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Pinellas County’s past preserved in family letters
By SUZETTE PORTER
Article published on Tuesday, July 8, 2008 |
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![[Image]](/content_images/070808_pco-03.jpg) |
| Photo courtesy of PINELLAS COUNTY COMMUNICATIONS |
| Making the recent donation of a historical collection of letters to Heritage Village official at the July 1 Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners meeting, are, from left, Ray Bouchard of the McMullen family; Ellen Babb of Heritage Village; Nita Crawford and Dottie Bouchard, great grandchildren of Daniel and Margaret Ann McMullen. |
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PINELLAS COUNTY – Letters from one of Pinellas County’s founding families are the latest addition to historical collections housed at Heritage Village.
Ellen Babb, interim director of Heritage Village, officially accepted a collection of family letters that had been kept by three generations of McMullen women during a Board of County Commissioners meeting on July 1.
The letters, which are not dated or signed, give a glimpse of life in the county from the 1840s to 1850s, Babb said.
The letter writers tell about the animals that used to inhabit the land when Pinellas was mostly unpopulated. They were written at the time when the nearest post office was 30 miles away in Tampa. The writers refer to Clearwater as two words – Clear Water. Pinellas was described as an “Eden in the south.”
“These letters give us a rare and honest glimpse of this family’s life in Pinellas County more than 100 years ago,” Babb said.
In 1868, Daniel McMullen and his wife Margaret built a house in an area of the county that would later become known as Rosery Road near East Bay Drive in Largo. The family occupied the house for more than 125 years, making it the longest continually lived in home in Pinellas County.
In 1992, Nancy McLaughlin and her family donated the home to Heritage Village. McLaughlin is responsible for continuing the tradition of preserving her families’ history at Heritage Village through the recent donation of family letters.
The McMullen family has been ingrained in Pinellas County history since its inception.
Pinellas County split from Hillsborough County in 1912. According to information on the Pinellas County Tax Collector’s Web site, Clearwater and St. Petersburg competed to be the first city to build a county courthouse and become the county seat.
Clearwater residents built their courthouse in just over a day at a cost of $3,750 and “blocked the southern approaches from St. Petersburg because of rumors that an attempt would be made to burn it to the ground,” according to the historical account.
Eli Bartow “Uncle Eli” McMullen, son of Daniel, was appointed the county’s first tax collector in 1912.
According to “The Seven McMullen Brothers of Pinellas County” by Robert C. Harris, Daniel McMullen was the second brother to make the county his home. Harris writes that the history of the McMullens in central Florida began in 1841 when James Parramore McMullen, 18, was sent by his father from Georgia to Florida for health reasons.
According to Harris, James lived around Tampa Bay for a year before returning home where he told his six brothers that he had found “the closest thing to heaven he could imagine.”
Harris writes that between 1848 and 1871, seven brothers by the name of McMullen moved their families from Georgia and settled in Pinellas County – and the rest is history.
Two of the McMullen family homes can be seen at Heritage Village, including the oldest structure in Pinellas County, a log cabin built by James near Clearwater. James and his wife Elizabeth raised 11 children in the cabin. Records show more than 55 children were born there. The cabin was donated to Heritage Village in 1977 and restored and furnished to it original condition.
The McMullen homes and 26 other historical structures and artifacts from Pinellas County’s history can be seen at the 21-acres living history museum known as Heritage Village. 11909 125th Street N. Admission is free.
For more information, call 582-2123 or visit www.pinellascounty.org/Heritage/default.htm.
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Article published on Tuesday, July 8, 2008
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