KEYS BLACK HISTORY: THE STORY OF ISRAEL LAFAYETTE JONES

The Jones family pose on the porch of their Porgy Key home, just south of Eliott Key. NATIONAL PARK SERVICE/Contributed

In the years before the Civil War, Arter Jones worked as a North Carolina farm laborer. He married at least twice, and while no records document his first wife, she bore him two sons, Israel and Samuel. Though their early family history is a bit murky, Israel Lafayette Jones was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1858, to parents who may or may not have been slaves. His younger brother Samuel was born in 1861. Both boys grew up working on a farm.

In 1892, Israel left the farm for bluer pastures. He moved to the port city of Wilmington, where he worked on the docks, loading and offloading cargo. Somewhere around 1893, Israel boarded a ship bound for Florida. His first job was working in the orange groves around Orlando. When a freeze devastated the citrus fields, Israel left for Tampa. From Tampa, he sailed to Key West because just about every 19th century Florida Keys story at some point involves the Southernmost City.

Israel ventured north, exploring opportunities in the burgeoning community of Coconut Grove. He found work as a handyman at the Peacock Inn. Originally called the Bayview House when it opened circa 1883, it is considered mainland South Florida’s first hotel. Mozelle Albury, one of the inn’s housemaids, caught his eye. She and Israel married in 1895, by which time Israel had made an impression on some early South Florida and Florida Keys landowners.

It started with Walter S. Davis II, who owned 500 acres of Key Biscayne. After being hired as his property’s caretaker, Jones worked to improve it. He cleared land for crops and built a two-story home for the Davis family. His hard work paid off. Two other local property owners, Ralph Munroe, founder and first commodore of the Biscayne Bay Yacht Club, and Dr. John Clayton Gifford also hired Jones to manage their properties. They would not be the last. Frank T. Budge, the owner of Miami’s first hardware store and its first brick building, also hired Jones. In addition to the brick store, Budge owned Totten Key, where he operated a 250-acre pineapple farm.

Israel and Mozelle’s first child was born in 1897 and named King Arthur Lafayette Jones. 1897 was also the year Israel Jones purchased his first island, the 63-acre Porgy Key, for $300. The following year, while stuck aboard a 22-foot boat smack in the middle of Biscayne Bay, Mozelle gave birth to their second child, Sir Lancelot Garfield Jones. The same year, Jones purchased the neighboring Old Rhodes Key.

With his brother Samuel, Israel worked on Porgy Key and built a pier extending out over the shallows and into deeper, more navigable waters. They also cleared enough land to begin commercially farming pineapples and Key limes. Though the limes took longer to bear fruit, the pineapples began producing cash crops within two years. Circa 1902, Israel moved his family into a pre-existing two-story home on Porgy Key. And then, in 1906, a Category 3 hurricane struck the Florida Keys, with devastating results for the pineapple industry. It also caused the end of more than 200 lives, many of whom were men working to build Henry Flagler’s Over-Sea Railroad.

The hurricane destroyed the Joneses’ house on Porgy Key. Frank Budge’s Totten Key pineapple plantation also suffered tremendous damage. Rather than deal with his failed farm, in 1911, Budge sold Totten Key to Jones for $1 an acre. Jones deeded much of the island to his sons Arthur and Lancelot but sold 212 acres of Totten Key for $250,000. In 2021 terms, that $250,000 would be worth in the neighborhood of $6.8 million.

Jones, too, was a religious man. He was known in his community as Parson Jones and supported Miami’s Mt. Zion Baptist Church. He also helped create Jacksonville’s Negro Industrial School. The school, originally called the Florida Baptist Academy, was founded in 1892. It moved to St. Augustine in 1918 where the school underwent several transitions before moving to Dade County in 1965 and opening as Florida Memorial College in 1968. In 2004, the school became Florida Memorial University. Israel Lafayette Jones died in 1932 at the age of 74.

Brad Bertelli is an author, speaker, Florida Keys historian, and Honorary Conch who has been writing about the local history for two decades. Brad has called the Florida Keys home since 2001. He is the author of eight books, including The Florida Keys Skunk Ape Files, a book of historical fiction that blends two of his favorite subjects, the local history and Florida’s Bigfoot, the Skunk Ape. His latest book, Florida Keys History with Brad Bertelli, Volume 1, shares fascinating glimpses into the rich and sometimes surprising histories of the Florida Keys. To satisfy your daily history fix, join his Facebook group Florida Keys History with Brad Bertelli.