Tag Archives: Atlantic Beach

New Story: Schools Named for Confederates and the Demise of Manhattan Beach

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Joseph Finegan Elementary School, named for a Confederate general, stands where segregated black Manhattan Beach once was. White developers said they wanted “Negroes removed from the oceanfront” and the one business whose family didn’t sell was destroyed in a “mysterious fire.” So, “what’s in a name?” Juliet asked. 

The Mystery House at Atlantic/Neptune Beach

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Supposedly the hurricane tossed the house back up on the beach that way and rather than tearing it down, some smalltime Barnum charged admission. At the beginnings of a town called Neptune, the “Mysterious House” stood out beyond the dunes. Inside, gravity went askew. You felt like you were walking up the wall.

The Oldest House at Atlantic Beach: The Christopher / Bull / Hionides House

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It’s the oldest house at Atlantic Beach, its original owner’s “party house,” home to the family of the town’s first mayor for seven decades, to the Hionides family for three. Here the fate of black Manhattan Beach played out and the mysterious Jax blues musician Sugar Underwood played at dances. Inside, bright sunlight coruscates across golden heartwood pine. Outside, grandchildren run up from the ocean.

JaxPsychoGeo is Six Years Old: Here’s the Dunehouses and Pyramid, First Posted in 2012

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JaxPsychoGeo first published this story about William Morgan’s Dunehouses and Pyramid when the site launched six years ago. Since then, the writing and scope have ev0lved, while the core artistic, spiritual and geographic pursuit has remained.

At Morgan’s own house next door, the architect told the detective the proportions of the rectangular interior of the Dunehouses are golden. Did she know what this meant?

The house William Morgan built for himself now more than 40 years ago stood next door. But first the Dunehouses, which he’d built in 1974 and ’75.

The Grave of Confederate General Joseph Finegan

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The stone lamb lacks a head. The titled stone says, without dates or surnames, “JOSEPHINE and her LITTLE BROTHER.” Confederate Lost-Causers still tend the grave of Joseph Finegan.

What happened to Finegan’s plantation house during the Civil War was poetic justice.

The stone angel looked down over Diana when she visited the Livingstons’ grave like Mary Shelley visited the grave of her mother.