Homestead, Florida
It’s amazing what the foresight of one person can do to preserve a great wilderness. Sir Lancelot Jones was that person for Biscayne National Park.
Before our recent trip to Biscayne National Park, we had never been exposed to the wonderful story of the Jones family and how they were able to assist in creating a national park within view of the city of Miami. The story originated slightly closer to home than expected; the family patriarch, Israel” Parson” Jones, was born in Raleigh in 1858. No record states that Israel was a slave, but during that time, there was a very high chance that a black man of his age in North Carolina was probably born as a slave.
Israel moved south after the war, first to Wilmington, then Orlando, Tampa, and finally the Biscayne Bay Area. While living in Key Biscayne, he married Mozelle Albert, an immigrant from the Bahamas. Israel and Mozelle had two sons, King Arthur and Sir Lancelot, and they purchased three of the Florida Keys; Porgy Key, Old Rhodes Key, and Totten Key.
The Jones’s keys were successfully used for agricultural production, first for pineapple production and later for Key limes. Still, the constant threats of hurricanes and cheaper outside markets led the brothers to concentrate on a different business, guided fishing trips. Lancelot was an excellent guide, and he was hired by many prominent people, including Presidents Herbert Hoover, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon. The connection with Lyndon Johnson helped when Biscayne National Monument was established in 1968. Lancelot and his sister-in-law (Arthur had passed away in 1962) sold their keys to the National Park Service for $1.2 million in 1970, as long as Lancelot could live the rest of his life on the keys. He lived in the National Park until 1992 when park rangers evacuated Lancelot to Miami just before Hurricane Andrew.
Selling prime real estate to the Federal Government was a noble goal mainly because it prevented the land from being sold to developers who wanted to create a city, Islandia, a rival development to Miami Beach, which was to be connected by a causeway to Miami and Key Largo. Lancelot had lived his whole life in the keys and knew the value of preserving them for future generations instead of the extra millions he was offered for his property.
Today, Biscayne National Park is a great place to visit, but if you want to see most of it, you will need a boat. We booked a cruise with the Biscayne National Park Institute, and on our Heritage of Biscayne tour, we saw a lot of water, the keys that the Jones family called home, and Boca Chita Key and its famous lighthouse. Please be prepared to get wet and take food, drink, reef-safe sunscreen, and mosquito repellent.
Biscayne has become one of my favorite National Parks, all thanks to Sir Lancelot Jones.
