Jewish Pioneers Of The Tampa Bay, the fifth of a series on life on the Tampa Bay frontier by Dr. Canter Brown, Jr., chronicles the heretofore largely neglected role of our Jewish pioneers.
Jewish settlement in pioneer Florida was relatively modest. The new United States territory of Florida
ended its first decade of the 1820s with only 30 to 40 citizens of Jewish heritage.The first known Jewish settler of Hillsborough County was Emmaline Ountz Miley, who arrived in the 1840s from Alabama to homestead with her husband William G. Miley and children at Thonotosassa where they had the first citrus grove. Miley descendants are still prominent in Thonotosassa and surrounding areas.
Levy Yulee, for whom Levy County was named, was serving as Florida's first U. S. Senator when he established a sugar cane plantation on the Homosassa River in 1849, but commercially was best known for his Florida Railroad of the 1850s.
Yulee, while serving his second term in the Senate, earned a reputation as an ardent defender of the South and resigned his seat upon Florida's secession. After the Civil War, he engaged in various endeavors, including his railroad and real estate investments at Cedar Keys.
Civil War buffs will be interested in the presentation of a brief account of the flight through Florida of Judah P. Benjamin, Confederate statesman, whom Abraham Lincoln called "the smartest of all the officials in the Richmond revolutionary government."
Commencing in the summer of 1869, new investments and initiatives introduced into the Tampa Bay region by Jewish merchants and entrepreneurs changed the face of business enterprises.
George Blum and David Kloppenburg opened a farm producing purchasing store, which was soon followed by the dry goods and general merchandise store and cedar mills' operations of Gustave Lewinson, Edward Bettman and Isidore Blumenthal, with the latter in 1870 consolidating control.
Diversity came in the form of Riverside Restaurant and Oyster Saloon, one of the partners being Gustave Oppenheimer.
Jewish merchants soon accepted public service in Hillsborough County and under their leadership numerous innovations were made. In May 1871, Charles Slager, who'd opened a store in Tampa in December 1870, accepted appointment as Tampa postmaster and later served as county sheriff/tax collector and on the school board. Isidore Blumenthal in June 1871 was appointed to the Hillsborough County board of county commissioners.
A downturn in business in Tampa, due perhaps in part to the interior counties of Polk and Manatee having developed a prosperous cattle trade with Cuba, led to a new venue for opportunity to supply merchandise to doubloon-enriched cattlemen.
R. Cohen of Palatka entered into a partnership with a former Fort Meade cattleman to operate stores at Fort Meade, Bartow and Fort Ogden.
Philip Dzialynski, Cohen's brother-in-law, accepted charge the Bartow store and later owned stores in Orlando and Meade. He began involved in other activities, e.g., a real estate agent, citrus grove and hotel owner. Dzialynski was active in civic affairs. While in Bartow, he organized with Charles Slager a chapter of the Royal Arch Masonry. On two different occasions he served on the Polk County board of county commissioners.
Business downturns led to an exodus of Jewish residents from Tampa so that by late 1881 there was possibly only one Jewish couple living in Tampa.
The impetus of H. B. Plant's railroad energized Tampa. Arriving with the boom in late 1883 or early 1884 were Herman and Bertha Glogowski. Herman established a clothing store and involved himself with the Tampa Board of Trade. Herman advanced in Masonic orders and was principal founder of Tampa's Congregation Schaarai Zedek. He served as mayor of Tampa for four one-year terms during 1886 to 1892.
Dr. Brown in Jewish Pioneers continues his pattern of excellence, first evidenced in Florida's Peace River Frontier in 1991. The 84-page illustrated paperback can be ordered for $6.20 from the Tampa Bay History Center, P. O. Box 948, Tampa, FL 33601-0948, telephone 813/228-0097.
Also available from the Center is a newly released audio cassette book, Children on the Tampa Bay Frontier, narrated primarily by the author Canter Brown, Jr. A synopsis of this region in the 19th century, it will entertain child and adult alike.
This review was published in The Herald-Advocate (Wauchula, Fla.) of March 11, 1999.
January 11, 2001& links = October 16, 2001& "Passover," April 26, 2002