Durkee family, developers of Durkeeville

A Union veteran of the Civil War, Joseph Durkee became one of many northerners to settle in Jacksonville after the war. His son Jay Durkee (September 18, 1870 – December 29, 1936), a doctor and real estate developer, came to own a vast piece of land west of Springfield and north of LaVilla. He initially envisioned industrial development on the site, but soon realized that demand was greater for housing to accommodate Jacksonville’s burgeoning Black middle and upper classes.

The neighborhood Durkee developed, Durkeeville, became a mecca for Black business owners and professionals prohibited from living in white neighborhoods. In 2020, the oldest section, Durkee Gardens, became Jacksonville’s first African-American neighborhood designated a National Register Historic District. In the neighborhood Durkee also built Durkee Field, now J.P. Small Memorial Stadium. From 1912 to 1953 it was Jacksonville’s main baseball field, home to various minor league teams and the Jacksonville Red Caps of the Negro American League.

Grace Wilbur Trout, suffragist

Grace Wilbur Trout (March 18, 1864 – October 21, 1955) was a nationally renowned leader in the women’s suffrage movement. During the 1910s, she served as president of Chicago Political Equality League and the Illinois Equal Suffrage Association and was instrumental in convincing the Illinois Legislature to give women the right to vote in local and national elections in 1913, seven years before the 19th Amendment gave women the vote nationwide. In 1920, Trout and her family moved to Jacksonville, where they lived in the unusual house Marabanong. She was active in civic organizations such as the Garden Club and the Planning and Advisory Board.

Storck family and the Yellow Fever memorial

Photo by Katie Delaney.

The Storck family were victims of one of Jacksonville’s greatest tragedies, the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1888. This outbreak killed hundreds, displaced thousands more, and even toppled a historic biracial city government, but few suffered as the Storcks did. The entire family fell ill, and by September 5, all but 16 year old George Storck (1872 – 1943) had succumbed to the fever. A passerby heard George’s pleas for help and found the boy’s parents and sister dead. George ultimately recovered; in later life he got married and lived in Europe. Upon his death he had a dedication to family etched upon the mausoleum; it is one of the few physical reminders of Jacksonville’s Yellow Fever Epidemic.

Cummer family graves

Arthur and Ninah Cummer’s mausoleum. Photo by Katie Delaney.

Wellington and Ada Cummer’s grave. Photo by Katie Delaney.

Wellington Cummer (October 21, 1845 – December 25, 1909) and his wife Ada Cummer (August 20, 1853 – November 8, 1929) came to Jacksonville in the late 19th century along with the family’s lumber business. By 1897 they were joined by their two sons and their spouses. Eldest son Arthur Cummer (1873 – 1943) and his wife Ninah Cummer (October 16, 1875 – May 27, 1958) became heavily involved in philanthropy.

Ninah Cummer was an avid gardener, parks advocate, and art collector. In 1957, she determined to donate her art collection and riverfront estate for the creation of her most visible legacy: the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens. The Cummer’s current gardens descend directly from the expansive gardens cultivated for decades by Ninah and her sister-in-law Clara Cummer. Ninah and Arthur Cummer are interred in an ornate Egyptian Revival mausoleum; Wellington and Ada Cummer are directly across the street, while Clara and Waldo Emerson Cummer are nearby.

Union Monument

Photo by Kyriaki Karalis.

This statue is Jacksonville’s oldest Civil War monument, and the second oldest of a handful of surviving Union monuments in Florida. Union forces occupied Jacksonville four times during the Civil War, and it remained in Union hands after February 1864. During the war the city was a hotbed of loyal sentiment, and many prominent white citizens, as well as an overwhelming percentage of African-Americans, supported the Union. Erected in Evergreen Cemetery by the Grand Army of the Republic, the main Union veterans association, the Union Monument features a soldier on a detailed column reading “In memory of our comrades who defended the flag of the Union, on land and sea, 1861-1865.” It is surrounded by the graves of ten Union veterans, a few of the many Union and Confederate veterans buried in Evergreen Cemetery.

Barnett family graves

Photo by Katie Delaney.

William Barnett and his son Bion Barnett Sr. (October 7, 1857 – October 30, 1958) founded the Bank of Jacksonville, later renamed Barnett Bank, in 1877. The bank grew to be the largest in Florida and one of the largest in the Southeast until its acquisition by Nations Bank in 1997.

Bion Barnett’s first wife was Caroline L’Engle, scion of another elite Jacksonville family. The marriage ended acrimoniously, with Caroline refusing a divorce and Bion moving with his mistress Anna Hardy Bell to Europe; he and Anna married after Caroline granted the divorce in 1931. Several members of the family became notable in their own right. Bion and Caroline Barnett’s son Bion Jr., entombed elsewhere in Evergreen Cemetery, was a painter and promoter of the arts; Madeleine L’Engle, author of novels such as A Wrinkle in Time, was their granddaughter.

Bion Barnett Jr. and Yvonne Charvot Barnett, art scene originals

Photo by Katie Delaney.

The son of Barnett Bank co-founder Bion Barnett Sr., Bion Barnett Jr. (September 18, 1887 – December 31, 1965) made his own name as a painter. He achieved his first recognition in 1917 while serving in World War I, and was one of the artists featured at the opening of Jacksonville’s first art gallery later that year. He settled in France where he met his wife Yvonne Charvot (November 7 1900 – June 24, 2005), daughter of painter Eugene-Louis Charvot. They married in 1924 and remained in France until the Nazi invasion drove them to the United States in 1940.

Barnett established himself as a leading light in Jacksonville’s art scene as both a painter and president of the Civic Art Institute. Yvonne Barnett, who lived to be 105, was a concert pianist with the Jacksonville Symphony and a piano professor at the Jacksonville College of Music, now part of Jacksonville University. She was also caretaker of her father’s paintings, which she donated to the Cummer Museum in 2000.

Senator Duncan U. and Anna Fletcher

Photo by Katie Delaney.

Duncan U. Fletcher (January 6, 1859 – June 17, 1936) was one of the most accomplished political leaders in Jacksonville history. He twice served as mayor, from 1893 to 1895 and from 1901 to 1903; during his second term, he led the city’s rebuilding after the Great Fire of 1901. In 1909, he was elected Senator, an office he held for 27 years, longer than anyone else in Florida history. His accomplishments in the Senate include securing the grant that built the Jacksonville Beaches’ first high school, Duncan U. Fletcher High School. Known as the South’s “reluctant progressive,” he also chaired the Banking Committee and led the Pecora Commission, the Senate investigation of the 1929 stock market crash, which led to new reforms in the U.S. financial sector.

Anna Fletcher was an interesting figure in her own right. She was a follower of the Spiritualist religion, whose main tenant is humans’ ability to communicate with the dead through mediums. She published a book on Spiritualist practices, Death Unveiled, and defended the religion against charges of fraud before the Senate.

Article by Bill Delaney. Contact Bill at wdelaney@moderncities.com.