Manatee County FlArchives Biographies.....Gillespie, John Hamilton 1852 - ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/fl/flfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com February 3, 2008, 5:07 pm Author: B. F. Johnson John Hamilton Gillespie The large investments by foreign corporations in Florida lands and industries has not only been of the material value that new capital makes, but has resulted in the coming into the State of an untold number of immigrants of the better class, who have made their homes here and aided greatly in the development of the agricultural and industrial interests. It has also resulted in bringing to the State a particularly influential and desirable type of citizens, who came as the representatives of the foreign interests, and when their work was done, remained to further participate in the upbuilding of the State and partake of the general prosperity which they had helped to bring about. These men have almost become invariably powerful factors in the development of their several communities, and received recognition at the hands of the people of their ability and fitness for leadership. A distinguished representative of the latter class, who came to Florida as the manager of a corporation, having extensive interests here, and has become a valued and esteemed citizen of his community, is J. Hamilton Gillespie, of Sarasota. He is prominent in the legal profession, in social life, and in the fraternal orders, and has been for five consecutive terms honored by the people of his city with election as their Mayor. He is a native of Scotland, of a cultured family, highly educated, and possesses in an eminent degree all the qualities of character for which his people are noted. He comes of an old and well known Scotch family. His great-grandfather, Colonel Hamilton, whose watch and sword he now has in his possession, was a young officer under General Wellington, in India. His grandfather, as a young man, was a great hunter and traveler in the Hudson Bay country, in Canada, but so far as is known none of the family ever lived in the States. Mr. Gillespie is the son of Sir John Gillespie, Kt., lawyer, and Margaret Ross (Robertson) Gillespie. He was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, October 14, 1852. As a youth he attended Hunter's School, at York Place, Edinburgh, Scotland, for five years, and the Edinburgh Academy for six years. He rounded off his education with a course at both St. Andrews University and the Edinburgh University. He did not graduate at either and took no degrees, though eligible for the degree of M.A. at both institutions. He began his professional career in Edinburgh, 1870, when apprenticed for Writer to Her Majesty's Signet, the first legal body in Scotland. He was admitted as a member of the Writer to the Signet Society in 1875. He was commissioned in the Royal Company of Archers, Queen's Body Guard in Scotland, in November, 1875. He was commissioned as Lieutenant in the First Midlothian Coast Artillery Brigade in May, 1881, and as Captain in 1884. He entered the government service in Queensland, Australia, in 1884, and a year later was appointed manager of the Florida Mortgage and Investment Company. He came to Florida in 1885 and has since made his home here. For many years he successfully managed the affairs of the land and investment company, until 1898, when he was admitted to the bar and entered upon the general practice of law. He has been in every way successful in his adopted home in the practice of his profession of earlier years, and has won for himself a prominent place among the leading lawyers of the State. He is President of the Manatee County Bar Association and is a member of the Florida State Bar Association and the American Bar Association. Mr. Gillespie was the first to introduce cement and sand buildings to Sarasota, spending at least $60,000 in erecting bridges, sanitarium, bank building and sea-walls. He has been a justice of the peace for four years, a notary public for ten years, and has been Mayor of Sarasota for five consecutive years, having first been elected in October, 1902. He is a member of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and has been lay reader in his church for twelve years. In politics he is a Democrat of the Grover Cleveland school. In social and club life he is prominent, being a member of the Seminole Club and the Florida Country Club of Jacksonville, and the Sarasota Yacht and Gun Club and of several clubs in Scotland. He is a member of the Free and Accepted Masons and of the Knights of Pythias. He considers the standard literature of Great Britain and America most helpful, and newspaper reading most pernicious. He is a frequent contributor to periodicals, especially for New York Golf and The Golfers' Magazine, of Chicago, writing under the pen name of "The Colonel." He is an outspoken opponent of State prohibition, believing that local option is all that that any sensible men can demand. Mr. Gillespie is a fine sample of the Scottish race, which is noted for men of large stature. He stands an even six feet, weighs two hundred and fifty pounds, has a chest measure of forty-eight inches, and yet modestly claims that he is the smallest member of his family. Very fond of outdoor sports, he is equal to his thirty miles a day at walking, a capital dancer, a good boxer, and a great golfer. He has owned for some years a golf course at Sarasota of one hundred and fifteen acres on which he has erected and maintains a handsome club house. He has so much confidence in himself in that direction, having played golf for fifty years, that he is willing to meet any amateur on the links. In a private letter he rather humorously said that he heard of a man who was going to vote against Taft because he played golf, but in his mind that was one of the strongest reasons why he should be voted for. A rather curious incident of his early life was that when he was a member of the Royal Company of Archers, when chosen for the Queen's Body Guard for Scotland, at the request of Her Majesty his picture was taken, but as at that time his face appeared too youthful, an older face was made up to go with his body. Mr. Gillespie is no older in spirit today that he was at the time that his face appeared too youthful for his body. By a healthful out-of-door life which he does not allow to interfere with a proper pursuit of his professional and business interests, he preserves that best of all things in this life, a sound mind in a sound body. He is now one of the large real estate owners of his section, and with the development now going forward in that section of Florida he bids fair in a few years to reap a very large profit from his investments as a reward of his foresight. He believes the country would know greater prosperity if there were less distrust of railroads. He advocates the opening of the land for settlement and for growing fruits, especially grapes, and advocates making the State a great wine growing State. He urges the encouraging of immigration of educated and industrious families with some means and a trade. He believes there should be greater safeguards thrown around the elective franchise and that no foreigner should have a vote until he has been in this country for ten years; that universal suffrage should be done away with and that unless a man owns property to the value of one thousand dollars he should not have a vote. The grafter and the demagogue should be eliminated. He belives in the opening up of more harbors and the deepening of the same, the developing of canals and of the railroads and above all the building of a complete system of good public roads. He says that as a lawyer he feels that courtesy and honorable conduct win out in the long run. In the real estate business he says there is a crying need for reform, as many dealers are quite without scruples. As to advice to the young who are ambitious to succeed, he says be believes that avoidance of extremes in everything is best. Be not too zealous to get rich, nor too easily tired of work, and follow a careful observance of the Golden Rule. Mr. Gillespie was married May 23, 1905, to Blanch McDaniel, the eldest daughter of Judge R. P. and Marcella McDaniel, of Sarasota. Additional Comments: Extracted from: FLORIDA EDITION MAKERS OF AMERICA AN HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL WORK BY AN ABLE CORPS OF WRITERS VOL. III. Published under the patronage of The Florida Historical Society, Jacksonville, Florida ADVISORY BOARD: HON. W. D. BLOXHAM COL. FRANK HARRIS HON. R. W. DAVIS SEN. H. H. McCREARY HON. F. P. FLEMING W. F. STOVALL C. A. CHOATE, SECRETARY 1909 A. B. CALDWELL ATLANTA, GA. COPYRIGHT 1909 B. F. JOHNSON Photo: http://www.usgwarchives.net/fl/manatee/photos/bios/gillespi29gbs.jpg File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/fl/manatee/bios/gillespi29gbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/flfiles/ File size: 9.1 Kb