Tag Archives: Napoleon Bonaparte Broward

The Napoleon Bonaparte Broward House at Pilot Town by Fort George Island

Posted on November 20, 2021 | 1 comment

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In its century and a half, the Napoleon Bonaparte Broward house has been empty more than lived in. It hoists its widow’s walk from the roof at Fort George Island. Built by a New York dentist in the 1870s, now the hq of the Timucuan Parks Foundation, the house will forever be associated with Broward, the Duval County sheriff, Jax city councilman, state representative and Florida governor who smuggled guns to Cuba and wanted to drain the Everglades and start racial apartheid.

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Tagged Batten Island, Bill McGoun Miami Herald, Broward Craig, Captain Gerald Johnson, Captain Joe Bie Johnson, Charlie Mitchell, Everglades drainage, Fort George Island, Frances P. Fleming, Fred Robertson, Ft. George Island, Gentleman Jim Corbett, George DuCottes, Governor Henry Mitchell, jax psycho geo, John Mathews, Jonathan Gilbert, Karl Zillgitt, Mountcalm Broward, N.B. Broward, Napoleon Bonaparte Broward, Napoleon Bonaparte Broward House, Napoleon Bonaparte Broward III, Paul McGeehee, Pilot Town, Senator John Mathews, Three Friends steamboat, Tim Gilmore, Timucuan Parks Foundation, widow's walk

El Modelo, Part II

Posted on January 30, 2020 | Leave a comment

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Part Two of the three-part series on El Modelo Cigar Factory features the Dying Declaration of Marie Louise Gato, her possible romantic entanglements with young Cuban revolutionaries, and the “Jacksonville Junta,” who organized both clandestinely and not so secretly for the war in Havana.

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Tagged Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, Calixto Garcia, Cuba Libre, Cuban Revolutionary Party, Dauntless, Domingo Herrera, Eddie Pitzer, Edward Pitzer, El Modelo, filibuster, Florida, freebooter, Gabriel Hidalgo Gato, Jacksonville Junta, James Weldon Johnson, jax psycho geo, José Alejandro Huau, José Carbonne, Jose Marti, Marie Louise Gato, Máximo Gómez y Báez, Napoleon Bonaparte Broward, Three Friends, Tim Gilmore

The Crossroads: One House Still Stands

Posted on September 15, 2019 | Leave a comment

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It was the most prestigious crossroads in the city. Two senators lived here. Anna Fletcher said her house was haunted, that a grandfather clock had thrown itself upon a young woman. She wrote about it in her 1929 book Death Unveiled. Now only the Porter House remains. Click below for the full story.

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Tagged Anna Fletcher, Anna Louise Fletcher, Architects’ and Builders’ Magazine, Duncan Fletcher House, Duncan U. Fletcher, First Christian Church. H.J. Klutho, Henry John Klutho, Isaiah Hart, J.H.W. Hawkins, Jacksonville City Hall, Jacksonville history, James Taliaferro House, jaxpsychogeo, Napoleon Bonaparte Broward, Ossian Hart, Robert Broward, Spiritualism, Stephen Mallory II, Thomas Porter House, Tim Gilmore, W.S. Ware House, William James Bryant, William S. Ware

The Beerbower House: Prehistoric Avondale

Posted on April 5, 2019 | 1 comment

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The house will ever be imbued with the story of its strange genesis. Casper and Ida ferried coquina to the woods where Riverside ended. When the president called Elsie “predestined to be a star and kissed [her] on the brow,” she told her mother, “You kiss me too. I may never be kissed in the White House again.” Then Tilly had occasion to chat with Lynn Beerbower, to find out “how small boys used to earn their pleasures.”

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Tagged "Break the News to Mother, 1776 Challen, Al Jolson, American Expeditionary Forces, Anti-Ragtime Girl, Avondale, Axel Hendrickson, Beerbower House, Behind the Lines, Bette Davis, Casper Beerbower, Challen Avenue, coquina, coquina gates, Dark Victory, Edgewood Association, Edgewood Avenue, Elias Jaudon, Elsie Janis, Florrie was a Flapper, George Buker, Ginger Harris, Gloria Swanson, Hollywood Walk of Fame, Ida B., Ida Beerbower, James Randall Challen, jax psycho geo, jim russell, John Talbott, Leah Powell, leatherleaf fern, Lynn Beerbower, Magnolia Plantation, Mary Hendrickson, Napoleon Bonaparte Broward, Riverside Avondale, Spanish American War, St. Augustine, Talbot Avenue, Telfair Stockton, Tell Tilly, The Jazz Singer, The Three Friends, The Trespasser, Tilly Teller, Tim Gilmore, Vaudeville, Virginia Harris, Washington Oaks, water hyacinths, William McKinley

Goat Island, Christopher’s Pier, Rattlesnake Hunting, a Man Shot in the Face, and Tim Gilmore’s Upcoming Book Launch at the Jacksonville Historical Society

Posted on August 11, 2018 | Leave a comment

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On August 23 at 6:30 pm at the Jacksonville Historical Society, Tim Gilmore will launch, read from, and sign his newest book, Goat Island Hermit: The State of Florida vs. Rollians Christopher. (Your invitation is at the bottom of this post.)

Rollians Christopher, 1955, photograph unattributed, courtesy Florida Times-Union

Here’s an early version of a story that makes its way into the book, a story about Christopher’s Pier, the tavern that protruded from the fishing village over the river for decades, about a Yellow Fever quarantine hospital, about a fisherman whose legs were car tires, about shrimp boats and hunting rattlesnakes, about a man shot in the face.

Goat Island, 1955, prior to its development into Blount Island, photograph unattributed, courtesy Florida Times-Union

You are invited: https://www.facebook.com/events/314940972382209/

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Tagged Agnes K, Anita Johnson, Apollo Street, Blount Island, Christopher's Pier, Cleve Powell, Dames Point, finfish, Florida Ship Canal Authority, Fred Nichols, Fred's Island, George Christopher, Gilmore, Goat Island, Goat Island Hermit: The State of Florida vs. Rollians Christopher, Grey Hotel, Heckscher Drive, Henry Von Balsan, J. Henry Blount, Jacksonville, JaxPort, jaxpsychogeo, Joe Christopher, Joseph Leonard Johnson II, Junior Hodge, Mill Cove, Napoleon Bonaparte Broward, New Berlin, New Berlin Cemetery, Nichols Creek, Overstreet Pride, Quarantine Island, Rollians Christopher, Rollie Christopher, Tim Gilmore, Yellow Fever