Indian Key forgotten by time but not by the history books

BY CESAR BECERRA, Special to The Herald

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INDIAN KEY -- The Spanish had some imagination, especially in naming the Florida Keys.

Take for instance Cayo Hueso, or Island of Bones, taken from the tale of savage island cannibals who left their human appetizers rotting on the beach. A far cry from what the Key West Chamber of Commerce wants you to think of when you visit the party palace at the end of U.S. 1.

But the Spanish were never more creative in naming places than when it came to ribbing the French. One island has a tale of a French armada that ran aground on nearby Alligator Reef, located halfway between Miami and Key West. The story goes that in the mid-1600s, the mighty Calusa Indians took advantage of this nautical blunder and transferred 400 of these poor mariners to a small 10-acre island just a mile away and killed them.

The Spaniards named the island Isla de Matanzas -- Island of Murder. Not a place you would want to be when history decides to repeat itself. Did a crew of canoe-faring Indians murder 400 Frenchmen -- or were the Spanish intent on protecting and spooking off potential suitors to one of the Keys' deepest-harbored islands?

And so it was that Indian Key got its bad reputation as a place of doom.

It attracted Dade County's first corrupt politician, a young Staten Island native named Jacob Housman. In the 1800s, Housman wanted to strike it rich in the lucrative wrecking industry off the coastal cities of South America. Salvaging was the practice of assisting downed vessels rescue their precious cargo. It was a fine line between wrecker and pirate -- usually having to do with how valuable your goods were.

Housman realized he had set his sights too far, because Key West was booming.

He decided to become a one-man operation, working the waters near Key Largo until one day he lucked out with a ship that ran aground filled to the brim with gold. Instead of bringing the captain and goods to the Key West courts, Housman and his newfound booty went north to St. Augustine. A St. Augustine official let him keep 60 percent of the gold, and overnight Housman became a very wealthy man.

This did not sit well with the wreckers at Key West. Customary procedure would have given Housman no more than 20 percent of the loot. Word on the water was to bring him in, dead or alive. With a bounty on his head, Housman began watching his back. He hired a small militia to protect his interests. At the same time, he kept a lookout for an island hamlet to base his now illegal operations.

IDEAL LOCATION

Indian Key fit the bill. Not only did it have a deep water channel that led to one section of the island, it was situated next to some of the most treacherous reefs in the Keys. He paid $10,000 for the key and began carving out a small kingdom.

When Housman and his private militia arrived on Indian Key in 1831, there was nothing but a few shrubs, a side of mangroves and a treacherous coral rock coast. Housman spent a considerable amount of his wealth on landscaping the islands with tamarind, orange and lime trees to impress a Southern belle from South Carolina that he was intent on marrying. A hotel was built, complete with a full bar, loose women and a nine-pin alley sporting bowling balls made out of lignumvitae trees from a nearby island.

With business booming, two large warehouses went up, the foundations of which are still exposed today. Life was good for Housman, despite the constant worry of a bounty hunter hauling him back to the still-angry mob in Key West or the U.S. government revoking his precious wrecking license.

Although the details are sketchy, it is believed that Housman, in one of his most devious plans, bribed the Territorial Council of Florida to create a new county carved out of Monroe -- which then stretched from Key West to Jupiter.

A MAN NAMED DADE

That new county was created on Feb. 4, 1836, and named after Sir Frances Longhorn Dade, a lieutenant who had been killed during a Seminole raid on federal forces in Bushnell. The newly formed Dade County had its first seat of government conveniently located on Indian Key.

Thousands of miles away, in Palmyra, N.Y., a young doctor named Henry Perrine was busy working on a cure for malaria using several teaspoons of quinine and a few droplets of arsenic. Before going out on a house call, Perrine, feeling a little ill due to the effects of mild pneumonia, proceeded to swig what he thought was a bottle of pure quinine. Instead, Perrine picked up the wrong bottle and downed pure arsenic. Perrine barely pulled through the night. However, his body had been weakened. So Perrine and his family moved to New Orleans, where Perrine later assumed the position of American consul in the Yucatan Peninsula.

OPPORTUNISTIC

As a doctor in the 1830s, Perrine was obsessed with the potential medicinal properties of tropical plants. He could not be in a better location for his work than in Mexico's Yucatan, practically in the center of the Caribbean. While studying his specimens, Perrine was issued a circular from the office of the president of the United States that asked to be notified of any botanical plants that might be of use to the American economy. Perrine was excited about the hemp plants of Yucatan, with their sharp quills and towering stalks.

In making his case, Perrine would have to prove two things: that the plants were valuable to the American economy, and that they could be grown in some part of the United States. The first part was easy. Mexico enjoyed a virtual monopoly on the rope-manufacturing industry. Navy ships all over the world relied on rope, so it was a lucrative market. The United States' growing Navy needed lots of rope and was at the mercy of Mexico's prices.

Growing hemp in the United States was a little trickier. Perrine thought South Florida's climate might work.

In Key West, the temperature was fine but the soil was not. Indian Key and Cape Florida, though, were perfect, but something puzzled Perrine: How could these two islands have the right soil when Key West did not? It turns out that both islands had brought top soil from the mainland to beautify their gardens.

The sisal hemp was the king crop of the rope industry. The Mexicans were obviously protective of the industry and would never allow the seeds out of the country unless they were boiled. Perrine's challenge was daunting, but fate lent him a hand when the Yucatan Peninsula experienced a malaria plague. Perrine helped save the lives of some of the area's top civic leaders. Thankful for this, they allowed Perrine to leave the country with several hundred sisal seeds. The U.S. Congress, elated by this coup, granted Perrine and the two other members of his Tropical Plant Co. 27,000 acres of land, known as the Perrine Grant. The race to start a great colony and a plantation for the introduction of tropical plants in South Florida was on.

WAR BREAKS OUT

Before Perrine left the Yucatan to claim his new land grant in South Florida, the second Seminole War broke out and the government forbade him to visit the mainland. Perrine then began his work on Indian Key, landing there with his family on Christmas Day 1838.

Housman, sensing an opportunity to strike it big with one of America's largest land owners, rolled out the red carpet for Perrine. Charles Howe, his business partner and Indian Key postmaster, gave him a house, a beautiful three-story wooden structure with a cupola on top. Perrine began planting seeds at his experimental station on nearby Upper Matecumbe Key to wait out the Seminole War. On a few occasions, though, he ventured illegally to Cape Sable and planted a few sisal and yucca trees, the offspring of which are still evident today.

Ever the businessman, Housman conjured up a plan to single-handedly assist the U.S. Army in battling the Seminoles to help end the war. His proposal -- which Congress ignored -- would pay him $200 for every Seminole he killed. Word got around to Seminole Chief Chai-ki-ka.

On the night of August 7, 1840, a band of 200 Seminoles raided the island looking for Housman. As they broke through his front door, Housman and his wife, Mary Ann, slipped out the back door barefoot and ran into the water. A nearby schooner helped them escape from the angry Seminoles.

Angered by Housman's escape, the Seminoles torched houses and shot civilians. In a desperate attempt to save his family, Perrine proceeded to distract the Seminoles' attention by leading them to the cupola of his home, where the physician was then shot and killed.

Perrine's family escaped through a turtle crawl as their home burned to the ground with their father inside. In later years, the remaining Perrines tried to revive the grant, but were unsuccessful. Housman's precious isle was uninhabitable.

Housman died off the coast of Key West one day while salvaging a ship. He slipped into the water and was crushed by two hulls. His wife returned his body to Indian Key, dug a shallow grave and placed a large slab of marble with the following epitaph: "To his friends he was sincere, to his enemies kind, and to all men faithful."

SILENT NOW

Today, Indian Key sits silent on the edge of Florida Bay and the Atlantic, halfway between Miami and Key West. No roads lead there. The sun is always shining on the tiny island that time forgot. Still in ruins is the 1840 town. A lone dock is a portal to this uninhabited but certainly not history-deprived island. Although the state provides a tour boat for a nominal cost, nothing beats a silent kayak or canoe ride to get a better sense of the secret attack that ended the dreams of a small community so many years ago.

A state historic site since 1971, Indian Key hosts a few hundred curious visitors a year. Most of the time visitors arriving alone will have the island to themselves.

That's the best way to tap into the aura that is Indian Key. As you walk the narrow streets of this tropical island -- dodging the few sharp sisal plants the park service missed -- you can almost transport yourself to another era.

-- Anonymous, July 08, 2001