has a personal popularity in Dade county second to no one. He
is identified with the Democratic party and is a communicant in
the Episcopal Church. In addition to these, his social tempera-
ment has carried him into the Masonic Order, Knights of Pythias
and the Elks. A man of much information and wide reading,
he has found the most pleasure and inspiration from historical
works and high class fiction.

Like so many of the strong men of Florida, he has now come
to the conclusion that the pressing need of the State is good roads,
and to that great cause he gives earnest and strong and effective
support. His long residence, combined with faithful and patriotic
service, has given him a standing in the community which is
entirely deserved and which must be a source of pleasure to him,
because it proves most effectively that people are not always
unappreciative of honest service.



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f oiw JEtrfmet ;JHeffert

Ocala is one of the liveliest cities of Florida. This is due to
its exceptionally enterprising and capable business men. Among
these men no one ranks higher than John Michael Meffert, whose
business is rather hard to describe. He is a manufacturer of
lime, of lumber and of barrel material. He is a farmer, in sev-
eral directions, being a truck farmer, a stock farmer, and fruit
farmer. Mr. Meffert is one of those versatile men who seems able
to turn his hand to a variety of occupations and make each one
a success.

He was born in Dorf, Allendorf, Saxe Meiningen, Germany.
His parents emigrated to Michigan when he was a small boy.
He obtained such education as the ordinary public schools afforded
and, owing to delicate health, as a youth, came to Marion county
on December 7, 1884. He secured employment in a saw mill at
Reddick. In three years he had mastered the business and set
up on his own account at Lowell. Even at that time he recog-
nized the possibilities of agriculture in Florida, and within a year
after engaging in the lumber business on his own account, he was
also farming. He soon learned the unwisdom of buying feed to
keep up his stock, and went to growing his feed. It was an easy
step for a man of his ability and sound judgment to go from that
to raising stock. He has made a success of his truck farm, of
producing his own stock feed and of raising fine mules and horses.
He now has forty or more mules of his own raising besides fine
horses and colts. He was one of the prime movers of the fair, and
a large exhibitor, winning prizes on his stock display and on his
agricultural display. He has proved to the farmers of Marion
county to be a most notable example of making the farm self-
supporting in all directions and thus a profitable business. In
everything that he has undertaken, his industry, his wise planning,
and his sound judgment have brought success.



126 JOHN MICHAEL MEFFERT

One does not think of Florida as a hay country, yet in 1908
he had one hundred and fifty tons of surplus hay. He successfully
cultivated in that year seventy acres of watermelons, thirty-five acres
of cantaloupes, thirty acres snap beans, ninety acres velvet beans,
eighty acres oats, one hundred and fifty acres corn, twenty-five
acres of peanuts, four acres sweet potatoes, one acre Irish potatoes.
These items are given to show what can be done upon that soil,
and in that latitude when the right man is at the head. He has
five farms. He owns individually two thousand acres of land.
The firm of Meffert and Taylor owns fourteen thousand acres
and the firm of Meffert and Maynard owns eight thousand acres
practically all in Marion county.

On his stock farm he carries one hundred and twenty head of
cattle, six brood mares, eighteen unbroken colts, sixty fattening
hogs, and eighty-five head of young hogs and breeders. All of his
farms are highly improved with the best machinery, with good
wells, with gasoline and wind mill motors.

He became interested in the lime business in 1892, buying
kilns at Lowell. In 1897 he added the old Ocala Lime Company
at Ocala, and in 1900 the kilns at Oakhurst. From small begin-
nings and from run down plants he has built up to a present capac-
ity of five hundred barrels of lime a day, and in February 1907,
organized the Florida Lime Company with $60,000 capital paid
in, and is practically the owner of all the stock.

The lime business drew him into the making of barrels and
the barrels used for the lime are made in his own plants by compe-
tent coopers.

He has never taken an active part in politics owing to the diver-
sity and extent of his business interests, but his fellow-townsmen
pressed him into service as a member of the City Council, and after
one year's service in that body he was elected president which
position he now holds. He is a live member of the Board of Trade.
In religion he is a communicant of the Lutheran Church.

In fraternal circles be is affiliated with the Elks, Knights of
Pythias and Fraternal Union. On December 7, 1886 he married
Miss Nancy Barnhouse, of Berrien county, Mich. They have
nine children and Mr. Meffert is far more proud of his big and



JOHN MICHAEL MEFFERT 127

healthy family of lusty youngsters than he is of the large measure
of business success which he has achieved.

He has done something more and better than merely make
money; he has won the confidence and the esteem of his fellow-
citizens of Marion county. Full of public spirit, he is ready at
all times to contribute his time, his talents and his money to any-
thing that will be for the betterment of Ocala and Marion county,
and on top of all this, he takes keen pleasure in outdoor life and
healthy sports, which helps to keep him young and healthy and
in touch with the growing generation. Altogether, he is a ctizen
in whom Marion county can justly take pride and who has given
value received for all that he has gained.



llutiolpj) jfretiertck <et?laff

Rudolph Getzlaff, as he is commonly known, President of the
Florida and Georgia Tobacco Company, of Quincy, Florida, is
an example of the thoroughgoing and well-equipped German,
who landing in a new country with no other capital than his qualifi-
cations and a sturdy determination to succeed works out a large
measure of success in his chosen line. He was born near Stettin
on the southern shore of the Baltic, in the province of Pomerania,
Prussia. His parents were John Frederick and Atilla (Von Sanitz)
Getzlaff. His father was a farmer, and an uncle, Julius Von
Sanitz, was the owner of large estates in Poland, very prominent
in agricultural circles, and at one time President of the Agricultural
Society of Germany.

After attendance at the High School at Stargard, he entered
an agricultural college, from which he was graduated in 1877, with
a good theoretical knowledge of farming on top of the practical
knowledge already learned upon his father's farm.

In 1878 he came to the United States and settled in Minnesota,
where he began farming. A little later he went to Nebraska and
was there from 1880 to 1882. All the time he was on the lookout
for an opening that was in line with his knowledge, where something
of special importance might be done in the farming line. He
became attracted to Florida in connection with its fruit growing
possibilities and dairy farming, and in 1884 he moved from the
North to Tallahassee, and after three years in that section, in 1887,
he moved to Quincy and engaged in tobacco growing, having
become satisfied that the lands of that section offered peculiar
advantages for the growing of high class tobaccos. In 1890 be
accepted a position as farm manager for a New York Leaf Tobacco
Company. This farm was located just over the Florida line, in
Decatur county, Ga.



RUDOLPH FREDERICK GETZLAFF 129

In 1892 he discovered that Sumatra tobacco could be raised
successfully in Florida, and in the lower part of Decatur county,
Ga., he demonstrated the fact by growing three acres of Sumatra
wrapper leaf tobacco which compared favorably with the imported
article. This was the first Sumatra tobacco of commercial value
which had ever been produced and put upon the market of the
United States and from this time dates the splendid success of the
tobacco growing industry of Florida. For this discovery Mr.
Getzlaff was promoted to general manager of plantations, and in
this capacity he gradually increased the company's estate from
one to eighteen plantations. The magnitude of these plantations
may be measured by the fact that 2500 field hands were employed
during the harvest season. He held his position with this com-
pany until the year 1904 when he organized the Florida and Georgia
Tobacco Company, with headquarters at Quincy, their specialties
being the growing and packing of American Sumatra and Havana
tobacco, and has been president of this most successful company
since its organization.

In 1881 he was married to Mrs. Elizabeth Von Schwerien, nee
Elizabeth Imholtz. He lost his wife by death and has since re-
mained a widower. In politics Mr. Getzlaff acts with the Demo-
cratic party in all local matters and the Republican party in national
matters. He is a communicant of the Lutheran Church and a
member of the Masonic fraternity and the Order of Elks. In
addition to his agricultural tastes Mr. Getzlaff has a strong mechani-
cal turn and has invented and patented the first American pneu-
matic cotton picker. He has served the city of Quincy in the
capacity of Councilman, and though not seeking public place is
ready to be of use when his fellow-citizens need him.

Mr. Getzlaff has spent much time in introducing tobacco
raising in different sections of Florida. This tobacco history is
rather a curious one. Few people know that tobacco seed was
introduced into the great tropical island of Sumatra from the
United States long years ago. The plant found there a soil and
climate congenial to it for the production of a certain high class
tobacco at that time unknown in the United States, and the trade
in this Sumatra tobacco grew to very large proportions. It was



130 RUDOLPH FREDERICK GETZLAFF

generally believed that this quality of tobacco could not be grown
in the United States until Mr. Getzlaff demonstrated that it could
be successfully grown.

Mr. Getzlaff is fond of reading, especially the classics, books
on modern achievement, and agricultural literature. He is an
extremely well read and widely informed man and has a very fine
and complete library. He believes that the best interests of Florida
are to be promoted by the building of good roads and the securing
and maintenance of a heavy duty on imported tobacco, and by an
extensive and systematic campaign of the advertising of the State's
resources. He has done a most valuable work for the State, and
in achieving success for himself has shown to the people of Florida
the way in which the wealth of the State can be enormously
increased by the extension of the cultivation of this high grade
tobacco.









V

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Benjamin Breto



Among the substantial naval stores operators of Florida of
the present is Benjamin Drew, of Orlando. He is a native of
North Carolina, in which State the Drew family dates back to the
colonial period. In 1790 John Drew, of Halifax, was one of the
richest men in the State, very prominent socially and in a public
way. Several members of the family later were in the General
Assembly of the State. At that time there were fully one dozen
families of the Drew name settled in Halifax, Sampson, Hertford
and Brunswick counties. John Drew, then residing in Brunswick
and the only representative of the family in that county, was the
grandfather of Benjamin Drew. In America there appears to
have been two distinct strains of the Drew family, one settled in
the early colonial period in New England, another in Virginia,
and from Virginia drifting into North Carolina. Governor Drew
of Florida was descended from the New England family, and he
with his children were perhaps the only representatives of that
family in the Southern States, all the remaining Drews having
come from the Virginia and North Carolina families.

Benjamin Drew was born in Brunswick county, N. C., Feb-
ruary 20, 1844, son of Thomas G. and Mary (Godwin) Drew.
His father was son of John Drew, who lived to the great age of
about eighty-six and who was familiarly known as " Uncle Johnnie"
or "Uncle Jackie" Drew. On his maternal side Mr. Drew's
family is an exceedingly ancient one, the Godwins being of Saxon
origin in England and traceable back in that country for more than
one thousand years. They also originally settled in Virginia, and
from there branches of the family drifted southward. The Drew
family has furnished some very prominent men to the country.
The New England family is responsible for Daniel Drew, practi-
cally the founder of the present system of trading in stocks on the



134 BENJAMIN DREW

New York stock exchange, a great Methodist who gave away
much money to that church and the founder of Drew Theological
Seminary. He lived to the age of ninety-one. Another member
of the northern family was George Alexander Drew, a famous
Canadian jurist. Already mentioned as coming from the Northern
family was Governor George Drew, of Florida. Governor Thomas
S. Drew, third Governor of Arkansas belonged to the North Carolina
stock. His people moved from North Carolina to Wilson county,
Tenn., where he was born in 1802. Later he moved to Arkansas
and there became a very prominent figure in the public life of the
State serving acceptably as Governor. John Drew, one of the
greatest actors of all time, though classed as an American, was born
in Ireland. Francis A. Drew, one of the great merchants of our
country, like John Drew was also born in Ireland.

Mr. Drew obtained only such education as the ordinary
schools of Brunswick county afforded. Before he arrived at man-
hood the Civil War broke out, and in the second year of the war he
became a member of the First Batallion of Heavy Artillery, and
served around Fort Fisher and Fort Caswell, N. C., until Fort
Fisher fell, and then was transferred to field serivce, serving in the
infantry until the close of the war. In business Mr. Drew has been
the architect of his own fortunes. Coming out of the Confederate
army a young man of twenty-one, with a limited education, he has
had to make his own way in the world, and he started in by being
always ready to take hold of anything that offered an opportunity.
In this way he has been engaged in various enterprises, such as real
estate, banking and lumbering. For the last thirty-six years the
naval stores business has been his principal interest. When he
left North Carolina he settled first at the head of the Cooper river
in South Carolina, thence to Charleston county, from there to
Berkeley county, thence to Hampton county and from there moved
to Irwin county, Ga., which afforded a good field for his operations,
and stayed there twenty-two years. From there he moved to his
present location as offering a more favorable opportunity for his
particular line of business.

Mr. Drew's religious preferences incline to the Methodist
Church.



BENJAMIN DREW 135

On September 13, 1866, he married Miss Mary C. Swain, a
daughter of George W. and Eliza Swain, of Brunswick county,
N. C. Of this marriage two children have been born, Mary E.
and Ada C. Drew.

In politics Mr. Drew has been a lifetime Democrat, taking no
part in public life as an office-seeker, and confining himself to the
peformance of his duty as a citizen by voting his convictions. He
has made a success of his business affairs by intelligent application,
combined with hard work and personal integrity. That he has
won the respect of the community in which he lives is no more than
might be expected from his temperament, his life and his business
conduct.




Hamilton <illespte



The large investments by foreign corporations in Florida lands
and industries has not only been of the material value that new
capital makes, but has resulted in the coming into the State of an
untold number of immigrants of the better class, who have made
their homes here and aided greatly in the development of the
agricultural and industrial interests. It has also resulted in bring-
ing to the State a particularly influential and desirable type of
citizens, who came as the representatives of the foreign interests, and
when their work was done, remained to further participate in
the upbuilding of the State and partake of the general prosperity
which they had helped to bring about. These men have almost
become invariably powerful factors in the development of their
several communities, and received recognition at the hands of
the people of their ability and fitness for leadership. A dis-
tinguished representative of the latter class, who came to Florida as
the manager of a corporation, having extensive interests here, and
has become a valued and esteemed citizen of his community, is J.
Hamilton Gillespie, of Sarasota. He is prominent in the legal profes-
sion, in social life, and in the fraternal orders, and has been for five
consecutive terms honored by the people of his city with election as
their Mayor. He is a native of Scotland, of a cultured family,
highly educated, and possesses in an eminent degree all the quali-
ties of character for which his people are noted. He comes of an
old and well known Scotch family. His great-grandfather, Colonel
Hamilton, whose watch and sword he now has in his possession,
was a young officer under General Wellington, in India. His
grandfather, as a young man, was a great hunter and traveler in
the Hudson Bay country, in Canada, but so far as is known none
of the family ever lived in the States.

Mr. Gillespie is the son of Sir John Gillespie, Kt, lawyer, and
Margaret Ross (Robertson) Gillespie. He was born in Edinburgh,



JOHN HAMILTON GILLESPIE 139

Scotland, October 14, 1852. As a youth he attended Hunter's
School, at York Place, Edinburgh, Scotland, for five years, and the
Edinburgh Academy for six years. He rounded off his education
with a course at both St. Andrews University and the Edinburgh
University. He did not graduate at either and took no degrees,
though eligible for the degree of M.A. at both institutions. He
began his professional career in Edinburgh, 1870, when apprenticed
for Writer to Her Majesty's Signet, the first legal body in Scotland.
He was admitted as a member of the Writer to the Signet Society
in 1875. He was commissioned in the Royal Company of Archers,
Queen's Body Guard in Scotland, in November, 1875. He was
commissioned as Lieutenant in the First Midlothian Coast Artillery
Brigade in May, 1881, and as Captain in 1884. He entered the
government service in Queensland, Australia, in 1884, and a year
later was appointed manager of the Florida Mortgage and Invest-
ment Company. He came to Florida in 1885 and has since made
his home here. For many years he successfully managed the
affairs of the land and investment company, until 1898, when he
was admitted to the bar and entered upon the general practice of
law. He has been in every way successful in his adopted home in
the practice of his profession of earlier years, and has won for him-
self a prominent place among the leading lawyers of the State. He
is President of the Manatee County Bar Association and is a mem-
ber of the Florida State Bar Association and the American Bar
Association. Mr. Gillespie was the first to introduce cement and
sand buildings to Sarasota, spending at least $60,000 in erecting
bridges, sanitarium, bank building and sea-walls. He has been
a justice of the peace for four years, a notary public for ten years,
and has been Mayor of Sarasota for five consecutive years, having
first been elected in October, 1902. He is a member of the Protes-
tant Episcopal Church, and has been lay reader in his church for
twelve years.

In politics he is a Democrat of the Grover Cleveland school.
In social and club life he is prominent, being a member of the
Seminole Club and the Florida Country Club of Jacksonville, and
the Sarasota Yacht and Gun Club and of several clubs in Scotland.
He is a member of the Free and Accepted Masons and of the



140 JOHN HAMILTON GILLESPIE

Knights of Pythias. He considers the standard literature of Great
Britain and America most helpful, and newspaper reading most
pernicious. He is a frequent contributor to periodicals, especially
for New York Golf and The Golfers' Magazine, of Chicago, writing
under the pen name of "The Colonel.' He is an outspoken
opponent of State prohibition, believing that local option is all that
that any sensible men can demand.

Mr. Gillespie is a fine sample of the Scottish race, which is
noted for men of large stature. He stands an even six feet, weighs
two hundred and fifty pounds, has a chest measure of forty-eight
inches, and yet modestly claims that he is the smallest member of
his family. Very fond of outdoor sports, he is equal to his thirty
miles a day at walking, a capital dancer, a good boxer, and a great
golfer. He has owned for some years a golf course at Sarasota of
one hundred and fifteen acres on which he has erected and main-
tains a handsome club house. He has so much confidence in him-
self in that direction, having played golf for fifty years, that he is
willing to meet any amateur on the links. In a private letter he
rather humorously said that he heard of a man who was going to
vote against Taft because he played golf, but in his mind that was
one of the strongest reasons why he should be voted for. A rather
curious incident of his early life was that when he was a member of
the Royal Company of Archers, when chosen for the Queen's Body
Guard for Scotland, at the request of Her Majesty his picture was
taken, but as at that time his face appeared too youthful, an older
face was made up to go with his body. Mr. Gillespie is no older
in spirit today that he was at the time that his face appeared too
youthful for his body. By a healthful out-of-door life which he
does not allow to interfere with a proper pursuit of his professional
and business interests, he preserves that best of all things in this
life, a sound mind in a sound body. He is now one of the large
real estate owners of his section, and with the development now
going forward in that section of Florida he bids fair in a few years
to reap a very large profit from his investments as a reward of his
foresight.

He believes the country would know greater prosperity if
there were less distrust of railroads. He advocates the opening



JOHN HAMILTON GILLESPIE 141

of the land for settlement and for growing fruits, especially grapes,
and advocates making the State a great wine growing State. He
urges the encouraging of immigration of educated and industrious
families with some means and a trade. He believes there should
be greater safeguards thrown around the elective franchise and
that no foreigner should have a vote until he has been in this
country for ten years; that universal suffrage should be done away
with and that unless a man owns property to the value of one
thousand dollars he should not have a vote. The grafter and the
demagogue should be eliminated. He belives in the opening up of
more harbors and the deepening of the same, the developing of
canals and of the railroads and above all the building of a complete
system of good public roads. He says that as a lawyer he feels
that courtesy and honorable conduct win out in the long run. In
the real estate business he says there is a crying need for reform,
as many dealers are quite without scruples. As to advice to the
young who are ambitious to succeed, he says be believes that
avoidance of extremes in everything is best. Be not too zealous
to get rich, nor too easily tired of work, and follow a careful obser-
vance of the Golden Rule.

Mr. Gillespie was married May 23, 1905, to Blanch McDaniel,
the eldest daughter of Judge R. P. and Marcella McDaniel, of
Sarasota.




allact jftsfjer




Wallace Fisher Stovall, President and Manager of the Tribune
Publishing Company, of Tampa, Fla., and editor of the Tampa
Tribune, published by that company, is not only a conspicuous
example of success achieved by patient and untiring effort, but by
reason of the well directed work done through his paper for the
benefit of Tampa and the State of Florida, has become one of the
most valued and indispensable citizens of that great and growing
Commonwealth. Thrown at an early age entirely upon his own
resources, he has steadily climbed upward on the toilsome ladder
of public life, and while yet a young man, has reached a position