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Old Meeting House
The
Old Meeting House was the third occupied by the oldest Christian
Congregation south of Tampa. Construction was begun in 1887, then
halted due to a yellow fever epidemic. The church was completed
in 1889. This old Methodist Church has been an integral part of
the history of Manatee County. In fact, it predates the County,
and its leaders were instrumental in establishing the County.
The building was located 2 1/2 blocks north of the
Historical Park (currently 315 15th Street East) and was a place
of worship for 85 years. Donated by the Manatee United Methodist
Church, it was moved to this site on the night of December 4,
1975. The church remains a consecrated house of worship and is
still used for weddings, memorial services, and other religious
events.
Click
here for a complete history of the Old Meeting House/Church.
First Courthouse
The first Manatee County Courthouse is the oldest
original courthouse remaining in the State of Florida that was
built specifically as a courthouse. Built in 1860, it was sold
to the Methodist-Episcopal Church when the county seat was moved
to Pine Level in 1866. This building served as the sanctuary for
the church until the old meeting house was built in 1887 on the
courthouse square, which is now the corner of 15th Street and
4th Avenue East. It served as the church’s social hall.
Several additions were removed when the building was donated by
the congregation of the Manatee United Methodist Church and moved
to this site. The Courthouse was restored to its original appearance.
Because much of the interior of this building had to be replaced,
wood was milled to specification for the restoration work. All
the benches and tables are hand-crafted replicas with the exception
of the two judges chairs, the desk in the judge’s chambers
(which was handmade by Josiah Gates and donated to the park by
his great-granddaughter), the witness chair and the bookcases.
The room to the left is known as the jury room.
The glass ballot box on the table is an antique on loan from the
Clerk of the Circuit Court. A copy of the map of old army forts
and trails hangs in this room. It was commissioned by Brigadier
General Zachary Taylor, who later became a US President.
In the courtroom there are two flags of the period.
The "Bonnie Blue" was the early southern flag and predates
today’s Florida State Flag. This deep blue flag with a five
pointed star signifies the five governments which ruled early
Florida.
The United States flag is similar to that of today,
but has thirty-three stars rather than fifty, signifying the number
of states in the Union in 1860.
The old records located in the glass case on the
eastern wall are on loan from the Clerk of the Circuit Court.
These are the original records of early Manatee County.
The old courthouse is on the National Register of
Historic Places and is designated as an historic site.
Bunker Hill School Experience
Facilities at the Bunker Hill School were like those of other
schools in the same period. Rough at best,in the winter, the school
was heated by a wood burning stove located in the very center
of the single room. The older boys were responsible for providing
fuel. Some of the more fortunate students had desks with inkwells.
The floors were rough with indiscriminate splinters that preyed
upon bare feet. Periodic scrubbing with sand and lye eventually
wore down the worst of the rough edges. A tin roof, minus ceiling
served as a roof, making the already hot summer months a truly
sweltering experience for teacher and students. Bushes which surrounded
the sandy school lot doubled as his
and her restroom facilities.
Recess followed lunch period. Students played baseball
with homemade bats and balls, stick frog (or mumbly peg). Discipline
was meted out in the form of an old-fashioned "whipping"
with a gall berry switch. Chores followed once the school day
was over, leaving little time for study. The end of the school
year (the Friday prior to Christmas) was commemorated with a neighborhood
get-together. School resumed after the Christmas holiday once
the term was extended to seven months.
Interesting facts regarding the school:
There were only 120 books in the library. In 1913, the teacher
made $45 a month, plus $10 for room and board. The first year
the school was open, there were only ten students. Some students
came to school in a wagon pulled by a mule, but most walked. The
students had to get their "report" signed by their parents
at the end of the school year. Excuses for being absent ranged
from actual illness to being unable to cross the river because
of rain.
Teachers at the Bunker Hill School
Several
individuals taught at the Bunker Hill School during the building’s
twenty-one year tenure as a one-room schoolhouse. The first teacher,
according to John Rutledge who was one of its early attendants,
was Deloca Keen, who was a native of Bradenton. Sally Howell of
Keysville, as well as "old lady Sandefur" or Miss Sandspur
taught students the rudiments of reading, writing, and ciphering
(arithmetic). Other instructors included Henry Glazer, Alvin Wilkins,
Agnes Smith, Rose Henry, and Owen Henry. Teachers did not often
serve for more than one year and often moved on after only a few
months. Most boarded with a local neighbor, specifically Isaiah
Smith and Henry Taylor.
Rules for teachers might include the following,
prescribed in 1872 for the oldest wooden schoolhouse in St. Augustine,
Florida.
Teachers each day will fill lamps and clean chimneys.
Each teacher will bring a bucket of water for the day’s session.
Make your pens carefully. You may whittle nibs to the individual
taste of the pupils.
Men teachers may take one evening each week for
courting purposes, or two evenings a week if they go to church
regularly.
After ten hours in school, the teachers may spend
the remaining time reading the Bible or other good books. Women
teachers who marry or engage in unseemly conduct will be dismissed.
Every teacher should lay aside from each payday
a goodly sum of his earnings for his benefit during his declining
years so that he will not become a burden on society. Any teacher
who smokes, uses liquor in any form, frequents pool or public
halls, or gets shaved in a barber shop will give good reason to
suspect his worth, intention, integrity, and honesty.
The Teacher who performs his labor faithfully and
without fault for five years will be given an increase of twenty-five
cents per week in his pay, providing the Board of Education approves.
Stephens House--The Settler's House
The old settler’s house was built in 1912 by
Will Stephens and his family. The architectural style is known
as "cracker gothic." It was the third house built on
the homestead which was established in 1894 in what is now Hardee
County. Prior to 1887, this was also part of Manatee County. The
pine timbers and heart pine blocks which elevate the house two
and a half feet off the ground for cooling purposes, were cut
from trees on the same tract of land on which the house was built.
When the land was sold to the International Mineral
Corporation (I.M.C.) for mining purposes, I.M.C. gave the building
to the Manatee County Historical Commission for the consideration
of one dollar. The building was then cut into five parts and moved
to its present site in the Manatee Village Historical Park on
February 2, 1982. It has been restored primarily by volunteer
labor and funds contributed by commission members, interested
citizens, organizations, and foundations.
Since it was not possible to acquire or reproduce
the original furnishings, the commission has endeavored to display
such furnishings as were popularly in use at that period of time.
It stands as an excellent example of a Florida rural farmhouse
in the period between the 1870s and World War I.
Although most homes of its type would have been
whitewashed, the Stephens decided that the house deserved only
the best, so it was originally painted white. The house is divided
into separate rooms which can be opened or closed, according to
the needs of the large family and the season of the year. It has
a large central hallway with a high ceiling, which helped to cool
the house "naturally." The solid doors adjoining the
kitchen were added for security by the Historical Commission The
house’s flooring is original. The flooring on the porches
and steps had to be replaced. The fireplace is made of the original
bricks which were reset when the house was moved. Fire bricks
were also added.
The Restoration Process of the Settler's House
The Manatee County Historical Commission spent several
years looking for a typical board and batten house like the Stephen’s
house. The organization found several, but they were all in very
poor condition due to the ravages of time and neglect. Finally,
the Commission found the Stephen’s house, originally located
in Castalia, forty miles east of the Manatee Village Historical
Park in what is now Hardee County, but what was once Manatee County,
before it was split into several smaller entities.
At the time of its discovery, the house stood on
land recently purchased by the International Mineral Corporation
(I.M.C.) For strip-mining purposes. The house was slated for destruction,
but the I.M.C. donated the building to the Commission. After spending
$8,000 to divide the house into five sections and move each to
its current location, the Commission spent an additional $10,000
to restore the Stephen’s home to its original state. Volunteers
provided most of the labor.
Will Stephens constructed his home over a period
of one year, from 1911 to 1912. In its time, it was considered
as one of the better homes in the community where it was located.
Unlike most homes of later periods which sat above ground on brick
pilasters, this building stands atop a foundation composed of
sawed-off sections of a fat pine log, which was typical of early
homes in South Florida. The pilasters that currently support the
house are original. A combination of age and pine rosin has hardened
them to the point where it is impossible to drive a nail into
them. This mode of construction allowed air to circulate under
the foundation of the house which served as the only cooling system
for early Florida farming families. High ceilings, large, open
porches, and the presence of shade trees combined to make existence
in the hot Florida summers more tolerable. An open hallway through
the middle of the house allowed air to circulate freely through
the house and the kitchen was constructed as a separate room away
from the living area of the house. When temperatures became increasingly
intolerable, some family members chose to sleep in the central,
breezy hallway as opposed to the small bedrooms. During the cooler
seasons, families typically spent their time indoors in the kitchen
or the parlor or "fire room" as these were the only
two heated rooms in the house.
The Wiggins Store
The Wiggins Store was built in the Village of Manatee in 1903 by
King Wiggins. The turn of the century was a period of rapid growth
for the community. During this time, the railroad, telephone, telegraph,
automobiles, and electricity arrived in the area.
An entrepreneur in business and agriculture, Wiggins designed the
building to house his general store and large storage facility,
and to provide overnight accommodations for customers who traveled
long distances to purchase his goods. Porches on three sides of
the building made it energy efficient as did a building technique
of providing air pockets between two layers of brick. This building
was one of the first buildings south of Tampa to utilize an elevator.
A gathering spot for the Manatee community, its customers combined
business with pleasure and took time to listen to Wiggins’
phonograph or play a game of checkers.
Over the years, the building was used as a barber shop, general
store, hotel, apartments, and finally as migrant housing before
it was condemned and boarded up in 1983. The Manatee County Historical
Commission acquired the building in 1985, and after a lengthy fund
raising campaign and careful restoration, reopened the Wiggins Store
to the public in 1990. It is the only building in the Manatee Village
Historical Park that was originally located at this site.
In 1865 a storm blew the fishing vessel, Grover G. King, off its
northbound course from Key West. Captain John Fogarty sailed into
the mouth of the Manatee River for protection. When the storm lifted,
Fogarty liked what he saw. A year later, John and his brother, Bartholomew,
moved from Key West to settle in Manatee County. That marked the
start of the boat-building industry in Manatee County.
Bartholomew's son, also called Bartholomew or 'Bat' for short,
built his first ship when he was 19. For the next 60 years, Captain
Bat constructed hundreds of sailing ships, power vessels, small
boats and skiffs the way his father and uncles taught him. When
Capt. Bat died in 1944, his family closed his boat yard. In 1993,
the family willed the boat yard to the public. Restorers opened
the building you see today to find its contents preserved as if
in a time capsule: half-hulled models, wooden patterns and molds,
tools, equipment and belt-driven machinery, just as Capt. Bat left
them. Enter Capt. Bat's world and see how it used to be.
A smokehouse was a necessary part of every rural pioneer
home in early American history due to the lack of refrigeration
for fresh meat storage. As part of the preservation process, cuts
of meat, primarily pork and sausage, were hung on racks in the smokehouse.
Underneath the meat, a green oak or hickory wood fire was built
and maintained for several days, creating a dense smoke which cured
and preserved the meat. Thomas G. And Harvey E. Hayden donated the
smokehouse and syrup kettle that were part of the Andrew and Lettie
Wingate homestead near the far eastern reaches of the Manatee River.
Most rural homes in the South also had sugar cane
mills and syrup kettles to produce syrup and sugar for cooking.
The sugar cane mill preserved by the Manatee Village Historical
Park, was donated by Hazel Hankee, and was used to grind the juice
from the cane stalks. A horse or mule was hitched to the low end
of the sweep, which balanced on the top of the mill. Walking in
a circle, the animal pulled the sweep, turning the mill. Stalks
of cane were fed between the rollers. The juice was collected and
poured into the syrup kettle attached to the smokehouse, where it
was cooked over a fire. The sweep must be made from a pine tree
with the correct bend at the top of the tree. Senator Doyle Carlton,
Jr. found this tree on his Hardee County ranch and donated it to
the Park.
This rough-cut pine barn is typical of those built by Florida farmers
in the late 1800s and early 1900s. It is a copy of the John Pope
Harllee "100" farm barn, which stand a few miles north
of Palmetto on the east side of State Highway 41 at Experimental
Farm Road. These barns sheltered supplies,tools, and equipment--not
animals.
Enjoy a rest in this traditional gazebo under the shade of century-old
live oaks. These summerhouses were popular in America at the turn
of the century.
If you would like to view the Manatee Burying Ground where many
pioneers from the Village of Manatee are buried, simply ask for
the key at the Park Office located on the second floor of the Wiggins
Store. The cemetery is located across from the Park on 15th Street
East.
