Dr. Ben Brotemarkle’s “The Complete History of Florida in Less Than an Hour”

Dr. Ben Brotemarkle presented “The Complete History of Florida in Less than an Hour” before a live audience at the Pine Castle Historical Society’s Annual Meeting on December 8, 2019 at the Pine Castle Woman’s Club.  

My talk is called The Complete History of Florida in less than an hour. That’s kind of a joke because a lot of the groups I talk to, people think it would take less than an hour to tell the complete history because it all started with when Walt Disney came here. We know that’s not true. But in all seriousness, we will cover all the major periods of Florida history. We won’t cover everything, of course, but give a good overview of some interesting places and events along the way.

LISTEN  (58:26)

People have been here for over 15,000 Years…

But to start talking about the history of people in Florida, we have to go back to prehistory because people have been here for over 15,000 years. And one of the most exciting archeological discoveries in the world looks at that fact. When prehistoric people were here, happened right here in Central Florida. If you go down Colonial Drive and go all the way down past Christmas all the way to Titusville where 15 meets 95, back in 1982 they were building Windover Farms subdivision there…

Windover Farms Subdivision and Steve Vanderjast’s Discovery

There was a backhoe operator named Steve Vanderjast clearing away the muck in Windover Farms subdivision and he saw this round brownish object in his backhoe and he got down and he looked at it. And next thing he realized that what he had found was looking back at him. It was a human skull. And, he uncovered several sets of human remains. And so, the police were called in of course and they realized that this was not some serial killer’s burial ground or something. These were obviously old folks.

Human Remains 7,000 or 8,000 Years Old

They called in a young, up and coming archeologist from Florida State University named Glen Doran. And he came down and realized right away they were very old bones. They were at least Native American bones perhaps four or five hundred years old. Everybody was shocked when they did carbon dating and they came back 7,000 or 8,000 years old. And they did these excavations over two years in the mid 1980’s. I remember seeing it on the news and I am sure many of you do, too.

Oldest Known Cloth in North America

They uncovered nearly 200 complete sets of human remains. And what makes it such an amazing dig is that, it was an anaerobic peat bog and the conditions were just perfect to remarkably preserve those burials. And they were all ritualistically buried. They were wrapped in the oldest known cloth found in North America. There were bottle boards that showed they were horticulturalists as well as agriculturalists. They grew this plant to carry water thousands of years before pottery was invented.

Anaerobic Environment Preserved Brain Matter

So it really changed our way of looking at prehistoric people…. It was a pond cemetery. So they would submerge the wrapped bodies and take the branches that were bound together and stick them in the muck to hold the bodies down. Again, this perfect anaerobic environment, this preserved not only the skeletons, but 91 of the skulls had intact brain matter. So they were able to do… some DNA testing. Didn’t get as much information as they had hoped, but they were able to determine some familial relationships and so they know that people used this as a burial ground for hundreds of years.

The Indigenous People of Florida

And this, of course, leads to our look at the indigenous people of Florida. You know, the European contact came in 1513, of course, with Ponce de Leon. But when he arrived there were dozens of thriving sophisticated tribes in Florida. And, you know, when we say, Native American in Florida who do we think of? The Seminoles. That name didn’t really exist until the 1700’s. Those were Creek Indians that came down in the 1700’s.

The Apalachee

But when the Spanish arrived, all of these folks, the Apalachee in the Panhandle were sophisticated farmers. We think of Florida tribes as surviving on fish, you know, along the coastline. But they grew pumpkin, corn, squash. And the Spanish when they came were very glad about that because a lot of times their provisions ran out. They relied on Native Americans.

The Timucua

The Timucua just north of here like other tribes you may have seen going around Florida… there’s lots of these canoes where they would create them by taking a tree, cutting it down and burning the center of the log; hollowing it out and repeating that process until they had a canoe.

The Tequesta

The Tequesta you may have heard of down in what is now Miami area. You have the Miami Circle you may have heard of down there. That was back in the nineties.

Indian Tribes Paying Tribute to the Calusa Tribe

The Calusa over on the Southwest Coast were some of the most artistic of the tribes. They were also one of the most powerful. A lot of the tribes in Florida would pay tribute… they would come down and pay tribute..

The Key Marco Cat

There was an early archeological dig in the late 1800’s on Marco Island that uncovered a bunch of these masks, these ceremonial masks. Also, these most interesting artifacts can be found of our native people – the Key Marco Cat… part feline, part human. And it just came back this past year to Florida. It had been in storage at the Smithsonian Institution for the better part of the century. And it is now back in Key Marco.

The Calusa Indians Mortally Wounded Ponce de Leon in 1521

They were an artistic tribe, but they were also as I said very powerful. When Ponce de Leon came here in 1513, he gave our state’s name. But when he came back in 1521 to try to create a permanent settlement, the Calusa attacked and mortally wounded Ponce de Leon. And he ended up dying from the injuries he got from the Calusa.

People of African Descent in Florida

Interesting thing to note, all of the Spanish ships that came here in the 16th century had people of African descent aboard them. So, black people were among the first nonindigenous people to set foot in Florida….

Spanish Cattle in Florida

There were a lot of attempts for the Spanish to create a permanent settlement. Narvaez, De Soto they walked through here and they even left their cattle here for the Indians to domesticate.

Tristan de Luna

But this Tristan de Luna, in 1559 in up in what is now Pensacola, he brought 1500 settlers and a whole fleet of ships to create what was to be the first permanent settlement in Florida. But back then they didn’t have newscasters warning us weeks in advance that a hurricane might be coming… so they didn’t know that a hurricane was coming. Their ships were wiped out before they could establish to bring their provisions on shore and start this colony.

Pensacola

So it’s great news for modern archaeology students at the university there in Pensacola because they are continuing to find remains of the shipwrecks in Pensacola Bay. And they just, within the past few years discovered the terrestrial site in the attempted settlement there. It lasted about two years. Then finally de Luna had to give up. The King of Spain said enough’s enough. So they dispersed back to Mexico and Spain. So it was an attempt, but it didn’t succeed…

Christianity

It’s interesting to note that in the artist’s rendering, that there’s a clergyman right in the center. All of the Spanish ships also had clergy aboard because it was very important to them to spread Roman Catholicism to what they considered to be the New World. You remember this is the 16th century so up until this point there had been one Christian religion in the west. Anyway there was another split in the east, but we’ll focus on the west, and that was the Catholic Church.

The Reformation

In the 1520’s, Martin Luther started Lutheranism.  And shortly there after that, John Calvin started Calvinism. The King of England decided he wanted to divorce his wife, Catherine, so he started the Church of England. So all these divisions in Christianity started at that point. In fact, that era was called The Reformation; all of these attempts to reform the Catholic Church. So all of these Protestant religions were protesting something or other in the Catholic Church and started these different branches that we have in Christianity.

The Counter Reformation

The Catholic Church’s response was the Counter Reformation. For that Counter Reformation effort was to spread Roman Catholicism around the world. Which is why there was clergy on board all those ships.

Fort Caroline

So in 1561, this colony fails, but the French in 1564 come and establish Fort Caroline in what is now Jacksonville area. And the Spanish were not amused by this for a couple of reasons. First, they thought La Florida was their property and so considered the French as building on their property. They were also Huguenots. They were Protestants. In the eyes of the Spanish, they were heretics as well.

Pedro de Menendez de Aviles

So the Spanish sent this man, Pedro Menendez de Aviles to get rid of the French Huguenots, which he did… He wiped them out except for eleven musicians. He did keep the eleven musicians for their entertainment, I suppose.

The First Thanksgiving: September 8, 1565

But he did give all of the French the opportunity to renounce Protestantism and become Catholic, but they all refused and chose to be executed. But Menendez established the first continuously occupied European settlement in what is now the United States, which is, of course, St. Augustine in 1565. And this is a statute of Father Francisco Lopez who conducted the first Mass when they landed; which is also the first real Thanksgiving. It happened September 8, 1565, 55 years before the Pilgrims landed.

The Timuca Indians

The Timucua Indians were on site. They were fascinated by the Mass that was done. They imitated what the priest was doing. They had a meal. It wasn’t turkey and cranberry sauce. They had it with the provisions they had and the wine they had with them on ship.

Don Pedro Menendez

For the 400th anniversary for the establishment of St. Augustine in 1965, that huge cross was erected on the site where it is believed Don Pedro Menendez first landed. And that statue is there to commemorate him today. And that’s something I like to do by the way, you’re probably noticing, is I like to look at the way we can experience and enjoy history today. Places we can go and see and experience that can help us to relate to our long and diverse history here in Florida.

Jeaga Indians

So jumping ahead a century or so to 1696, you know we talked about the Reformation Movement, well Jonathan Dickinson was aboard a ship called The Reformation that wrecked along the southeast coast of Florida. And the Jeaga Indians was one of the tribes we talked about earlier; took the shipwrecked victims captive, the survivors.

Jonathan Dickinson’s Journal

And Jonathan Dickinson’s Journal, it had a really long title as many journals from that era did. We call it Jonathan Dickinson’s Journal… is one of the ways we know as much as we do about some of the indigenous tribes that were in Florida. Of course, a lot of what we know is from Spanish sources and other folks looking at it through a particular lens so we have to be careful about interpreting what they say. But these took the shipwrecked survivors marched them up the east coast of Florida all the way up to St. Augustine threatening to eat them along the way. We don’t know they were actually cannibals, but they were trying to scare these folks and they had a very harrowing journey. But his journal, Dickinson’s Journal tells us a lot about folks that were here.

1763 to 1783

Jumping forward another century or so, so we’ve talked about the prehistoric people, the indigenous people, the first Spanish Era, and the brief French Era. From 1763 to 1783 the British controlled Florida during the period of the American Revolution. Florida was a Loyalist stronghold during the American Revolution and so, a lot of the people who were loyal to England from the colonies to the north would come down to St. Augustine and other places in Florida for sanctuary.

Andrew Turnbull Establishes New Symrna

And during that time period, a man named Andrew Turnbull established a new colony which he called New Symrna over on the coast of what is now Volusia County just south of Daytona... And today we can go see, it’s really easy to miss if you don’t know what you’re looking for, but right in downtown New Symrna where the public docks are down there, there’s kind of a hill that you can drive right by. But, if you get out and walk… you’ll see the coquina foundation of a huge house that Andrew Turnbull started to construct there during the British period. And, it’s really fascinating. 

Turnbull’s Indentured Servants

He bought several ships, it was about 1400 Minorcans, Greeks, Italians, other folks to establish this colony. Many of them died along the way. There was a sickness on board the ships that spread. And so, there was a lot more work to be done. These were basically indentured servants. And so they were happy under Turnbull. A lot of them defected and went up to St. Augustine where they told what a tyrant Turnbull was. There are historians that are looking more closely at Turnbull’s version of events these days. Thinking that maybe he wasn’t quite as bad as he was depicted by the people who worked for him. But at any rate, the British only controlled it to 1783 when the American Revolution ended and then the Spanish took control again.

Elliott Plantation

But during that same British period… just north of NASA property, the Elliott plantation was located in what is now Brevard County and South Volusia County… a coquina wall is leftover from the Elliott Plantation where they had a big sugar crop. They created rum there. They distilled sugar. But again, the American Revolution, the slaves that work there fled; went up to St. Augustine. It looked like the war was going against the British… you can tour it. They’re actually about to start another round of archeological excavation there this coming year.

Molly Thomas

A lot of people don’t realize that the last naval battle of the American Revolution took place off our shores, off the east coast of Florida. This historic marker is located in Brevard County. In the past year or so, the woman, Molly Thomas, who is the head of cultural programs for the City of Cape Canaveral, was hoping to do some research to fill in some of the blanks about this battle. But she actually turned up documents that showed the battle actually took place farther south; that they had gone by Cape Canaveral. So she inadvertently kind of disproved the historical marker that they were very proud of in her area. But the facts are out there.

Last Naval Battle of the American Revolution

The last naval battle was a little bit farther south of Cape Canaveral. The sugar mill ruin is in New Symrna and when it was first kind of rediscovered, people thought it was a Spanish fort. But it’s actually from the American territorial period. I mentioned after the British relinquished control of Florida in 1783, the second Spanish period continues until Florida becomes a United States territory in 1821. It won’t become a state until 1845. And then, of course, it cedes from the Union very briefly. But this was during the territorial period. There was a sugar mill. There was a series of sugar mills constructed along the East Coast. But you can go have a picnic there. It’s a nice little park in New Symrna and ruins to see…

Second Seminole Indian War

During the territorial period begins the series of conflicts known as The Seminole Indian Wars. Of course, the biggest of these was the Second Seminole Indian War in the 1830’s. And that was when a whole series of forts was built around Florida… the replica of Fort Christmas is just out Highway 50. And today and yesterday they have their big Cracker Christmas event going on.

U.S. Army Forts

All of these forts, the idea was that the U.S. Army built them about a day’s walk apart so that the soldiers could walk from one fort to another during the day and have some place safe to sleep and eat their provisions at night. And many of the towns in Florida built up around these Seminole Forts. In fact, Orlando built up around… Gatlin, of course. Fort Gatlin very near here. Sanford built up around Fort Mellon. Tampa around Fort Brook. There are a lot of Florida cities that retained their Indian fort names: Ft. Pierce, Ft. Myers, Ft. Lauderdale, were all Seminole forts. And again being the idea, one day walk a part for safety.

Fort Christmas

Also in Ft. Christmas, this replica we have in our own area as well, they have collected buildings, pioneer homes, that could have been destroyed and collected down there. And cracker culture, you know, the cattle industry was a huge part of Florida. It was bigger than tourism, of course, bigger than the citrus industry, and remains big today. It was the biggest industry in Florida. Certainly in the 1800’s and well into the 20th century. There’s so many remnants of it here today. This happens to be Kissimmee where they have the Silver Spurs Rodeo and the Bluegrass Festival preserving the music and culture. It was  huge part of our Florida culture.

Barberville Pioneer Settlement

One of the places that culture is also preserved is Barberville. How many folks go out to the Barberville Jamboree? It’s the last weekend in November. It’s a great place to celebrate this culture. But, the Barber family was one of those big cattle families and the Barber-Mizell family feud of 1870’s is one of those great Florida stories. Harper’s Magazine 1864, it shows Union forces taking hold of the Barber Plantation in north Florida. But Mose Barber used to run his cattle all the way down the east coast of Florida to the Kissimmee area and then he stopped along the way. And although he was married he had companions along the way, so.

Moses Barber

But he also had a big ranch in the Kissimmee area. After the American Civil War, Barber didn’t think he should have to pay taxes to the U. S. government. He had supplied Florida all the Florida cattle, the biggest supplier of beef to the Confederate Army during the American Civil War in the 1860’s. Texas had been cut off really early and so salt products and cattle in particular were supplied to the Confederate Army. So after the war, Mose Barber didn’t want to pay taxes. 

David Mizell

Mizell, and, of course, Lake Mizell is near here, he was the sheriff and the tax collector for the entire area of what was known as Mosquito County back then before the Chamber of Commerce got hold of that name. In Mosquito County he would periodically go and take some of Mose Barber’s cattle and rebrand them in lieu of his paying taxes. And Barber basically said if you do that again I’m going to kill you. David Mizell went to serve a warrant on some of the Barber family members on Barber property in Osceola County near Kissimmee and was shot and killed. And with his dying breath to his family members he said, “Don’t avenge my death.” He didn’t want it to turn and escalate into something else. But it did.

Judge John Mizell

And his brother, John Mizell, was the judge for the whole area. And even though he was a judge, he didn’t need any pesky trial or evidence. He knew who killed his brother was that, what he referred to as “the Barber gang.” So he created a posse to go round up the Barber gang. The Orange County Courthouse burned down right after this so the records were lost. But we know at least 13 were killed in the Barber – Mizell family feud of 1870. And it involved all of the houses that are at Ft. Christmas that you can see there today. They have family names like Bates, and Fast Yates, Simmons, and they were all on one side or the other of this Barber – Mizell Family Feud.

Mizell Family Homestead at Leu Gardens

Also, something else you can see today, if you go to Leu Gardens, the house that’s in the center of it, it’s been built up a lot over the years, but that was the Mizell family homestead. And if you find the little cemetery, that’s real easy to walk by… there’s only 25-30 graves there. But the oldest one belongs to David Mizell of 1870, the first victim of the Barber – Mizell family feud.

Mary Ida Bass Barber Shearhardt

This guy is also a Barber and even the family, there’s a 50-50 chance that he’s the guy that Barberville is named after in West Volusia County…. There’s a woman, Mary Ida Bass Barber Shearhardt, who just died a couple years ago, but she wrote a book about all this called, Florida’s Frontier: The Way it Wuz. And it tells the whole story. But she was Bass so she was on the Mizell side of the feud. And she married a Barber and they had kids who were, you know, on both sides of the feud. So kind of ending it, if you want to look at it in a romantic way. But you can meet Barbers and Mizells today and you’d think the feud never ended….

But Barbeville is really a fascinating place to visit today. Again, I mentioned the Pioneer Settlement for the Creative Arts is where they have their Fall Jamboree. In the center is a school building from 1919 that is the only indigenous building there. But they’ve created a whole historic village by bringing in buildings that were going to be torn down in nearby communities. There’s a railroad depot…

Henry Flagler and the East Coast Railroad

The railroad, of course, was essential to Florida history. It really opened up in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, opened up travel to Florida and allowed shipping of citrus and other crops. Henry Flagler, of course, opening up the East Coast Railway all the way down to Key West. And Henry Plant on the west coast doing the same.

Stetson Kennedy’s WPA Oral History Project

But getting into the 20th century, here are two folks that helped document a lot of culture of Florida. On the left we have Stetson Kennedy. And Stetson Kennedy was the man during the Depression he was hired by the Works Progress Administration. They created, as I’m sure, you know, they hired people to do all sorts of things to give them jobs. But they also hired writers to go around and document history and culture. And the Florida Writer’s Project hired Stetson Kennedy to go around and conduct oral histories. And so, in the late 1930’s, he went all over the state with a recorder that was very heavy and took three people to lift. You know today we have recorders this size that can go around and record high quality stuff. They had to bring a big recorder to record all these folks.

Palmetto Country by Stetson Kennedy

But he talked to the Greek sponge divers in Tarpon Springs. You know, we have the highest concentration of Greeks per capita than any other city in the United States. He talked with turpentine still workers. He talked with Cracker cattleman. He talked with all sorts of folks and documented all of this and published it in a book called, Palmetto Country.   

Zora Neale Hurston

One of the folks that worked for him during that era was Zora Neale Hurston, who of course used to live near here. Of course, she’s best known for the 1937 novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, which tells the story, the founding of Eatonville’s in it… But she also trained as an anthropologist under Franz Boas, the founder of American Anthropology in New York. But she came back to Florida largely in Eatonville and conducted a lot of oral histories, too. As well as going to Haiti, and Jamaica, and New Orleans documenting a lot of history for us. So these two people, a lot of what we know about Florida culture and the early to mid 20th century is documented by these two folks…

Eatonville

Dust Tracks on the Road is Hurston’s autobiography and it’s kind of amusing. It starts out with her being born in Eatonville and everything that was going on…. She wasn’t born there; she was born in Alabama…. growing up in Eatonville certainly did influence her and her view of race relations. She was really quite progressive in her views. Eatonville is, of course, historic in its own right. It’s the oldest incorporated African municipality in the United States… She wrote an editorial in The Orlando Sentinel arguing against the Brown vs. Board of Education decision in 1954 because she thought it would damage the strong infrastructure of African American communities that had these great schools. It turns out she was actually right. In the long run, of course, desegregation was a great thing. But the way it was handled initially did damage a lot of African American neighborhoods….

World War I and World War II

Okay, moving forward into the 2oth century, the World War I had a big impact on our state. We were still pretty sparsely populated, but there was a lot of training that went on here for military. World War II that really had an impact. There were hundreds and thousands of soldiers that were trained here in all of the Armed Services. This is Camp Blanding up near Starke. It became the fourth largest city in Florida, that’s how many soldiers were trained here. The other way that Florida was impacted was a lot of these soldiers saw Florida and fell in love with it. So after the war, a lot of folks came here and brought their families here and settled here. And so after WWII, the population of Florida exploded because those people came down to settle here.

Harry T. Moore

All that growth was not without growing pains. This is Henry T. Moore who lived over in Brevard County in Mims. Harry T. Moore was born in 1905 in Houston, Florida. His father died when he was a teenager. He went to live with relatives in Daytona for a while and with three aunts in Jacksonville which had another thriving African American community there. But they were all professional women educators and a nurse. He graduated from Bethune Cookman College along with every member of his family. His two daughters and his wife graduated from Bethune Cookman College. But he came to Cocoa in 1925 to teach at the Cocoa Negro School and then he became principal of the Titusville Negro School and taught a lot of people how to vote and how to evaluate candidates which got him in to trouble. It got him fired from the Brevard County School System….

NAACP

He was active in the NAACP. He started the NAACP branch in Brevard County, but also was part of the statewide organization. He went all over the state with an organization that he founded registering African Americans to vote which was not popular among a lot of other people which led to his home being bombed on Christmas night 1951…

Christmas Day

His daughter was living in Washington, D.C. She couldn’t come home for Christmas Day, but came down on a train called the Silver Meteor that came into Titusville. And she didn’t hear the radio. This was international news. In fact, Russia pointed to this as an example of race relations in America. But she didn’t hear about it. So she’s on the train coming down, she comes into Titusville, the whole family’s there except for her parents. So she gets in the car with her uncle and she says, “Where are my parents?” And he says, “Well, I guess there’s no way else to tell you. Your house was bombed, your father’s dead and your mother’s in the hospital.” She died nine days later. She lived long enough for her husband to be buried…

Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore Cultural Complex and Museum

If there is a positive ending to the story, a replica of the home has been built along with the Civil Rights Museum on that property in Mims. And you can go and see it today as many school kids and the general public do visit the Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore Cultural Complex and Museum in Mims.

Florida Space Industry

I really like this photograph, it shows the past, present and future all in one here in Florida. Florida being, of course,  the launching point for all of America’s manned missions into space. This is juxtaposed with the Cape Canaveral lighthouse which was originally built in 1843. And it’s the launch of the Centaur rocket in 1972. And again, just kind of an interesting blend of our past, present, and future. And, of course, the space industry is still a big part of Florida history and still going strong….

Florida Historical Society

But before I wrap up, I do want to tell you a little bit about the Florida Historical Society, the organization which I’m the Executive Director of. We are based in Cocoa. We are the statewide Historical Society. We were established in 1856 which makes us the oldest existing historical organization in the state. We’re based in a 1939 WPA era Post Office there in Cocoa Village where we have our Library of Florida History which has thousands of rare and out of print books. We have maps dating back to the 1500s, over 17,000 historic postcards. We have historic photographs, all sorts of peoples private papers, business papers. It’s a great research library. We also have our administrative offices there.

Rosetter House Museum

We also manage the historic Rosetter House Museum in Eau Gallie in south Brevard County. And the last president of this house was Caroline P. Rosetter who is an interesting person in Florida history. In 1921, at the age of 23, her father died and he was the Standard Oil Agent for what would become the Space Coast there. So Carrie Rosetter, and this is months after women received the right to vote, went up to Kentucky to the Standard Oil’s Board of Directors meeting asking to take over her father’s Standard Oil Agency. As the story goes, she listened through the keyhole and they argued about it and argued about it. And finally somebody says, “Oh, let the little lady have it. She’ll fail in a year and we’ll give it to a man.” Well, it turns out, she didn’t last a year, she lasted 62 years becoming the longest running Standard Oil Agent in the country. She lived to be over a hundred years old. We have a handwritten note from Ronald Reagan congratulating her on her retirement. So we proudly operate her house as a house museum there celebrating women’s history, and Florida history, and pioneer history as well.

Brevard Museum of History and Natural Science

We also have the Brevard Museum of History and Natural Science that we own and operate. It’s really not a far drive from here. You can get there in about 45 minutes or so. And we like to say it has everything from the Ice Age to the Space Age… 

Dr. Ben Brotemarkle is the Executive Director of the Florida Historical Society and producer and host of the Florida Frontiers, radio and television program. Florida Frontiers: The Weekly Radio Magazine of the Florida Historical Society is a weekly, half-hour radio program airing on public radio stations throughout the state. Ben Brotemarkle is also the creator, producer and host of the weekly public radio program The Arts Connection on 90.7 WMFE-FM. From 1992 to 2000, Brotemarkle covered the Orlando local arts and cultural scene including theater, music, dance, film, the visual arts, and literature. His award-winning features have been heard around the world on Voice of America Radio, across the country on National Public Radio, and throughout the state on Florida Public Radio. He has also produced and hosted a series of award-winning television documentaries. Brotemarkle has been named Distinguished Educator and Endowed Faculty Chair of Academic Excellence at Eastern Florida State College (formerly Brevard Community College) where he teaches a course on the Humanities in Florida. Dr. Brotemarkle holds a Ph.D. in Humanities with a specialization in Florida History, and has written five books on the history and culture of the state.

Presenter: Dr. Ben Brotemarkle

History Recorded by: Jane Tracy

Date: December 8, 2019

Place: Pine Castle Woman’s Club