The Early Years of The Ponce de Leon: Clippings from an Old Scrap Book of those days. Graham, Thomas. By 1852, Henry had saved enough money to become the one-third-owner of the Harkness & Company alongside his half-brother Dan and Dan's uncle Lamon. . Discover the story of the Supreme Courts first female justice. In the case of Henry Flagler's life, it seems his personal troubles compounded in the 1890s. Sometimes the buyers did not have enough money to pay for the land, only just enough to pay the binder. Harkness and Company's grain store to its sales staff, increasing his salary from five dollars a month to $400. As we know, Flagler's business activity in Florida had earned him the attention of the public as well as state officials. However, the boom did not last. The prescribed remedy for Flagler's despondence was, fittingly, a vacation in Florida. This is during the hour of the funeral. 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With $50,000 capital, Flagler made an unsuccessful attempt to manufacture salt in Michigan. He had a main role in establishing a standard oil company. Flagler owned preciously little K ey West land was to add an attached 174 acres known as Trumbo Island. She lived the rest of her life in New York, under strict supervision by her guardians (who were chosen by Flagler, of course). In March or April of 1915, Alligator Joe filled a number of train cars with live alligators, manatees, and game fish of the sea for the Panama Exposition and headed for San Francisco. By the time the Florida East Coast Railway reached Key West, Flagler was 82 years old. It is difficult to believe that a man who island hopped upon an iron horse died of anything but his own accord. The smart set, once again, felt comfortable calling an old man's dream "Flagler's Folly.'' . 1-17. Information from historian James A. Ponce, of West Palm Beach as he recounted what his father R.A. Ponce told him about Flagler's funeral. They lost the land as well as the binder money they had paid. As the 1870s progressed, Henry Flagler, John D. Rockefeller, and their families began to move from Cleveland to New York and back again about twice a year such were the demands of their beloved business. He built mansions for himself and his wives, laid out towns, constructed railroads that connected cities and changed the state, and built some of "the world's most beautiful" hotels. Her great-nephew Lawrence Louis Junior utilized some of those funds in founding Flagler College, where Henry Flagler's legacy lives on to this day. '", It was a copy of The St. Augustine Evening Record from May 20, 1913. Covert, Robert. You see, demand for salt had risen with the beginning of the war it was necessary for the preservation of food for the troops. Bostonian Franklin W. Smith had recently built his winter home, the Villa Zorayda, which caught Flagler's eye almost immediately. The same year that she arrived in New York, her doctors insisted that she spend the winter in a kinder climate. This is somewhat my case. Get the latest on new films and digital content, learn about events in your area, and get your weekly fix of American history. In general, government officials (especially Andrew Anderson) permitted Flagler to widen the roads and to dredge marshes to establish neighborhoods. Henry Morrison Flagler was born in Hopewell, New York on January 2, 1830, the son of a struggling Presbyterian minister. Perhaps because of the economic success that Flagler's industries had delivered to the state or perhaps because of direct funding being delivered to individual senators, Flagler was able to convince the legislature to pass a little bill for him in April of 1901. Two years later Flagler married his second wife, Ida, and took her to visit St. Augustine. Having bought land for the hotel, Flagler's goal was to build a pleasure palace and turn St. Augustine, Florida, into a 'Winter Newport'. Flagler also met one Dr. Andrew Anderson, who would almost immediately become a lifelong partner and friend. Nestled on the narrow strip of land between the two beaches were hundreds of significant but decaying buildings. Just five years later, it reached 1,263,540. (Enter your ZIP code for information on American Experience events and screening in your area.). In 1894 he opened the Hotel Royal Poinciana overlooking Lake Worth, and two years later, the Palm Beach Inn (later renamed The Breakers) on the ocean beach. If Carl Fisher were alive today, he might find it difficult to recognize Miami Beach. Henry Flagler was a self-made businessman, who rose from being a common grain salesman to a partner with John Rockefeller in Standard Oil by the time he was 40 years old. The rumor mill suspected that this change in priorities was due to Henry's association with one Ida Alice Shourds a red-haired, green-eyed actress who was rumored to have been Mary Harkness Flagler's nursemaid during her final years. You see, during the Gilded Age [and for far too long after it], women could be sent to a mental institution for just about anything. In 1869, Henry Flagler began buying out small oil refineries on behalf of John D. Rockefeller, who had it in his mind to monopolize the oil industry in Ohio. Flagler commissioned the architects and builders of his other St. Augustine buildings to create the Venetian Renaissance Revival style . Asylum records from this era show women being admitted and held for ailments such as "suppressed menses", "mental {or} religious excitement", and the infamous catch-all "hysteria". After a few short weeks, the family all moved back to New York, much to the detriment of Mary Harkness Flagler's health, which got progressively worse in the coming years. Henry's birth heralded the beginning of a decade and perhaps a new start for his family. His half-sisters Mary Esther (16 y/o in 1830), Jane Augusta (14), and Caroline (3.5) were the daughters of his father's first two wives. When he was a toddler, his two older half-sisters moved to New York to live with family, and Caroline ('Carrie') and Dan were Henry's constant companions. New York, NY: Three Rivers Press & Crown Publishers, 2002. Early Life Henry Morrison Flagler was born in Hopewell, New York on January 2nd, 1830 to Isaac Flagler and Elizabeth Caldwell Harkness Flagler. Chandler, David Leon. Standard Oil, headed by partners Rockefeller and Flagler, commenced operations in January 1870 and within two years stood at the forefront of the U.S. oil industry. Flagler engaged Thomas Hastings and Jean Carrere of the Carrere & Hastings architectural firm to design the hotel. Craze became frenzy when Mary Lily Kenan and Henry Flagler married on August 24th, 1901. Mary Lily Kenan Flagler inherited the majority of Henry Flagler's fortune but was unlucky enough to die of an apparent heart attack, only five years after Flagler's death. Version accessed: St. Augustine, FL: Historic Print & Map Company, 2004. During an economic depression, people lose their jobs and cant afford to buy what they need. Scrapbooks full of newspaper clippings were enough to fill a shed in the backyard. Ida and Henry spent their honeymoon in St Augustine, and by 1885 Flagler had decided to build his first hotel, the Spanish-inspired Ponce De Len. According to Florida historian Thomas Graham in his book The Awakening of St. Augustine, an acquaintance of the businessman once inquired about whether his judgment was sound when he decided to invest in Florida (one can imagine that they may not have been acquaintances for very long afterward). . Legend has it that Miami landowner Julia Tuttle, a young widow who lived in Miami and advocated development, sent Flagler a spray of orange blossoms--proof that the freeze had left southern Florida untouched--as incentive to extend his railroad to Miami. Photos: State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory. His wife, Ida, whose behavior had become frighteningly erratic since the beginning of their marriage, was diagnosed with "delusionary insanity," and her subsequent institutionalization left Flagler "almost prostrated with grief and anxiety." * "People along the line waited all night for the passing of the funeral train.". The couple used the home as a winter retreat from 1902 until Flagler's death in 1913, establishing the Palm Beach season for the wealthy of the Gilded Age.[9], Henry Flagler died in 1913, and passed the majority of his wealth on to Mary Lily. No single person was as important to the development of modern Florida as Henry Morrison Flagler. He remarried again in 1901 to Mary Lily Kenan and "installed his bride in his new $1,000,000 residence, 'Whitehall,' which is considered one of the finest homes in the country," according to the article. Death Date: May 20, 1913 Place of Birth: Hopewell, New York, United States Nationality: American Gender: Male Occupations: grain merchant, industrialist, land developer Henry Flagler (1830-1913) was a self-made millionaire and industrialist who co-founded the Standard Oil Company. It is now the Henry Morrison Flagler Museum, visited by almost 100,000 people a year. Mary Lily Kenan Flagler Bingham died in July 1917. Mary's condition grew steadily worse, and she eventually died in New York at age 48, on May 18, 1881. First, Dr. Anderson worked through the bureaucracy to get Flagler approval to fill in the marshland that was west of the original town plan. Her husband, Henry Morrison Flagler, was fifty-one years old. } [14] The autopsy was requested by Graham Kenan, Mary Lilys sister Sarahs husband, not Robert Bingham. However, this building's history is tragic and short.
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