~ A tidbit from our upcoming book, A Pictorial History of Palm City, Florida, by Sandra Thurlow & Jacqui Thurlow-Lippisch
One of early Palm City’s most interesting characters is John S. Danforth. He was a true “man’s man,” kind of like Ernest Hemingway. Danforth was a writer, a hunter, an avid outdoorsman, and really an entrepreneur. Today, there remains a creek, among other landmarks still holding his name.
According to my mother, John Danforth started modestly with a floating cabin that eventually became one of the earliest hunting lodges in the country, “Camp Caribou.” It added to his reputation as a “knowledgeable and charismatic sportsman’s host and guide.” This success led him to leave Maine in 1892 and with his friends bring a “floating hotel” to the shores of the St. Luice River where Palm City would be born.
The floating hotel in Maine as photographed before its journey to the St. Lucie River. Thurlow collection.
Dansforth chose to came to the St. Lucie region for its wildlife, “endless” hunting, and other opportunities lying within an untouched wilderness of slash pine forests, palmetto, river, slough and ponds; a perfect habitat for deer, bears, panthers, turkeys, hogs, raccoons, flying squirrels, birds, small fur-bearing mammals, fish and critters of all kinds!
This 1912 Florida Photographic Concern photo of the pinewoods of Palm City Farms was taken 20 years after John Danforth first came to the area in 1892. West of the St. Lucie River was a remote wilderness full of wildlife.
Danforth made friends with the Seminole Indians especially famous Tom Tiger, leader of the Gopher Clan. They hunted the region of the St. Luice as well as going deeper into the lower Everglades. Danforth wrote about these experiences in widely distributed hunting magazines. He wrote because he loved it and to attract others to this St. Lucie/Palm City paradise and gateway to Lake Okeechobee and the inner Everglades.
Even though as an avid animal lover it breaks my heart, I am going to include Danforth’s article that will be in my mother and my upcoming book because it is important documentation. It is entitled “Two Christmas Hunts.” It is written about Danforth’s hunting experience with the goal to kill a panther as led by Tom Tiger. The article appeared in “Shooting and Fishing” No. 9 on December 14, 1899 and is a testament to those times. A time when South Florida, including Palm city was a wildlife wilderness.
~John Danforth is buried beside his loving wife, Sarah, in Fernhill Cemetery, Highway 76, Stuart, Florida.
~ A tidbit from our upcoming book, A Pictorial History of Palm City, Florida, by Sandra Thurlow & Jacqui Thurlow-Lippisch
~Charles Curtis Chillingworth, 1868-1936, was born in Liverpool, New York and passed away in West Palm Beach, Florida. Pictured below at 45 years old, second from left, front row.
Alligator Smith aside, it is Charles Curtis Chillingworth “distinguished pioneer, citizen, attorney and developer,” who must be recognized as the “father/founder” of Palm City and Palm City Farms. In the early 1900s western Palm City Farms was sold in ten acre plots with a small bonus lot in what was termed Palm City on the St. Lucie. Today I am going to share a bit about Chillingworth the man, and how his development was marketed.
In my reading, I came to especially like Chillingworth because his autobiography notes his appreciation of nature, including the beauty of Florida’s iconic cabbage palm trees.
“As I remember of it, I left Atlanta one evening about the middle of October, 1891, and reached Jacksonville the following morning. Later that day I took a train on the old Jacksonville, Tampa and Key West Railroad, now the Atlantic Coast Line, which runs on the west side of the St. Johns River. I changed cars at Enterprise Junction for Titusville. That evening with the sun in the west just before sunset, I saw the first cabbage palmetto trees I ever saw in my life, and they made a great impression on me….”
So how did he come to develop Palm City Farms?
Chillingworth a young, hard working lawyer, eventually learned about lands west of the St. Luice River and wanted a part of development himself.
As he put it:
“In 1909 a real estate boom sprung up in South Florida, especially in the purchase of sale of large tracts of land.”
After much back and forth, Chillingworth took title to at least 12,000 acres from the Florida Coast Line Canal & Transportation Company. He then opened the Palm Beach Land Company in Stuart in 1911, because at that time what became Martin County lie in Palm Beach County, and Stuart had a small downtown area.
Chillingworth’s land office sold Palm City Farms. Historic Society of Martin County.
Chillingworth explains who helped him market the lands giving insight into those times:
“I took with me Miss Reilly, who had been my stenographer in New York during that summer. She was a most faithful and efficient helper and I made her Assistant Secretary of the new Company…”
Years later after Chillingworth’s death, Miss Reilly, now married as “Patsy Reilly McCord,” wrote a 1964 piece for the Stuart News about how Palm City Farms and Palm City on the St. Lucie were marketed. It is fascinating to read her account. Then, like now, it was not just the natural resources of the land, but of course also the beauty of the St. Lucie River that “sold” newcomers.
“Patsy Reilly McCord” was C.C. Chillingworth’s’ Assistant Secretary – here photographed in a beautiful Palm City Farms’ grapefruit grove, c. 1915. She helped organize trips for prospective buyers to see the beauty of the area to sell Palm City Farms and Palm City on the St. Lucie. Martin Digital History.
Patsy (Reilly) McCord wrote::
“The sale of land progressed, and in order to entertain the prospective purchasers, the Palm City Land Company purchased boats and automobiles and mule teams and large comfortable covered wagons for use in displaying the wonders of the rivers, ocean and plantations. The Palm Beach land Company took care of all prospective buyers by entertaining them and paying all expenses of their visit, while here, consisting of boat trips to the inlet, trips out the North and South Forks as well as wagon trips to different points of interest in the county, winding up with a trip to Palm Beach.
In those days, the waters of the St. Lucie were salty, (the inlet had been opened in 1892 and the St. Lucie Canal was not completed until 1924) and at night the water was so full of phosphorus the millions of fish looked like millions of streaks of lighting darting through the water. It was a wonderful sight in those days to be on the river in the darkness.”
WOW! It must have been beautiful!
The maps below will help you see the location of Palm City Farms and Palm City. I hope you enjoyed today’s “tidbit.”
Google maps with Palm City Farms subdivision overlay. Todd ThurlowMy mother’s color coding of township/range map of Palm City Farms – pink. The Hanson Grant is in blue.Chillingworth offered a lot in Palm City on the St. Lucie to those who bought ten acres further west in Palm City Farms. Note location of St. Lucie River for reference – 1911 plat map.
Today I share yet another remarkable historic article from my mother Sandra Thurlow’s archives. This time from the Miami Herald, 1923. The significance of this article, that I have transcribed and broken down into two parts, is that it tells the story of Palm City, Florida, as part of the “Empire of the Everglades;” this a past of Palm City that most of us don’t know.
Indeed, Palm City was founded partially as Palm City Farms and even had its own drainage district. We have altered the land so we can be productive and live here, and today, and in the future, we try the best we can to put some of the water back on the land to clean it and bring all back to health. Also this article is shared as 2024 is the official 100 year anniversary of the St Lucie Canal.
“Empire of the Everglades,” Miami Herald, 1923, Part 1 as transcribed by JTL
~Transcription begin
“The Great Prairie of Florida”
Palm City Drainage District Lets Contract for Additional Ditches
Will Expend $100,000 Supplementing the Original Drainage Plan; 900 Acres of Citrus Trees Growing In the Reclaimed Area; C.C. Chillilngworth Is the Developer.
By William Stuart Hill
Back of Stuart, in the Palm Beach county, lies Palm City, then Palm City Farms and the Palm City Drainage District, the latter extending almost to the St. Lucie canal and containing 14,300 acres of land and prairie.
Palm City is situate on the shore of the south fork of the St. Lucie river, and its inhabitants have access to the other bank by means of the Palm City bridge, and to Stuart two miles away, by means of a hard surface road. Another road, to the south, connects with the Dixie highway at a considerable distance below Stuart.
The Palm City drainage district was formed recently to supplement the work of drainage begun and achieved by the Palm Beach County Land company, original owner and developer of the Palm City Farms, C.C. Chillingworth, attorney, of West Palm Beach, is owner of the Palm Beach County Farms company and retains about 5000 acres of the original 10,000 acre tract. The remainder has been sold to settlers.
There are 28 citrus groves in Palm City Farms, comprising 900 acres. The largest of these, the grove owned by the Niagara Fruit company, contains 160 acres, and is said to be the largest citrus grove on the east coast of Florida. There are also considerable plantings of avocados and one guava grove in the drainage district, which takes in 6,200 acres not in the Palm Beach Farms.
The land within the drainage district is well adapted to citrus culture and has the double advantage of easy drainage and easier irrigation. The highest elevation in the district is 27 feet above sea level. Artesian water may be had, with flowing wells at a depth of approximately 600 feet.
During the years between 1912 and 1916, the land company spent $102,000 in the digging of drainage ditches and the construction of the roads within its 10,000-acre tract. Three main outlets were provided, one through Danforth creek, another through Bessey’s creek, and a third large ditch, emptying into the south fork of the St Lucie river near the outlet of the big St. Lucie Everglades drainage or control canal.
