The story
Native American Indians, of numerous tribal groups, inhabited Florida for centuries. Actually, the Seminoles are comprised of members of several different tribes. In Stuart, Seminole Indians were a part of the pioneer community and regularly traded goods for supplies at local stores and businesses.
However, decades before in the 1830s, after the Federal Indian Removal Act was initiated, the Choctaw, Muscogee-Creek, Seminole, Cherokee and Chickasaw tribes, from the southeastern U.S. and its territory of Florida were forced to move to Indian Territory (Oklahoma), considered unwanted lands by the white settlers, but the Seminoles resisted. The transplanting of some 46,000 Native American Indians became known as the ?Trail of Tears’ and not all survived the ordeal.
The relocation defiance brought on three Seminole Wars that erupted between 1832 and 1842. Many Seminoles died fighting, while others were captured and taken by the Army to Oklahoma, however, a small number managed to escape deep into the Florida Everglades. The government soon abandoned the chase, but even after the Civil War, west of the Mississippi, there were conflicts and battles with the Indians in attempts to force them from ancestral homelands. Some whites thought that the only good Indian was a dead one.
In 1862, Henry Marsey Harjo, a full-blooded Creek Indian, was born on a reservation in Oklahoma. No doubt having to endure the ridicule, prejudice and discrimination for just being an Indian, he nevertheless sought to change people’s attitudes. As a youth, though proud of his heritage, he realized that life on a reservation would not be acceptable nor even tolerable and that a formal education was a necessity for success.
By 1880, a school of higher education for Native American Indians, Bacone College, had been established first in Tahlequah, but later relocated in Muskogee, Okla. Harjo earned a degree and became a teacher at Bacone and eventually superintendent of the Wealaka district schools, with a monthly salary of $41.66 by the early 1890s. The Baptist Missionary Organization was an integral part of Bacone College and Harjo acquired a ministry degree.
He had married a Creek Indian, Harriet, and together they had a beautiful daughter. Tragically, his wife died a few years later on March 31, 1891, followed shortly thereafter by his little child on May 6. Henry remarried, Katie, also a Creek Indian, in 1892 and they had several children.
Instigated in 1887, a Federal allotment of 160 acres, outside the reservation area, to individuals in the Indian Territory, had made the Harjos rich, as oil was subsequently discovered on their property. Henry, however, was determined that others should also benefit from his wealth and good fortune. He was aware of the descendants of hundreds of Seminole Indians in Florida who had resisted the move to Indian Territory and wanted to assist them in getting an education and improving their lives.
About 1901, he began making numerous trips to the region around Lake Okeechobee and south into the Everglades, attempting to establish schools and jobs for the Seminoles. Being a Baptist missionary and able to speak the native language, he also worked to convert the Seminoles to Christianity.
By 1914, Henry had selected Stuart in which to establish a home base, renting a house, and his family joined him for multiple months’ visits. Twenty-five acres of orange groves south of Poppleton Creek were purchased by Harjo from Charles McPherson on Feb. 7, 1916, for $10,000. In spite of the countless acres of pineapples in Stuart, Harjo never cared for the prickly fruit. He hired a local manager to maintain the orange trees year round and the groves flourished.
The large acreage also served as camp grounds for Seminoles traveling long distances, coming to Stuart for supplies. Also known as the Cow Creek Indians, they inhabited the areas called Big Mound and Hungry Land, close to Indiantown, near Lake Okeechobee.
When Harjo’s property was surveyed in 1925, it was given the name Indian Groves. (In fact, the subdivision still exists between Kanner Highway and Palm City Road, with, at one time, one of the streets named Harjo Drive.)
On March 8, 1919, Henry, who enjoyed being in Stuart, especially in the winter, bought a house for $3,000 from Andrew M. Cash and had it enlarged to meet the needs of his family, which included his wife and children Naomi, Lois, Mary, James and Joseph. The home was located in the Potsdam Subdivision (Block 12, Lot 8) near the corner of Avenue B (California) and Fourth St. (West Ocean Blvd.). An adjacent parcel (Block 12, Lot 9) was purchased from Sheldon Swope, April 28, 1919. There was a considerable amount of land, with 125 feet of frontage on 4th and 100 feet on California; the grounds were covered with fruit trees and included a large-sized outbuilding.
When not in Stuart, Harjo often traveled, making known the plight of the Seminoles. In 1917, he had spoken before the US Congress about the living conditions of American Indians.
He donated some 70 acres in the 1920s for the expansion of Bacone College and additional land for the Murrow Indian Orphan’s Home in Muskogee, Okla.
As owner of the Harjo Petroleum Co. in Okmulgee, he continued to make money, which he liberally used to help other Native Indians, especially the Seminoles in Southern Florida.
In an article in the Stuart Messenger in 1919, Henry Harjo had been proclaimed as one of the best citizens in Stuart.
He always supported causes relating to Native American Indians, even financially backing the creation of an all Indian baseball team, the Holdenville Indians in Oklahoma. By 1933, Jim Thorpe, all-star athlete of the Sac and Fox tribes of Oklahoma, managed the ball team.
Sadly, Henry’s wife, Katie died April 16, 1930 in Oklahoma and he, in his late 60s, did not travel to the Stuart home as often. In March 1932, the Harjo house was sold to Burleigh Phillips and was considered a garden spot in the neighborhood.
On July 16, 1932, Henry Marsey Harjo passed away in a hospital in Tulsa, Okla., a distinguished, highly respected and notable man in both the Indian and Caucasian communities. Ironically the property on which Henry’s house once stood was eventually owned by the First Baptist Church in Stuart.
Alice L. Luckhardt is a freelance historical researcher and writer, member of the Board of Directors for the Stuart Heritage Museum and researcher for the Elliott and House of Refuge. Greg Luckhardt, a native of Stuart & 1967 MCHS grad, is a former science teacher, retired businessman & member of Stuart Heritage Museum.
