Today in Keys History – Dec. 3, 2022
1830 – William R. Hackley recorded in his diary: Rose with the dawn. After breakfast went up to the court house to look over records. The Brig Halcyon was sold by the Marshall and was purchased by Joseph Cottrell for the sum of $2,725. About 3 P.M. the Lightship got under way for her station on the reef. Captain Joseph Swiler of the Revenue Cutter Pulaski conveyed her up. Wind southeast. Weather pleasant.
1859 – In a trial in Federal Court, Alejandro Carcer and Guillot Eloy of the American schooner Enterprise were convicted of the murder of Captain B.A. Morantes. They were found guilty and Judge William Marvin sentenced them to be hanged.
1900 – The cigar shipments from Key West were holding their own and the output for the week was expected to be be over a million and a half cigars. The steamer Lampassas sailed for New York with 1,846,000 cigars for that city, besides hundreds of thousand by the steamers to New Orleans and Galveston. The factories were working full force and no labor trouble expected, which gave assurance of a good year.
1930 – Julia La Congo died at the age of 110 at the Mercedes Hospital. She was a queen of a tribe in Africa before being captured and sold into slavery in Cuba. After she was freed she came to Key West and with her husband operated a grocery store until World War One. Her burial services were conducted by Father A.L. Maureau, S.J. of St. Mary Star of the Sea Catholic Church.
1950 – At the Little White House in Key West, President Truman issued an executive order creating a new Committee on Government Contract Compliance with the aim of reducing discrimination against employees because of race, color, creed or national origin.
1957 – The Blue Lagoon Motel at the corner of Sigsbee Road and North Roosevelt Boulevard was being built.
Information compiled by Tom Hambright, Historian Emeritus, Florida Keys History Center, Monroe County Public Library
Image: A postcard dated 1906 of the Havana American Cigar factory and with four interior shots of the factory. Florida Keys History Center, Monroe County Public Library. https://www.flickr.com/photos/keyslibraries/8091284649