Dade County FlArchives History - Books .....Pioneer Merchants 1925
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Book Title: Historical Sketches And Sidelights Of Miami, Florida

CHAPTER VIII
PIONEER MERCHANTS

   IN no class of Miami's vocational subdivisions is the result of time so
manifest as in that of the merchant class. In the past quarter of a century
great changes took place in this important group of Miami's citizenship. Of the
very earliest pioneer merchants only two are still engaged in their original
business, namely, Sewell Brothers and F. T. Budge. (The firm of John Sewell &
Brother enjoys the distinction of opening the first store on the north side of
the river.)

   Among the earliest pioneer merchants who have retired from their original
occupations are the following: E. L. Brady, J. E. Lummus, John W. Watson,
Townley Brothers, Harry C. Budge (now manager of E. B. Douglas Co.'s Department
store) and the writer.

   Among the later pioneers who have changed their vocations or have retired
from active business are the following: D. R. Knight, W. H. and J. F. Chaille,
Eugene Romfh, Geo. B. Romfh, Frank H. Wharton, J. D. Girtman, J. I. Wilson, H.
T. Whaler, A. J. Kolb, John Tompkins, Dr. Maynard, R. W. Rhodes, J. H. Cheatham
and J. M. Burdine. Of the foregoing class who are still engaged in their
original occupations are the following: E. B. Douglas, W. M. Burdine's Sons and
W. D. Hughes & Co.

   Of the still later entrants into the mercantile field that are still
operating their original establishments are the following: Oscar Maynard,
Railey-Milam Hardware Co., H. E. Overstreet, Miami Grocery Co., C. J. Ericson,
C. H. Gautier, W. H. Peeples and C. W. Hill (the Burdine & Quarterman
establishment, belonging to this class, is being operated under new management).
Of this class who had retired in the past few years are the following: C. M.
Brown, Sr., Will Gautier, C. D. Leffler, J. C. Wilcox, F. A. P. Jones, T. A.
Bogue, Bush & SafFord, Walter Harris and L. E. Edwards.

   "The material condition of a town's merchants is its prosperity barometer,"
is an aphorism that is peculiarly applicable to Miami. Miami's prosperity is
easily discernible by an inspection of its leading mercantile establishments,
particularly the highly developed four oldest establishments, namely, W. M.
Burdine's Sons, E. B. Douglas, John Sewell & Brother, F. T. Budge Company and
the two younger ones, namely, Burdine & Quarterman Company and The New York
Department Store. Every one of these prominent stores had a most humble
beginning — their growth is symbolic of the general growth of the city that made
their remarkable progress and success possible.

  Among the retired pioneer merchants none has given the city and county more
consistent and more valuable service than John W. Watson. Mr. Watson established
his former hardware store in 1896. When not engaged in representing his
constituency in the legislature, or in serving the city as mayor, he attended to
his store. Our citizenship is immeasurably profiting by his accumulated
legislative and administrative experiences. Mr. Watson may aptly be called the
"Watch Dog" of the municipality of Miami.

  Other faithful public servants of the merchant class are: E. L. Brady, J. E.
Lummus, John Sewell, J. I. Wilson, Frank H. Wharton and Joseph Chaille (the
latter is responsible for the change in Miami's street-naming system). This
group of patriotic citizens has devoted much of their valuable time to the
welfare of the community. Their service on the former city councils, in spite of
having been hampered by that primitive form of municipal government, has been in
the main of a highly commendable character.

   (Among others who served the community as councilmen are: F. W. Hahn, R. J.
Mathers, W. B. Moore, the late F. G. Erfert, the late T. N. Gautier, C. W. Hill,
Ben Hunter, E. C. Romfh, Med Kellum, the late Chas. F. Filer, the late J. C.
Tucker, T. L. Cheatham, J. G. Crossland, W. M. Brown, C. H. Raullerson, J. A.
Conrad, L. Granger, the late Mike J. McDonald, Robert McLendon, L. T. Highleman,
Henry R. Chase, Kingsley Fink, and L. R. Blackmon. The late Rodman S. Smith, P.
A. Henderson and the late Pruden Smith served terms as mayor.)

   Another group of public-spirited merchants, composed of E. B. Douglas, E. G.
Sewell, C. D. Leffler and R. B. ("Roddy") Burdine, have always proven responsive
to the call of civic duty.

   E. B. Douglas is not only a successful merchant, but also a successful
philanthropist. His success in business may be ascribed to the sympathetic
relationship that has always existed between himself, his employees and the
patrons of his mercantile establishment. In the cultivation of this enviable
relationship, Mrs. Douglas, who is the personification of the ideal helpmate,
has played as important a part as she did in the gradual accretion of their
material substance. Since her withdrawal from active team work in the Douglas
store she became the mainspring of her team-partner's civic activity. This place
she occupies as creditably as when plying her magic needle in the construction
of the Douglas fortune.

   Mr. Douglas arrived in Miami on the first day of March, 1898. Shortly after
his arrival, he opened a dry-goods store for a Pensacola firm which he managed
until it was destroyed by Miami's second disastrous fire about a year later.
This fire originated in the adjoining building.

   In settlement with his firm after the fire, Mr. Douglas accepted a quantity
of salvaged stock as compensation for his and Mrs. Douglas* services. With this
humble beginning Mr. and Mrs. Douglas built up one of the largest department
stores in the state.

   In recent years Mr. Douglas has devoted considerable of his time and funds to
philanthropic enterprises. The Y.W.C.A. and the Red Cross organizations are his
favorite benefactions. During the World War he devoted his entire time to the
supervision of the Red Cross activities. Since then he has been concentrating
his efforts on the fostering of the former institutions, the City Hospital and
to the Boy Scout organization. He is also devoting much of his time and energy
to Miami's Community Chest organization of which he is the chairman. Mr. Douglas
stands out as an example of the results of diligent application to business,
frugality, hard work and honorable dealing. (Mr. Douglas retired from active
business after this was written.)

   Of the pioneer merchants who soon after starting discontinued their original
business none has had a more checkered career than Harry C. Budge. Mr. Budge,
who was the leading dry-goods merchant of Titusville, sold his store and settled
in this city early in 1896. After retiring from his own business, he managed his
brother Frank's hardware store. He later became Miami's postmaster, in which
office he served for a number of years. He finally accepted the responsible
position of manager of one of Miami's biggest and most modern department stores,
in which in the course of time he secured a financial interest.

   Harry Budge has the distinction of having conducted the first community drive
for funds, which he collected for the purpose of improving the trail that
meandered through Brickell's hammock to the village of Coconut Grove in order to
give the settlers of that region access to Miami.

   John Sewell has been identified with the progress of this city from its very
inception. Prior to joining his brother Ev Sewell in the mercantile field he had
been employed by the Flagler interests as road construction superintendent.
Under his able direction the site upon which the Royal Palm Hotel stands, and
which was dotted with Indian mounds, has been levelled and made ready for the
rapid erection of what was then the last link of Henry M. Flagler's chain of
famous hotels. Mr. Sewell constructed countless miles of roadways and streets in
the city of Miami. Although the busiest man among the pioneers, he took a
prominent part in the incorporation of the city and in other civic activities.
It was due to his political sagacity and exuberant enthusiasm that the required
number of voters had been mustered to dignify Miami with the title of "City" at
the very outset of its existence, thus conferring upon it the distinction of not
having passed through the process of hamlet, village or town. John Sewell has
served the city and county as Councilman, Mayor and Commissioner, and in many
other ways has contributed, in a large measure, to the welfare of the community.

   E. G. Sewell ("Ev"), one of Miami's first merchants, has taken a prominent
part in community activities, and has contributed liberally from his means
toward the upbuilding of the city and is still intensely active in all important
community movements. Since attaining the presidency of the Chamber of Commerce,
to which office he is repeatedly elected, often without opposition, he is giving
the community highly constructive service. His ceaseless activity and assiduous
application in pushing Miami and Dade County into the limelight, and in
safeguarding the interests of the city, makes him an outstanding figure among
the public-spirited citizens of Miami. His marked initiative and aggressive
leadership in all important enterprises sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce is
responsible for many developments tending towards a greater and more prosperous
Miami, one of the most important of which is the making of Miami Harbor a port
of entry by the Clyde Steamship Company, which at this writing is an assured fact.

   Mr. Sewell's indefatigable efforts to make Miami the most-talked-of city in
the country, resulted in inestimable free publicity in the leading newspapers
and magazines of the nation. Ev Sewell is noted for his devotion to the
community without counting the cost to his private business. This characteristic
in his makeup is largely responsible for his ability to surround himself with
influential allies in the prosecution of the work of the Chamber of Commerce.
Among his notable coworkers are included W. N. Urmey, Crate D. Bowen, H. H.
Mase, Frank J. Pepper, B. B. Tatum, Judge Frank Smathers, John C. Gramling, M.
O. Fullam, Norman Graves, John B. Orr, I. E. Schilling, Lorrain G. Smith and a
host of other prominent citizens. With the cooperation of Miami's representative
business and professional men Mr. Sewell has succeeded in making the Chamber of
Commerce the mainspring of Dade County's marvelous progress. To make Miami the
foremost tourist resort in the country is his great desideratum. However, he is
in accord with the industrial bureau of the Chamber of Commerce in its efforts
to secure manufacturing industries of a character that will not detract from
Miami as a tourist resort.

   In this connection it should be noted that the auspicious inauguration of the
Clyde passenger and freight service between New York and Miami, which is the
culmination of years of persistent effort by the Miami Chamber of Commerce, and
its predecessor the Board of Trade, under the able direction, during the last
decade, of President Sewell, will doubtless prove the most important factor in
the approaching realization of the dreams of Miami's pioneers. (The arrival of
the Clyde S.S. Apache in the port of Miami, on Sunday, November 23, 1924, with a
full cargo of miscellaneous freight and about two hundred passengers, marks the
creation of Miami's "Aristocracy of the first great Ship," as the arrival of the
first passenger train into incipient Miami, in the month of April, 1896, had
created the fast-vanishing "Aristocracy of the first Train.")

   Mr. Sewell leaves nothing undone in providing high-class entertainment for
the ever-increasing influx of winter visitors in Miami. The most popular and
best appreciated features of the entertaining program are: Arthur Pryor's Band,
which gives afternoon and evening concerts during the entire tourists' season,
and the noted singer, Miss Rachel Jane Hamilton, who delights the thousands of
music lovers who gather daily in the Royal Palm Park in attendance at Arthur
Pryor's concerts. Mr. Pryor and his family own a beautiful home in one of
Miami's attractive suburbs.

   C. D. Leffler, Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce Industrial Bureau, is
another of Miami's prominent boosters. Mr. Leffler is noted for his erstwhile
vigorous opposition against discriminative freight rates. His militancy in this
direction and keen interest in local politics gave him considerable following
and influence in the community. He has been Chairman of the Dade County
Democratic Executive Committee, he also served a term as Mayor-Commissioner and
is now a member of the City Commission. Mr. Leffler is also president of the
Miami Bank and Trust Company.

   J. I. Wilson is another public-spirited citizen who took part in the
upbuilding of Miami. He devoted much of his time and energy to the welfare of
the community. He served the public as Councilman for several terms and is now a
member of the City Commission. Mr. Wilson is also the present head of the Dade
County Security Company.

   Frank H. Wharton, the present City Manager, has contributed liberally toward
the upbuilding of Miami. He was very active in the city's early civic
organizations and was tireless in his efforts to accelerate Miami's progress. He
served the city as Councilman and Mayor, and with the change of the municipal
government into a commission-manager form he was called upon by the Board of
Commissioners, after a short tenure in this office by his predecessor, to assume
the responsible position of City Manager.

   Another pioneer mercantile firm that participated in the progress of the city
and county is Anthony Brothers. This firm whose headquarters had been located at
West Palm Beach, entered the local field early in the history of the city. In
1900 the firm changed its name to the "Anthony-Romfh Company," which new firm
was successfully operated for a number of years under the management of its
junior partner, Eugene B. Romfh. In 1906 the latter bought the Anthony interests
in that establishment and continued the business until about 1915, when he sold
out his haberdashery to Burdine & Tucker, who converted it into a shoe store.

   The Anthonys have played an important part in the progress of Miami as well
as in that of West Palm Beach. J. R. and A. P. (Gus) Anthony are numbered among
the first of Dade County's pioneer promoters of financial and commercial
enterprises. J. R. Anthony who had entered the realms of finance when scarcely
out of his 'teens had been, for a number of years, connected with a prominent
financial institution, with offices at Pittsburgh, Penn., whose specialty was
the promotion of public-utility enterprises and banks.

  The Anthony Brothers took a leading part in the organization of the First
National Bank of Miami in which, with their non-resident associates, they held
the controlling interest until 1905, when they sold their holdings in this
institution to Edward C. Romfh, E. A. Waddell and W. H. Spitzer. Following this
successful venture the Anthonys entered into the organization of a system of
chain-stores. Subsequently the older of the brothers, J. R. Anthony, withdrew
from this field, leaving the chain-store business to his younger brothers, Gus
and Emil, who until recently have been successfully operating stores in Florida
and other states.

  J. R. Anthony concentrated his energy upon the organization and administra
tion of a system of chain-banks, numerous branches of which are located
throughout Florida and Georgia, one of the most prominent of which is the Miami
Bank & Trust Company. Mr. Anthony is now a resident of Miami while his brother
Gus has made Jacksonville his home since 1914, when he purchased "The Peoples
Bank" of that city.

  Of Miami's pioneer boys, who stand out as examples to the youth of this
section of the country, none is more eminently qualified for an honorable place
in the history of Miami than R. B. (Roddy) Burdine, whose success as a merchant
is only exceeded by his achievement as a financier. Roddy had arrived in this
city with his parents in 1898, when ten years of age. His father, the late
William M. Burdine, had removed from Bartow, Florida, to Miami and opened a
small mercantile establishment on South Miami Avenue, between Flagler and First
streets.

   Upon graduation from Miami high school the youngster entered his father's
establishment and quickly mastered the business of a dry-goods merchant. Upon
the demise of his generally lamented father, he took charge of the store for the
benefit of the surviving family. In 1912, at the age of twenty-four, he
consummated the remarkable undertaking of the erection and stocking of what was
then the biggest building south of Jacksonville, "The Burdine" building, on
Flagler Street between Miami and First avenues. Within a few years Burdine's
Sons' business had expanded to an extent that an annex much larger than the
original structure was required to house the greatly enlarged department store,
which, under Roddy Burdine's direction, has attained its present prominent
position in the mercantile world.

   The Burdine building as it now stands is five stories high and extends
through the block from Flagler Street to Southeast First Street, with a frontage
of 50 feet on Flagier Street, 250 feet on First Street and 240 feet on Miami
Avenue. Its combined floor space aggregates 151,000 square feet. This colossal
structure houses a modern emporium, which compares favorably in magnitude and
variety of departments with those of the most notable in the important cities of
the country, and is a revelation to visitors from the metropolises of the nation.

   This mammoth department store has added materially to the prestige of Miami
in its important contribution to making this city the shopping center of
innumerable towns and agricultural communities within an extensive and rapidly
settling territory.

   "Roddy" Burdine never fails to respond to the call of civic duty. He has been
prominently identified with diverse community movements, especially in that of
the inauguration of Miami's new municipal government and in the launching and
successful consummation of the recent Community Chest enterprise; in both of
which important movements he has rendered distinguished service.

   In the financing of his tremendous department store project he was ably
assisted by his brother, R. F. ("Freeman") Burdine, who is another Miami pioneer
product. "Freeman" has succeeded in defying the law of heredity by choosing the
career of a lawyer instead of following his father's vocation.


Additional Comments:

Extracted from:

HISTORICAL SKETCHES AND SIDELIGHTS OF MIAMI, FLORIDA
BY ISIDOR COHEN

MIAMI
PRIVATELY PRINTED

1925

Copyright, 1925,
By ISIDOR COHEN,
MIAMI, FLORIDA

PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. 
UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, MASS.


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