The Tree of Knowledge

Lampkin or Sharp Family

Alex Hughes, first resident of
Pearl City. Worked for Frank
Chesebro for years.

Click on the images of the letters for a larger view of the documents.

March 3, 1915

November 10, 1915

April 6, 1916

Carolyn Brown, A. Fountain’s Granddaughter. Almeda’s
daughter.

Marie, Barbara, Archie, and
Walter Jr. Garner

“Pearl City is one of a few black areas in south Florida, east of the railroad tracks and they have tried their darndest to get us out of here. They have told us a million times that this is choice property and for you all to be living on it when you can sell it for commercial and make all of this money off it. But what what do we say to them? This is home and it is choice property for us. That’s why we are living on it… . Arthur Vining Davis thought he was going to buy us out one time… . We had another person that wanted to buy this area and was going to move us out by the chicken farm they call it, which is on 51st Street about where IBM is. …They told us that what they give us would be enough to pay for the lot and the house up in that area. But that didn’t bother us. The thing is that we want to be able to get where we want to go without having to get in a car to go. You see, we have everything around us. We didn’t want to go out in the woods. We’ve already fanned out the mosquitoes and rattlesnakes in here.”

Ernest Lee Scott and Jasper 'Jackie' Bryant in front of Demery house.

1930s - Arzeta Cobbs,
Ella Small’s daughter.

Mrs. Sallie Dolphus

Ernest Lee Scott and Jasper
‘Jackie’ Bryant in front of “our
old home” on NE 11th Street.

Belle Demery, Pat, Barb
(little one), Marie and Agnes.

1944 Jasper “Jackie” Bryant. Irene’s nephew. Florence Demery’s son.

Sarah (Demery) Colden on arm
of chair. Belle Demery in
lounge chair. First Black
child born in Boca Raton.

Vernell Fountain in front of
Old Dixie Manor.

Eddie Demery

Mrs. Emma Scott walking
south on Dixie.

1978 - 1979, Department of
Transportation relocated the
now Glades Road to save the
banyan tree called “The Tree
of Knowledge”.

Mrs. Ethel Richardson on 11th
Street, next to church. Sam
Dolphus ran the store
(background).

Neighbors gathering.

A home in Pearl City

Second house built on 15th
Terrace- First house has been
torn down--One
of the oldest in Pearl City . Dog’s name is Tipple.

Annie Mae (Johnson) Bussey. Daughter of Cliff Williams. Born 1906 in Dublin, GA. One of fourteen children, 8 boys and 6 girls. Sister Regina Williams was Alex Hughes’ first wife.

“The house wasn’t very big. We had only two bedrooms. One small bedroom and one huge room that had several beds. We had a dining area and a kitchen and an outside toilet and pump. We had wooden stoves, no sink. We had what you called a dishpan to wash dishes in. We took baths in a tin tub. This was in the 1930s. There was no electricity in the homes here. We could see at night by kerosene lamps. When we did get electricity in our house we had an old open bulb hanging down from the ceiling and that was big. It was just a matter of pulling that string and the light would come on.”

“I don’t recall any street names in Pearl City at first. ...They came later. It was nothing but sand roads.."

Auction ad for Pearl City lots.

Auction ad for Pearl City lots.

Click Image to Enlarge

Click Image to Enlarge

Letter and account of the auction sale.

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Pearl City Map, April 26, 1915 .