The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-08-19
FLORIDA's NEGRO CITY.
EatonviIIe Contests the Claim of the
Alabama Town.


Eatonville, Fla, Aug. 1S-The Press dis-
patch in the Morning News from Birming-
ham. Ala, headed mo White Man Lives
There" puts forth claim that has 10
foundation in fact. when il states that the
newly organized town of Hobson City viii
DE the most unique town in the United
States in that it will be the only eXclu-
sively negro one in the country. 1t is
also claimed in the dispatch that Upon
this experiment hinges the question OF the
negroes ability to govern their own peo-
Pile and the experiment will be
watched with much interest in Alabama
In the first pace, Hobson City is not
the first exclusively negro town In the
United States; and secondly, its incOrpor
alton under negro rule is not an expert
ment. EatOnville, in Orange county. was
the first negro city incorporated and for
a dozen or more years past has been sue
ceSsfully solving the problem-no longer
an experimental negro self-goVernment
Hobson City, therefore must abandon its
claim and take a back seat"
More than dozen years ago Hon. Lewis
Lawn nee. a Utica, N. Y, newspaper man
Of wealth, and Roscoe Conkling's bosom
friend, owned a valuable orange grove at
Lake Maitland a mile from here on the
Plant System main line. He was a noted
Republican and quite friend to the negro
race. He it was who first conceived the
idea Of negro city and in connection
with the fate Capt. Isaiah c. Eaton L. S.
navy, who also had a lovely orange grove
home half a mile from here on Lake Cal h
crime, started the bah in molten. They fin
ANY developed the negro city of EatonviIe
Inhabited and run entirely by negroes
At the start, of course. the wealthy
white people, mostly winter residents of
Maitland, aided in tie matter of churches,
schools and other public improvements so
that the then experiment had very fair
show, and moved forward with every
prospect of a steady and healthy growth
in an its departments.
What Eatonvlle might have become,
but for the severe freezes is mere guess
work; but the fact remains prominent that
1t has held its own and done better than
many similarly situated towns in this
county, owned, occupied and run by white
people. 1t has two prosperous business
concerns, a pOstofficG, two churches, Bap-
fist and Methodist, an excellent graded
school and a public han used by the ne
gro societies. The postmaster, Joseph r.
Clark, is a leading merchant, and a men,
Der of the Republican county commit
tee The Mayor, Samuel M Moseley, is
from Madison county, Florida, and one of
the wealthiest colored men in the state,
having a fine two-story residence, and a
handsome family carriage. There is a
CITY marshal ana one Policeman. ana IN no
town is good order more strictly main
tanned or the sale of whisky more posi-
lively prohibited At one OF two periods
there has been newspaper printed here,
and the Office contents are now in the
hands of Watson, of the firm of Watson &
Wife, merChants-the only firm of the
kind that uses such a title.
Some of the we'll to-do families have
sent their sons and daughters away to be
class .caly educated al various negro col
leges. Only a few years ago a strong and
almost successful effort was made to move
Walters College here from Jacksonville,
and just now a movement is on foot TO es-
tablish the Robert Hungerford Industrial
School here, to be a branch of Booker
Washington's famous school al Tuskegee,
Ala. Prof. R. c. Calhoun. the principal
of the graded school, and his wife are at
the head of the movement, backed b.
Bishop II. B. Whipple and other wealthy
white people Prof. Calhoun was educated
at Booker WashingtOn's school, and IS
quite competent industrial teacher When
this proposed school gets into full opera
tion-if no more disastrous freezes strike
the orange groves-it is safe to predict new
life and greater prosperity for this unique
Negro City of Florida.
As an impartial observer for years past
of this experiment, your correspondent is
Of the opinion that negroes do not like
to he set aside to live by themselves and
under their own municipal government.
except when they are located near some
white city or town. They never have
and they never will, get along in them
selves. by themselves and for themselves
AS in the past, so in the present and flu
ture. the white people must give them
money and other needed help They also
like to patronize stores, postoflces and
other places where they can associa te
with white people. Eatonville's success
has largely been owing to this kind of
favorable environment. Winter Park
with its big Seminole Hotel, is only two
miles south; Altamonte Springs with its
big hotel, is only two miles north, while
Maitland with its Park House, is less than
mile distant All these places in the
winter are filed with wealthy winter resi-
dents, who have elegant homes. or the
same class who prefer hotel life 1t IS
| easy, therefore for an exclusively negro
city to exist near such communities.