Benjamin Chaires: Florida's First Millionaire
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This cache will take you on a short tour of the life and times of Benjamin Chaires, Florida's first millionaire. Most people have never heard of this prominent man.
You will need to download the related Wherigo cartridge from the the link above. From the starting location, the next two stages are within walking distance. You could walk to the stage after that, but will probably want to drive. You will definitely need to drive to the last couple of stages. The whole experience will take about two hours. As with any Wherigo cartridge, SAVE OFTEN.
[11/10/2022 Note: The information needed at stage 2, Lot 183, is no longer available. Use the answer 'VS' until the cartridge can be updated.]
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Benjamin Chaires, although perhaps not typical, exemplifies Florida’s planter class at its zenith, but he is barely known of today. If you are a local, you know of Chaires Community, to the east of Tallahassee out Apalachee Parkway (US Hwy. 27), but that took its name from Benjamin’s brother, Green Hill Chaires. Benjamin’s accomplishments are just as notable, if not more so.
Born in North Carolina in 1786, Chaires grew to adulthood in middle Georgia, where he married and became a plantation owner, surveyor, and minor political figure before he was 30. He received the title of “Major” for services in the War of 1812.
In 1818, Chaires bought his first Florida property: a one-third share in a plantation on Amelia Island, completely furnished with slaves, tools, canoes, and other necessities. Eventually he bought as many as 30,000 acres in St. Johns, Alachua and Duval counties.
In addition to his responsibilities as planter and landowner, he served as alderman and judge in St. Augustine and Jacksonville, and helped in the original survey of Jacksonville, as control of Florida shifted from Spain to the United States.
In 1823, the Treaty of Moultrie Creek set aside lands between Ocala and Tampa for resettlement of the Indian population. The following year Chaires won a federal contract to furnish the Indians with rations on a regular basis as they adjusted to their confinement. During the year or so when he was involved with the Indian contract, he made several trips to Tallahassee on business.
Evidently he liked what he saw of the area, for sometime during the late 1820s he settled his large family there permanently. He was known to be in Leon County in 1824 but was not living here when the census was taken in 1825. In 1826, he began buying vast amounts of land with around 60 purchases in Jefferson, Jackson, Hamilton, Gadsden and Leon counties.
Under an Act of Congress on May 23, 1828, Chaires claimed some 20,000 acres of the Arredondo Grant located around Alachua and High Springs. (Problems with inaccurate or nonexistent surveys led to many lawsuits which were not settled until well after his death.) For the next ten years or so, until his death in 1838, Chaires amassed great wealth through his involvement in farming, banking, building and brickmaking.
He was part of the first and second bank to serve the territory. He also helped form the first railroad company to serve Tallahassee and another to serve St. Joseph. Though never elected to public office, by 1832 he was appointed a commissioner of Tallahassee and served as presiding judge in Leon County court. Around 1833 he was a justice of the peace. There is an account of his being one of the financiers of a merchant ship that transported cotton from St. Marks to the mills in England.
His home, Verdura, a few miles east of town, was an elegant Greek-revival mansion of thirteen rooms, wide verandas, and towering columns. When he died four months short of his 53rd birthday, Benjamin Chaires owned about 9,440 acres and 80 slaves in Leon County, plus successful plantations in St. Joseph and St. Marks as well as large land holdings elsewhere. He was said by some to have been Florida’s first millionaire. Chaires was eulogized in the newspapers of St. Augustine, Apalachicola and Tallahassee as a “useful citizen and a good man,” and it was clear that “Florida . . . sustained a loss by his death which cannot soon be supplied.”
He must have been a commanding figure. In the fierce Florida frontier days, men had to be shrewd and steel-willed to exist. And to make a fortune, they had to be exceptionally crafty. But we have to speculate on these points, because for all the public records that tell us what Benjamin Chaires did during his lifetime, there is little written about the man himself. I could not even locate a photograph or drawing of him.
A deeper examination of his life is very much needed to enhance our understanding of Territorial Florida and its place in national affairs. A greater knowledge of his involvement in railroads and banking, as well as his affiliations with political leaders of the time, should make evident his role in the opening of Middle Florida to national and international trade and his other contributions to the development of Florida. Today, sadly, almost no one knows about this great pioneer. I hope you find the pursuit of this cache as interesting as I did in researching it.
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