By Spessard Stone
Isaac Hugh Stone, a pioneer settler of Bare Beach on Lake Okeechobee, Florida, was a farmer and operator of a boat line.
Isaac Hugh Stone was born September 3, 1870 in Calhoun County, Florida. He was the eldest child of Shade Sutton Stone and Olive Elizabeth (Griffin) Stone. After 1880, the family settled in Sneads, Jackson County, Florida where Shade was a farmer.
At Cypress, Florida on November 25, 1903, Isaac Hugh Stone married Lula Viola Williams, born January 22, 1879, Tifton, Georgia, daughter of Thomas Franklin Williams and Sophronia (McClellan) Williams. The Williams family had moved to North Florida in 1889. At the time of their marriage, Hugh managed the family naval stores business (turpentine), and Viola was a schoolteacher.In 1912, Isaac and family left Jackson County. They first lived in Wauchula, DeSoto (now Hardee) County, Florida where Hugh farmed. In September 1917, they resettled on Bare Beach on Lake Okeechobee, Florida. There Hugh established a farm on a section of land purchased by a group of Wauchula farmers. He also opened a store and operated a boat line which carried freight to points on the lake from Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach. One boat was the "Queen of the Lake," which he later sold to the Clewiston Development Company.
Lawrence E. Will in A Cracker History of Okeechobee related:
"This Bare Beach settlement, as I've said, was once an important place. It really got its start in 1916 when William C. Hooker from Arcadia, together with his brother Steve and the Alderman Brothers from Wauchula began to raise tomatoes there. The next year Isaac H. Stone, another Wauchula man, farmed, financed other farmers, and built a store. The winter of 1921-22 was the biggest and last season here, for after that the high water compelled everybody to leave, then later on the sugar company gobbled up the land so there was no place left to farm. Bill Hooker went to Clewiston, became a county commissioner and gave his name to Hooker's Point, which never was a point at all but a high knoll back from the lake. But before he left, Hooker had replaced Stone as the main promoter. Before it was drowned out, Bare Beach supported the stores of Charles G. Price, who had fished here in 1911, Charlie Hurd from Moore Haven, J. W. Putnam and Ferrell Revels, besides the drug store of Dr. Harbin, later run by Penick Suther, Bohannon's garage, four tomato packing houses, a light plant, a post office, two church houses and a school. It even had a cemetery, too. On opposite ends of the hammock two long docks reached into the lake, The Wauchula dock, big enough that a team could drive out and turn around, was between Hurd's store and the school where the pumping station stands now, while Stone's was on the west side of the hammock. Freight boats from Ft. Lauderdale and W. Palm Beach would haul carloads of tomatoes from these docks."
After leaving Bare Beach, the Stones moved to West Palm Beach. There Hugh was employed as a real estate salesman.
Bonnie Stone Durrence on September 25, 1995 recalled: "When we left Bare Beach we moved to West Palm. The back water and lake water flooded the town of Bare Beach and the Salvation Army came in and we moved to W. Palm on a barge. We got off at Loxahatchee. We lived on Military Trail and I went to sixth grade there. I then went through the 9th grade in town. When Papa died I attended a Business College and then went to work in First Bank of Clewiston for 8 years (till 1935) when I was married."
Isaac Hugh Stone, of 35th Street, West Palm Beach, died on December 8, 1925 and was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, West Palm Beach.
Viola Stone and family moved to Clewiston, Florida afterwards. She owned and managed a boarding house and several rental houses. Viola Stone died in an automobile accident on March 2, 1943 at Clewiston and was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery.
Issue of Isaac Hugh and Lula Viola (Williams) Stone:
1. Jewel Stone, born June 13, 1905; died July 17, 1972, Hialeah, Fla.; married (1) March 29, 1921, William Columbus Hooker, son of William Henry and Mahala Clementine (Langford) Hooker; (2) Loyde Dennison.
2. Tracy Hugh Stone, born June 24, 1908; died July 10, 1972, Bowling Green, Fla.; married on April 1, 1939 Anne Rae Hendry, daughter of Rev. James M. Hendry and Martha Frances (Wingate) Hendry.
3. Bonceil Stone, born Oct. 26, 1911; died Aug. 24, 2001, Denton, Texas; married at Miami Beach, Fla. on July 6, 1935 James Foy Durrence, son of Troy and Leona (Padgett) Durrence.
4. J. E. Stone, born 1914; died 1917, Wauchula.
5.Mae Lily Stone, born Feb. 2, 1917; died August 9, 1981, Fort Myers, Fla.; married (1) Clayton S. Waters; (2) Dean Waters; (3) Frank Springer.
6.Hector Munselle Stone, born Nov. 11, 1922; died June 11, 1966, Clewiston, Fla.; married Sept. 16, 1941 Winnifred Juanita Bozeman, divorced June 7, 1965.
References: Lawrence E. Will, A Cracker History of Okeechobee, Chapter 33, "Why Call It Bare Beach?," pp. 215-216; Bonnie Stone Durrence.
This profile is adapted from South Florida Pioneers, 31/32 (Jan./Apr. 1982), The Herald- Advocate of January 7, 1988.
February 11, 2001 & links = October 16, 2001