Much of what we know about Jewell and the people who settled there comes from Ted Brownstein’s excellent book Pioneers of Jewell. Journey with us to that time as Mr. Brownstein describes Jewell.
The story of Jewell, Florida (1885 – 1903). People began settling Lake Worth in about 1910, although the real pioneers came as early as 1885. The central parcel of Lake Worth, which was originally called “Jewell,” was owned by Fannie and Samuel James. They filed their claim in 1886 and began farming 160 acres along the waterfront, south of what is now the Lake Worth Bridge. Before the founding of the Town of Lake Worth in 1912, the mixed-race couple, believed to be former slaves, were the social and financial hub of this community of farmers on the west bank of what later became the Intracoastal Waterway. In a time and place where hard work and neighborliness meant more than race, Fannie James was the area’s first postmaster and Samuel was builder-in-chief, erecting homes, barns and wharves up and down the shoreline. A neighbor was Dr. Harry Stites, a well-known physician who gave up a successful medical practice in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to ‘rough it’ on the South Florida frontier. Another was Millie Gildersleeve, an African-American midwife, who travelled up and down the Lake with Dr. Richard Potter. Michael Merkle was a hermit who lived an austere life in a lean-to west of Jewell, eating unseasoned fish and berries. Merkle was rumored to be a defrocked Catholic priest and was known to walk the pinewoods chanting in Latin when he thought no one was listening. The untold story continues as Jewell is eclipsed with the advent of Flagler’s Florida East Coast Railroad.
