Edward Heberton

Edward Heberton is buried in the Laurel Grove Cemetery in Waldo, Florida. His marker is a rather plain marble stone: "Rev. Edward P. Heberton of Philadelphia, Pa. Born Aug 13, 1830, Died Aug. 22, 1883." Why was it so important to mention that he was from Philadelphia, and how did he end up so far away from home?

From the Necrological Reports and Annual Proceedings of the Alumni Association of Princeton Theological Seminary (Google Books is really a handy research tool), we learn that Edward Payson Heberton was the son of a minister. he attended college in New Jersey, studying the law, before a 12-year career with the U.S. Coastal Survey and U.S. Navy. Heberton was ordained as a minister after the Civil War, in 1868, serving at churches in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Duluth, Minnesota; Columbus, Ohio; and Deerfield, New Jersey. In 1882 he came to Florida as a missionary, became ill, and died in Waldo on August 20, 1883. He was 54 years old, and left behind a wife (Carrie) and five children.

What this biographical sketch doesn't tell us is what he thought of Florida, what it was like for his wife to follow him to a rural frontier. Who chose the tombstone, and why was it so important to mention that he was from Philadelphia?

Laurel Grove Cemetery - William Gadsden Green

William Gadsden Green
Co K
2 Regt
Fla Inf
CSA
1839-1918

This headstone is the type authorized by the federal government in 1930 to be placed on graves of Confederate soldiers, with a pointed top and the Confederate Cross of Honor inscribed above the soldier's name, rank, company, and regiment.

William Green's Confederate pension application (on file at the Florida State Archives) reveals some tidbits about his and his family members' lives. He was born April 7, 1839, in Nassau County, Florida. At the age of 23, on May 16, 1862, he listed in the Confederate Army, serving in Company K, 2nd Regiment, of the Florida Cavalry. Three years and one day later, he was discharged in Baldwin, Duval County, because the war was over. He and his wife Mary raised ten children in Bradford County, Florida. When he grew older, he applied for a pension from the State of Florida, claiming that his service had given him "piles" (hemarrhoids) and rheumatism.

After William's death on December 1, 1918, Mary applied for a Confederate widow's pension; however, she encountered difficulties in proving that she was actually married to William. The Bradford County Courthouse had burned in 1865, destroying the county's records. In her application is a letter from Mary Green, dated February 22, 1919, to the Hon. Ernest Amos, who served as State Comptroller from 1917 until 1933. Included with her letter were five affidavits from people who knew William and Mary Green to be married, along with two pages from the Green family bible recording William's birth and marriage. (Mary Green requested that the bible pages be returned to her, but as the scanned images are online with the rest of the pension application paperwork, this apparently did not happen.)

From these affidavits we also learn about Mary Johns Green, particularly from her cousin M.L. McKinney (their mothers were sisters): "...that the said mother of Mary Johns died while she was an infant and his mother raised Mary Johns, that affiant was five days old at the birth of Mary Johns, that Mary Johns was one of twins and his mother raised all three of them."

The Florida State Archives has scanned approximately 14,000 Confederate pension applications, and made them available online (http://www.floridamemory.com/Collections/PensionFiles/index.cfm). While some files have little information, others - such as that of William G. Green - reveal personal histories that might otherwise be unrecorded.

Florida in Life

Google recently added a way to search old Life magazine photographs: Life photo archives.

Some examples of Florida photographs found this way. . . .

Soldiers at mailcall outside the Breakwater Hotel, Miami Beach, 1942

Dwight D. Eisenhower's arrival in Key West in a lemon-colored Cadillac, December 1955

Upside-down house, 1960

Nixon and the balloon drop, GOP Convention, Miami Beach, 1968

Architect Eliot Noyes and interior decorator Kathryn Smallen on terrace of bubble house at Hobe Sound, Florida, 1954

Historians are rather like pack rats...

"We’ve Got the Biscuit; You Bring the Gravy" from Digital Library Center Blog

Links on the Side

I've added a new sidebar section (on the right hand side, scroll down) with links to research resources. Here you can find digital books, maps, photographs, library catalogs, journals, and other materials that I have found useful. If you have a favorite research link that isn't listed here, please share it! If you know of a blog that would be a good addition to the blogrolls on the sidebars, please share that, too!

The Florida Collection, from the Jacksonville Public Library

The Florida Collection is an online resource made available by the Jacksonville Public Library. It includes biographical sketches, historic photographs, and old postcards, among other things. Browsing through the postcard index, I discovered:

* a 1900s photograph of horses at the starting line at Moncrief Park

* two brave men plucking feathers from an ostrich, and

* a 1940s advertisement for Berney's Restaurant.

The Berney's card proclaims "Dine with the Man in Green from Ripley's 'Believe it or Not'." And sure enough, there's a man in a green suit. A little googling finds a January 18, 1937, letter to the editor, published in Time magazine: "Dressed completely in green day and night, he will give to any woman dressed entirely in green the choice of his menu, gratis. ... The only man in Florida to drive an automobile with a green licenses, he has even painted the 'White Horse' Scotch whisky statue green."

Mayor Anton Cermak's Ill-fated Trip to Miami

Just a few feet away from the war memorial in Miami's Bayfront Park is this marker in a patch of grass.

On February 15, 1933, President-Elect Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke at Bayfront Park in Miami. In the crowd was Guiseppe Zangara, an Italian-born naturalized out-of-work bricklayer with anarchist tendencies. Zangara attended the rally with the intention of killing FDR, but he lost his balance at the crucial moment and ended up shooting Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak and four other people instead. Zangara was quickly arrested, and soon found guilty of assault and attempted murder. When Cermak died March 6, Zangara was found guilty of murder, and sentenced to death. Evidently the legal process was quite different then, as the execution took place March 20 at Raiford.

The University of Miami's Digital Library includes scanned FBI documents relating to the investigation of the assassination attempt. In a February 16, 1933, letter it is revealed that FDR was on Vincent Astor's yacht shortly before giving his speech in Bayfront Park.

Interesting Website -- FSU Heritage Protocol

Florida State University's Heritage Protocol website has links to many interesting articles and images from the school's past. (And that's saying something coming from a UF alumni.) The project's mission statement is "... to locate, identify, record, assist in the preservation of, and promote knowledge about the heritage of Florida State University and its predecessor institutions. Students, faculty, staff, administrators, alumni, and friends have expressed this heritage through published, unpublished, audio, and visual materials, memorabilia and ceremonial objects." Former Seminoles are encouraged to participate in this effort.

Amuse Yourselves

Here are some digital resources and collections to browse through over the weekend:

SI Vault: "54 Years of Sports Illustrated History"

Digital Library of the Caribbean: "The Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC) is a cooperative digital library for resources from and about the Caribbean and circum-Caribbean. dLOC provides access to digitized versions of Caribbean cultural, historical and research materials currently held in archives, libraries, and private collections."

George Eastman House: online photographic collections

Making of America: from Cornell University Library

University of Washington Digital Libraries (believe it or not, they have lots of images related to fishing in Florida, and the Keys. Just use "florida" as a keyword for an initial search.)

New York Public Library Digital Gallery: lots of stereoviews of Florida

Digital Library of Georgia

If you find something interesting, please let the rest of us know what it was!

FLGenWeb

The FLGenWeb project has kindly included a link to My Florida History on their website under "Research Links." Thank you!

Their site is a cornucopia of information and links to other information -- browse on through and maybe you'll find answers to questions that bother you so.

Florida Videos on the Web

Neal Hecker, with Program Services at WPBT/Channel 2 in Miami brought this website to my attention: uVu, described as "uVu is a video sharing website and companion digital broadcast channel powered by WPBT Channel 2, South Florida’s PBS station. The website consists of video content created and submitted to the site by individuals, community groups and cultural/educational institutions, which allows the community to experience, at any time, the important happenings of South Florida."

Here's a few of the videos that caught my attention, but I'm sure you'll find your own favorites.

Roadtrip to Yoder's Restaurant

MiMo Architecture

Palm Beach's Famous Doorways

Florida's Key Deer

Tour of Versailles in Little Havana

Stone Crabs

Miami Bungalows

More Florida Blogs

It's always nice to run across some new (to me, at least) Florida blogs such as these:

Civil War Florida

Digital Library Blog

(and one for my sister...)

Gardening in Central Florida

Florida Environments Online Collection

The Florida Environments Online collection "contains both digital full text materials and reserach bibliographies about the ecology and environment of Florida." It includes links to the Aquatic, Wetland, and Invasive Plant Information Retrival Systeml the Everglades Digital Library; Florida Geological Survey Publications; Florida Agriculture and Rural Life; and the Florida Howard T. Odum Center for Wetlands.