Beaches Museum Home History Scavenger Hunt
Need something to keep the kids entertained? Try this Home History Scavenger Hunt to help kids learn what history is to them!
Recovering Manhattan Beach: Florida’s First African American Beach Resort in the Segregated South
Uncovering the history of Manhattan Beach – Florida’s first African American beach resort in the segregated South – has been a labor of love for Beaches Museum Associate Director, Brittany Cohill. Manhattan Beach, located at present-day Hanna Park, was founded by Henry Flagler around 1900 as a place for black employees of his Florida East Coast companies to spend their leisure time, including those building his Continental Hotel. In keeping with national, regional, and local Jim Crow laws the Beaches area was segregated. Until the late 1930s, Manhattan Beach was the only beach in the Jacksonville-area open to African Americans. However, with no visual evidence of the site remaining today and little archival material, uncovering this history relies heavily on the contributions of members of the community with direct ties to its past.
Dr. Yvonne Hicks shares family history and photos with the Beaches Museum
Cohill’s research began as she was pursuing her master’s degree in history at the University of North Florida. She transformed her student project into a public presentation which she debuted as part of the Museum’s Boardwalk Talk series in August 2017. Since then, Cohill has continued her research under the auspices of the Museum and her presentation has evolved in step.
Over the course of two and a half years, she has delivered her presentation nearly a dozen times. Each time, someone from the community comes forward with another piece of the puzzle.
Most recently, Cohill had the pleasure of sitting down with Kenneth LeSesne and Dr. Yvonne Hicks. Mr. LeSesne’s grandfather, Mack Wilson, was a prominent business owner in Manhattan Beach. Dr. Hicks’ great-grandmother was Mack Wilson’s sister.
They chronicled their family’s story including the journey out of plantation slavery in the Florida panhandle to becoming property and business owners in Jacksonville and Manhattan Beach.
Their oral histories – now recorded and housed in the Beaches Museum archive – are truly invaluable. Just as invaluable are the photographs Dr. Hicks provided of her family spending time at Manhattan Beach in the 1930s – all of which can be viewed in the Museum’s newest pop-up exhibit.
The exhibit, “Recovering Manhattan Beach: Florida’s First African American Beach Resort in the Segregated South,” will be on display at the Rhoda L. Martin Cultural Heritage Center in June 2019. In conjunction with the exhibit installation, Cohill will deliver the newest iteration of her presentation on June 4, 2019, which is now available on YouTube here.
Reproductions of “The Green Book” accompany the traveling exhibit.
James Michener and the McCormicks
Michener and the McCormicks
By Johnny Woodhouse
Best-selling author James Michener paid an impromptu visit to the Ponte Vedra Beach home of Jean and J.T. McCormick on February 13, 1981.
At the time, Michener, then 74 and considered “America’s best loved author” was working on a fictional novel about the history of the U.S. space program. “Space,” published in 1982, would become one of Michener’s most popular books, prompting “a first printing so large that no warehouse in the country could stock all the copies,” according to a biography of the author.
How the McCormicks, a wealthy couple known for their civic involvement at the Beaches, got to know the famous writer from Doylestown, PA, is an interesting nugget of local history.
According to a daughter of the couple, Suzanne McCormick Taylor of Ponte Vedra Beach, the McCormicks first made Michener’s acquaintance in the summer of 1980 at a famous Wyoming resort. “They met him at a party at the Old Baldy Club [in Saratoga, WY],” Taylor recalled. “Mr. Michener was quite taken with my mother and her interest in history.”
The founder of the Beaches Area Historical Society (BAHS) in 1978, Jean McCormick first became interested in local history during America’s Bicentennial celebration in 1976. Her late husband, J.T., was a direct lineal descendant of the Solanas, the oldest documented family of St. Augustine.
It’s no surprise that Jean McCormick, then president of the BAHS, and Michener, known for writing sweeping, historical-based novels such as “Hawaii” and “Centennial,” became quick friends.
A meticulous researcher, Michener had a great fondness for historians and archivists. In the introduction to “Centennial,” a 1974 novel about the settlement of the American West, Michener thanked the history department at the Wyoming State Archives for allowing him to do a portion of his research there.
The book’s fictional town is situated on the Platte River, which runs across Colorado and into Wyoming. J.T. McCormick’s family had been involved in cattle ranching in Wyoming’s North Platte River Valley since the 1950s, according to Suzanne McCormick Taylor.
“Mother told [Michener] to come to Jacksonville [whenever he was in the area] and he did. He called from the airport and said, ‘We’re here,’ and mother invited him to a dinner party that night.”
Michener had already begun the first draft of “Space” in early 1981, according to “Michener: A Writer’s Journey.” He had been appointed to NASA’s Advisory Board in 1979. A likely topic of conversation at the McCormicks home on Feb. 13, 1981, would have been J.T.’s long business association with NASA.
For 12 consecutive years dating to the early 1960s, McCormick Construction was involved in several projects at the Cape, including construction of the launch pads. The construction firm also built the so-called “Road to the Moon,” which was used to transport the first Apollo rockets and later the Space Shuttles to the launch site.
At the time of his visit to Ponte Vedra Beach, Michener was married to his third wife, Mari Sabusawa, whom he wed in 1955. In a black-and-white photo taken during his visit, Michener is pictured dining with the McCormicks and another guest, Nancy Corwin. Michener, seated to the right of J.T. McCormick, is wearing a coat and tie and a thick pair of bifocals. Jean McCormick, always the gracious hostess, is standing behind both men and smiling at the camera. The author, who died in 1997 at age 90, signed the photo, “James A. Michener.”
In his 1992 memoir, “The World is My Home,” Michener wrote that “Wherever I went in these exciting years of extended travel, I studied people, listened to their stories, and weighed the honesty of their statements.”
When the McCormicks befriended Michener in Wyoming, they became friends of his for life. Said the couple’s daughter: “My parents maintained a friendship [with Michener] over a period of many years.”
The Lindbergh Baby Memorial
The Lindbergh Baby MemorialBy Fall 2018 Beaches Museum intern, Alex Morales
During the “Saturday in the Park” event on April 28, 1984, the Beaches Area Historical Society proudly unveiled and dedicated their newest acquisition: the 1932 Lindbergh Baby Memorial. The jagged, off-white, stone carving makes it one of the more unique historical objects that the Beaches Museum possesses. Towering at 10 feet high, the stone memorial depicts a cradled child above which an eagle is poised in flight.
The dedication of the memorial represented another step in growth for the Society, however; the memorial itself represented a time of mourning. The kidnapping and death of Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr.–the infant son of the famous 1920s Pilot Charles Lindbergh and wife, Ann Lindbergh–sent shockwaves across the nation and even into Jacksonville Beach. Not long after the news broke of the discovery of the child’s lifeless body on May 12, 1932, Jacksonville Beach resident Mrs. Carl B. McClenny sought a means of commemorating the tragedy. Mrs. McClenny, president of the Plant-A-Rose Society (the forerunner of the Garden Club) collaborated with the president of Jacksonville Beach Chamber of Commerce, Col. J.C. Stehlin. She initially suggested that “a mound of shells be gathered by the school children as a tribute.” The commemorative statue itself was later unveiled on September 17, 1932 on the grounds of Jacksonville Beach Elementary School #50 at the corner of Second Street and Second Avenue, across from the then St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, where Pablo Towers sits today. With the help of Mrs. Frank Brennan, president of the Beaches Civic League, later the Beaches Woman’s Club, and Mrs. H. E. Thurman, president of the PTA they organized a ceremonious unveiling where they allowed children of the Beaches Area to bring sea shells and other items they treasured to lay at the base of the monument.
In 1971, the memorial was nearly destroyed when the school was demolished. There is still question as to where the memorial was relocated to and who possessed it before the Society acquired it in 1983. There are several stories that account for the 12 year gap in the memorial’s whereabouts. One story tells of how Mr. Charles Newberry Moore Jr. of B. B. McCormick & Sons Co. saved the memorial from a wrecking ball when they were tearing down the old Jacksonville Beach Elementary school. A second account details how the memorial sat in a small park on Penman Road where the old Women’s Club met. The third story was that the city called the Society about a“mysterious” sculpture with a 1932 plaque set to be destroyed. The final rumor specifies it sat in a city storage area called the “Graveyard.” Where ever the memorial sat in limbo, Mr. J.T. McCormick some how got word of the memorial. After acquiring it, the Society allowed it to become a Boy Scout’s restoration project and relocated it to the Pablo Historical Park in late 1983 so they could ceremoniously rededicate the memorial in 1984.
The statue reads: “A memorial to children-unveiled September 17, 1932. Plant-A-Rose Association, Mrs. Carr B. McClenny, Mother; P.T.A., Mrs. H.E. Thurmond, President; CivicLeague, Mrs. F. D. Brennan, President; Chamber of Commerce, Col. Joseph C. Stehlin, President.”
The St. Johns River Ferry
The St. Johns River Ferry
This article is an excerpt from the 2016 exhibit, Mayport Village: On the River of Change.
Locals and visitors have been crossing the St. Johns River between Fort George Island and Mayport Village for centuries. In the 1600s, Spanish missionaries relied upon those they wished to convert, the Timucua Indians, to provide transport via dugout canoe. In the post-Civil War years, residents, travelers, tradesmen and farmers often crossed the river by way of privately-owned flatboat ferries.
The post-World War II boom in automobile tourism and federally-mandated highway extensions led to a dramatic increase in traffic to Northeast Florida. State and local officials recognized that an uninterrupted coastal highway would not only bolster the economies of seaside communities from Fernandina Beach to St. Augustine but also ease traffic on inland roadways. More than seventeen miles of new highway and a formal ferry service connecting Fort George Island to Mayport Village was required to realize this goal.
On September 15, 1950, the St. Johns River Ferry Service opened to the public. The ferry slips were built 2.5 miles inland from the mouth of the St. Johns River. Inaugural ships, the Reliance and the Monadnock, carried passengers and cars along the 0.9 mile water route connecting North and South State Road A1A.
Billed as “the gateway to A1A,” this newly-created stretch of highway enabled motorists to bypass Jacksonville via the St. Johns River Ferry Service. A marketing campaign invited tourists to travel the “Buccaneer Trail” and “ride through history on Florida A1A.” Suggested stops along the Buccaneer Trail included Fort Clinch, Kingsley Plantation, and Mayport Village for its French Huguenot history and “unsurpassed” seafood supported by the local shrimping fleet.
Locals have fought the closure of the St. Johns River Ferry Service in recent years in the face of state and city budget cuts. In 2016, community advocates and officials successfully secured funding for guaranteed operations for the next two decades. The ferryboat, Jean Ribault–built in 1996–currently supports the St.Johns River Ferry Service with a carrying capacity of 40 cars and 206 passengers. Boasting membership to the East Coast Greenway, the Ferry is now a vital link in a 3,000 mile-long trail system stretching from Maine to South Florida.
Residents gather for the official opening of the St. Johns River Ferry Service. September 16, 1950.
“Mayport Topographical Map, 1964 excerpt”–Excerpt from a 1964 topographical map of the area. The ferry path is traced out on the left.
Early Mayport Village residents, Ethel Spaulding Tuttle (left) and Beatrice Sallas Tuttle (far right), waiting for a ferry. Circa 1900.
Aerial view of the proposed St. Johns River Ferry Service route from July 1950.
Boardwalk Talks Available on YouTube
The Beaches Museum invites the public to view recordings of its Boardwalk Talks on YouTube to keep everyone educated and entertained while the Museum is closed. Made possible by Fleet Landing, the Boardwalk Talks are an important part of the Museum’s annual calendar. They feature a variety of speakers and subject areas relevant to the Beaches communities.
Recent Talks featured Dr. Denise Bossy presenting “Indigenous Florida: Debunking Myths of Spanish Conquest in our Region” and Dr. Tru Leverette lecturing on “Zora Neale Hurston and the Pleasure of Her Company.”
Boardwalk Talks highlight area historical researchers and occasionally a panel of “Storytellers” remembering a specific place or time in Beaches history. Boardwalk Talks are generally held in the historic Beaches Museum Chapel but occassionally are held offsite at a historic location such as the Red Cross Life Saving Station or even Pete’s Bar in Neptune Beach.
Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel, Beaches Museum.
Boardwalk Talks available:
- “Zora Neale Hurston and the Pleasure of Her Company” by Dr. Tru Leverette
- “Sinking of the SS Gulfamerica” by Scott Grant
- “Revolutionary Rogues” by David Head
- “Mineral City: Minerals, Mines, Miners & Railroads” by Bob Lowry
- “The Beginning of Ponte Vedra Inn & Club” by Fred Cozby
- “The Bull Memorial” by Johnny Woodhouse
- “Florida Friendly Gardening” by Terry Delvalle and Evie Pankok
- “The History of Golf in Floriday” by Billy Dettlaff
- “The History of the Life Saving Corps” by Captain Rob Emahiser
- “Jacksonville’s Contribution to Florida Archaelogy” by Dr. Keith Ashley
- “Florida’s Female Pioneers” by Dr. Peggy Macdonald
- “William Morgan: Evolution of an Architect” by Richard Shieldhouse
- Cummer Beaches Lecture Series: “Parable of the Marriage Feast” by Scott Brown
- “Jacksonville on Wheels” by Dorothy Fletcher
- “History Happy Hour at Pete’s Bar” by John Whittingslow, Daniel McDaniel and Tom Whittingslow
- “The Allman Brothers Band and American Music” Part One by Bob Beatty
- “The Allman Brothers Band and American Music” Part Two by Bob Beatty
- “The Allman Brothers Band and American Music” Part Three by Bob Beatty
- “Leaving 1203: Emptying a Home, Filling the Heart” by Marietta McCarty
- “State, Local & National Campaigns: The Civil Rights Movement in Florida” by Dr. Michael Butler
- “How Railroads Transformed America…and the Beaches!” by Neil McGuinness
- “Summer of ’64” by Scott Grant
- “Jacksonville: Rail Gateway to Florida” by Tom Schmidt
- “Manhattan Beach: More than a Lost Landmark” Part One by Brittany Cohill
- “Manhattan Beach: More than a Lost Landmark” Part Two by Brittany Cohill
- “Manhattan Beach: More than a Lost Landmark” Part Three by Brittany Cohill
- “Manhattan Beach: More than a Lost Landmark” Part Four by Brittany Cohill
- “Florida’s Fleet: A Boatbuilding and Fishing Legacy from the First Coast” by Brendan Burke
Capturing Tomorrow’s History!
Dear Friends:
The mission of the Beaches Museum is to “preserve and share the distinct history and culture of the Beaches area.” Although the Museum is currently closed, the work of that mission is even more important than ever. We are living tomorrow’s history right now!
To that end, we encourage members of the Beaches community to help us gather information, photos, physical items and first-hand accounts of how you, your family, your business and your community are being impacted. Anything from photos of closed businesses to stories of neighbors helping neighbors will help us compile a thorough accounting of how the Beaches weathered this crisis.
Submissions to our historic record can be sent to archives@beachesmuseum.org.
In addition to working to preserve history as it is made, we are also making more programming available online. Over fifty videos including our Boardwalk Talk Series are now available on our YouTube Channel. We are posting articles, historic photos and more on Facebook and Instagram. We invite and encourage you to take some time to learn a little bit more about the history of our beloved community! Visit beachesmuseum.org to find out more.
Thank you for your support and we look forward to hearing from you as we continue to move our mission forward!
Chris Hoffman
Executive Director
Measuring Morals?
By Karen Lamoree, Archives and Collections Manager
One of these young ladies was a lawbreaker! Under the 1920 Pablo Beach Purity Ordinances, the young lady on the left could have been arrested for indecency. Those ordinances were hardly the first attempt, however, to regulate women’s beachside attire.
In 1907, the newly formed Pablo Beach town council voted to limit wearing bathing suits to the beach only and to prohibit “indecent” bathing suits. The ban was no doubt due to the introduction in Boston that year of one piece wool suits by Australian swimmer Annette Kellerman, for which she was arrested. Bathing suits were changing to swimming suits, as activities more athletic than standing and splashing in water for women were increasing in popularity. The heavy skirted suits were impractical and dangerous for actual swimming.
Nonetheless, beachside communities in the United States, England, and France kept trying to hold back the tide on “indecent” women’s bathing suits by enacting laws for nearly the next twenty years. Local historian Nelle Wales Pritchard would recall a 1917 effort in Pablo Beach, where local laws were passed governing “the outfits of women bathers. No bare legged women – no sir! Each MUST wear stockings, and might be rented, or purchased at the local Ten Cent Store for a dime. We could hold forth on those bathing suits for women, for pages – made mostly of bombazine…trimmed with ruffles which bore rows and rows of soutache braid on their edges. ..And yet, in spite of those old suits we fell in love and got married.”
Just three years later, Pritchard’s sister, Clare Wales Belt, would lead a local group of women to form a Mothers’ Club to “Improve the morals of the beach and the conduct of the visitors, who are prone to think they can do anything at the beach and get away with it. “ Their ire was directed at women’s bathing suits and scandalous Jazz Age dances, such as the Shimmy, seen at Mrs. Phinney’s Dance Pavilion. With no fuss, the Mothers’ Club convinced the town council to enact Purity Ordinances. The Shimmy and “cheek” dances were banned. Both women and men’s bathing suits were to have skirts – although the male lifeguards were exempt. Women’s skirts had to fall to within two inches of the knee.
How would these Purity Ordinances be enforced? Again, like many beach communities in the country, Pablo Beach would hire its first policewoman to do the measuring of skirts and morals. Local real estate agent and telephone operator Anna Hawkes was hired to police the beach with a measuring tape.
Were women cited for indecent bathing suits on the beach? Did couples stop doing the Shimmy? To learn the answers to these questions, make sure to visit our upcoming women’s history exhibit!
Update from the Beaches Museum
Dear Friends:
The board and staff of the Museum have been monitoring the evolving situation with regards to coronavirus. In an effort to ensure the health and safety of our volunteers, staff and guests, we will be closing the Museum to the public beginning on Tuesday, March 17. We plan to re-open the Museum on March 31.
Additionally, we are postponing the following events:
March 16: Mama Blue concert
March 18: Ritz Chamber Players concert
March 27: “Our Land–Indigenous Northeast Florida” exhibit opening.
We will work to reschedule them as soon as we possibly can. We will send updates on any future cancellations, closures, etc. as we have them.
Thank you for your support and understanding.
Sincerely:
Chris Hoffman
Executive Director
Flying Close Quarters Is The Mark Of The Blues
Jean H. McCormick visits with the Blue Angels pilots
Johnny Woodhouse interviewed Roy Voris, the founder of the Blue Angels, prior to the 2003 Sea & Sky Spectacular at Jacksonville Beach. Voris died in 2005.
by Johnny Woodhouse
The Blue Angels, the Navy’s premier flight demonstration squadron, practiced in a cloud of secrecy prior to its first public performance at NAS Jacksonville in 1946. Shunning populated areas such as the Beaches, the unit, then made up of four planes, flew over densely wooded areas west of Jacksonville, performing their “V” and “Echelon” formations in carrier-based Hellcat fighters made famous in World War II.
“The first instruction I got when I formed the Blues was to stay out of public view,” recalled retired Navy captain Roy Voris, the unit’s founder. “It was better to stay out of sight if we had a bad accident. We were a separate unit, not yet a command.”
Voris, who shot down eight enemy planes in WWII and was awarded three Distinguished Flying Crosses, said the Blue Angels were formed primarily to renew interest in carrier aviation in post-war America. “It was done to get the Navy visible again,” he added.
“They said there was only one candidate to lead the unit, and I was it. I selected the Hellcat because it was an honest machine and very stable. My concept of the show was to get it on, get it up and get it down in 15 minutes.”
Early Blues
Voris, who died in 2005 at the age of 85, had a hand in nearly everything about the fledgling Jacksonville-based squadron, from picking the pilots and ground crew to devising the dangerous flying sequences. Tall for an aviator, Voris had flown combat missions off two different carriers during WWII, serving as flight operations officer on one of the Navy’s most decorated carrier squadrons, “The Fighting 32nd.”
“Almost everybody was an ace,” he recounted. “It was either be an ace, or be killed. We stair-stepped through the Pacific flying day fighters equipped with .50-caliber machine guns. We saw a lot of action.”
After the war, he was assigned to teach fighter tactics at NAS Daytona Beach. In early 1946, he was reassigned to NAS Jacksonville as chief flight instructor and tapped to lead the Navy’s new “flight exhibition team.” Voris choose pilots he knew and trusted, including his former squadron mate on the USS Enterprise, Lt. Maurice “Wick” Wickendoll.
In 1946, a contest was held to name the unit. Among the suggestions: “Blue Bachelors” and “Blue Lancers.” Then Wickendoll showed Voris an advertisement for a nightclub in New York called the “Blue Angel,” the pair knew they had found their handle.
Fly Navy
Voris commanded the Blue Angels from 1946 to 1947 and through their transition into the faster Grumman Bearcat. He was tapped to lead the Blues again in 1951, after the unit was disbanded for a short time during the Korean War. As officer in charge, he demanded that all his pilots be bachelors. But during his second stint with the Blues, Voris broke his own cardinal rule – he got married when he was home on leave in Santa Cruz, Calif.
After retiring from the Navy in 1963, Voris became a consultant for Grumman Corp. and later worked in NASA’s Office of Industry Affairs. An air terminal at NAS Jacksonville is named in his honor. While today’s Blue Angels pilot supersonic jets, they still fly in tight formations, as close as a foot apart.
“My ability and confidence to fly in tight formations came from my war experiences,” said Voris, who started the Blue Angels when he was 27 years old. “Flying close quarters is the mark of the Blues.”
