Did You Know... Port St. Joe |
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Did you know Florida's first state constitution was written in the present-day City of Port St. Joe?
On December 3, 1838, a constitutional convention composed of 56 elected commissioners from Florida's 20 established territorial counties met at St. Joseph in the Panhandle on the Gulf Coast. Hoping to be granted statehood, the group convened for a little more than a month to draft the state's first constitution. Of the 56 members present, only three were Florida natives. The remaining delegates had moved to Florida from 13 other states and four foreign countries. The majority of the members were lawyers or farmers by trade, "but there were at least two clergymen, two newspaper editors, three physicians, an innkeeper, a sea captain and fisherman, and a merchant." Among its more interesting provisions, Florida's first constitution "prohibited bank officers, clergymen and duelists from being elected as governor, U.S. senator or member of the General Assembly (Legislature)." Florida was admitted to the Union on March 3, 1845. The 1838 constitution served as the governing document for the state until the beginning of the Civil War in 1861.
At the time, St. Joseph was emerging as one of the larger cities in Florida. A busy shipping port and the state's first steam-powered railroad poised the area for rapid growth. An outbreak of yellow fever coupled with a devastating hurricane in 1841 all but destroyed the town. Railroads continued to run through the area, transporting timber and servicing what became the company town of the St. Joe Paper Company. The present-day City of Port St. Joe was incorporated in 1913. A monument was erected in 1922 commemorating the writing of the first constitution and lists the names of all of the 1838 delegates. The Constitution Convention Museum State Park honors the City of St. Joseph and houses many native artifacts as well as the first engine from the steam-powered railroad.
Information referenced is from The Florida Handbook, 2001-2002 edition, by Allen Morris.
Reprinted from Quality Cities March/April 2008
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