Thursday, and she gave me a one woman show and tell of the founders of modern day Ft. Lauderdale, which was incorporated as a city in 1911. We left the New River Inn and walked next door to the King/Cromartie House. (It wasn’t always next door. It had been moved from across the river by the Stranahan House -- more later-- to its present position.) Edwin built this house for his wife and kids, even as he was completing the Stranahan Trading Post for Frank Stranahan and the New River Inn for Philemon Bryan. Edwin King had a lot of kids and he and his wife needed a school teacher for them and the other kids in their new settlement. He contacted the Superintendent of Education in Lemon City (now North Miami) to get a school teacher, and 18 year old Ivy Cromartie, the star of her teacher’s college, was recommended to him. In 1899 Ms. Cromartie came to New River and started teaching nine children in a one room school house, also built by Ed King. The class grew in size to 15, but Ms. Cromartie only taught for a year in the school house. In 1900 she was swept off her feet by town father Frank Stranahan, 16 years her senior, married him and then turned her attention to just about every worthy cause on the planet. According to Vanessa, she was a “suffragette” – come on, it’s time to get rid of that diminutive word – use “suffragist”, please. In addition to seeking the vote for women, Ivy Cromartie Stranahan started teaching Seminole children, whose parents came to trade at Stranahan’s trading post. She dedicated her life to trying to improve the lives of the Seminoles, and she and Frank both testified on their behalf before Congress in1917. She founded “Friends of the Seminoles”, a group that helped many Seminole families settle in the “reservation” that is now Dania, Florida, in order to prevent their removal and in an effort to provide them stability with their own land.

The Stranahan/Cromartie union was prosperous and full of good deeds. Despite the age difference, Cromartie exercised considerable influence over Stranahan’s decisions, including his decision not to sell or buy any alcohol or any product containing alcohol, even vanilla extract. Cromartie was a member of the WCTU and she insisted that her husband not sell liquor, or even patent medicine. Stranahan’s businesses flourished even without the sale of alcohol – until 1926, when a horrific hurricane hit the area and thereafter, the land owned by Stranahan and others decreased significantly in value. Stranahan had established a bank, and it folded. He had mortgaged all of his property and so he had huge debts. Another huge hurricane hit the area in 1928, and that was the last straw for Stranahan. On May 22, 1929 Stranahan tied a sewer grate to his waist and jumped into the New River, drowning himself. Ivy Cromartie Stranahan had recognized that her husband needed psychological treatment and had supported his 10 day stay in a hospital shortly before he killed himself. He wrote at the time: “My wife gave me much encouragement but I can’t seem to grasp it.” After he committed suicide, Ivy carried on, rescuing most of the businesses and becoming a statewide leader in the fight in Florida for women’s right to vote. She was a force in Ft. Lauderdale and Florida until her death in 1971.

Now, back to the King/Cromartie house – it was so named because Ivy’s brother, Bloxham Cromartie, moved to the New River settlement and fell in love with Louise King, daughter of Edwin. They married and Edwin King gave them the house he had built for his family. Edwin King died a hero in 1928, when he tried to rescue two children in Lake Okeechobee during a hurricane, and he was hit by flying debris and killed. Meanwhile Louise King Cromartie and her husband had built a second story to the house in 1911 and the King/Cromartie clan kept this house in the family until 1968. Louise, sadly, did not live very long, succumbing to yellow fever in the 1920’s. Naturally, or should I say, supernaturally, her ghost has been seen at the house on so many occasions since her death that the house is officially haunted. According one website on this house, Louise “is an affable, benign spirit, who likes to watch people from the second story window of her bedroom.” I was inside the house and I went upstairs and stood in the bedroom. I did not see any apparition, benign or otherwise. Louise must have taken a “sick day”, or maybe she was watching me as I went back to the New River Inn with Vanessa.

Now you know as much as I do about the first years of Ft. Lauderdale. The hurricanes of 1926 and 1928 pretty much destroyed the economy and drove Ft. Lauderdale’s economy into depression where it stayed throughout the 1930’s. But there’s nothing like a World War to perk up an economy. And so, when World War II started, Ft. Lauderdale capitalized on its location by becoming a major naval base. A Coast Guard base was also established nearby. When World War II ended, the soldiers who had served in the Ft. Lauderdale area returned to live there. The population grew fast. Between 1950 and 1960, the population grew 230% to 83,548. That’s a lot of boys for Connie Francis and her girlfriends. And you know the rest of the story. People kept coming for the climate and the boating culture – “Yachting Capital of the World” is one of the monikers for Ft. Lauderdale. Still, it’s a medium sized city of less than 170,000 in a county (Broward) of 1.7 million in a state of 18.8 million. But no matter how small compared to its Latin neighbor, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale offers the best barbecue on the East Coast at Li’l Red’s on Route 84. And the city docks are kept in pretty good shape, given the limitations, which include noisy, dirty bridges near them, a strong New River current, a group of homeless people trying to get into the locked boaters’ baths and showers, and a homicidal duck that went on a killing spree right next to our boat at Cooley’s Landing. Yes, that’s right. Mama Duck gave birth to 12 of the cutest black and yellow ducklings, but Homicidal Duck had murder on his mind, so he set about picking off any and all ducklings that strayed a bit too far from Mama. By the time we left, Mama Duck was down to 7 ducklings. Don’t think there weren’t lots of people trying to save the ducklings, because there were. We and other like-minded duckling lovers would throw sticks and rocks at Mr. Murder, and that would keep him away for a microsecond. Then when we had to do other things – like eat or sleep – Mr. Murder continued with his cruel population control campaign. The Pope himself could not have stopped this mayhem.

We have come full circle – Rome or Ft. Lauderdale – you decide. Actually, if you have the time and the money, you should visit both.

I would end this chapter at this point, BUT we are now docked at the Marina del Mar in Key Largo, it’s Christmas Eve, and Slow Motion has been spruced up for Christmas Day. We spent the whole morning swabbing down the decks, brushing away the green mold and wiping all the grime off all the surfaces in the flying bridge. We even did the windows AND the isinglass. Slow Motion’s bottom needs a thorough cleaning, but that requires a diver, so we’ve concentrated on beautifying her pearly white decks, floors and tops. The Admiral and I have both sweated off about 5 pounds each; it’s not only hard labor, but the sun is brutal today. Well, not brutal, because we love the sun, but very, very hot, and the sky is cloudless. There is very little wind to dry all the sweat that builds up on my brows and every place else that sweat glands exist. Now THIS would have been the perfect day to cruise on the Ocean – no wind, no waves, no chop. However, we chose to leave Grove Isle Marina yesterday for Key Largo, when the Ocean was still pretty rambunctious. Nothing broke during the 7 hour cruise, and we only ran aground once – for less than two seconds – as we were leaving the Grove Isle Marina. We made it through Angelfish Creek (depth meter blinking on and off) without another grounding experience. The Admiral had charted our course meticulously, and as usual, his preparation paid off. He said we would arrive at the opening to the channel into the Marina del Mar at 1:45 p.m. We arrived at 1:43 p.m., as the last commercial boat was coming out the channel.

It’s wonderful to be back in the land of turquoise water, where you can actually see through the water to the bottom. It’s great to have a meal at Mrs. Mac’s. Their fried clams are the Admiral’s favorite, while the vanilla milkshakes always rejuvenate me after a rollicking ride on the Ocean. I must say that I never dreamed of ever spending the Christmas holidays in Key Largo, but when I hear from my brother that he’s enjoying a walk in 20 degree weather in the Poconos in Pennsylvania, all things considered, Key Largo is a good alternative to freezing your fingers and toes. That’s why, of course, we’re taking off for Tucson, Arizona tomorrow. Seriously, family calls – my sister lives there and my nephew and his wife and children. And isn’t Christmas the one holiday that is all about family? Sure, presents are cool, especially if you’re a kid and Santa is real for you. And the Bowl Games, some of them anyway, can be very entertaining. But when you get right down to it, you remember the Christmas traditions – the tree, the egg nog, the fresh rye bread and German cold cuts, the kiffels – and sharing them with the people you love. Merry Christmas!