Alexander St. Clair-Abrams

Alexander H. St. Clair-Abrams (March 10, 1845–1931) was an attorney, politician, and writer who owned newspapers and railroads in the Southern United States. He also published under the names A.S. Abrams and A. Sinclair Abrams. He founded Tavares, Florida, naming the town after the surname of a Portuguese ancestor.

Civil War

Born in New Orleans, Alexander H. St. Clair-Abrams grew up to be known as a "volcanic Creole".

During the American Civil War, he served in Company A. Withers' Light Artillery (in Carter L. Stevenson's division), as a Private at the Siege of Vicksburg. In September 1862 he was discharged from the army on account of sickness. Unable to return to his home of New Orleans, which was occupied by Union forces, he gained a position in the office of the Vicksburg Whig. He worked there until its destruction by fire in the early part of May 1863, after the takeover of the city by Union forces. He was taken prisoner and paroled after the surrender.

He moved on briefly to Mobile, Alabama, then to Atlanta, where he quickly settled.^[2] There he became associated with Jared Whitaker's newspaper, Daily Intelligencer. Using their presses, in late 1863 St. Clair-Abrams published an 80-page account of Vicksburg's capture and then a novel called The Trials of the Soldier's Wife. In 1864, he served again as a soldier to defend Atlanta, fighting at the Battle of Jonesboro, where he was wounded and could no no longer bear arms.

Newspaper man

After the war, St. Clair-Abrams took the loyalty oath. In December 1865 he moved to New York City with his wife Joanna and their infant son Alfred, to join the New York Herald as a reporter. There he was schooled by editor James Gordon Bennett, Sr., who is considered one of the best. St. Clair-Abrams was promoted quickly through the ranks.

By 1870, he had been promoted to foreign editor and handled all dispatches from the Franco-Prussian War in Europe. By the time of the surrender at the Battle of Sedan, Abrams maintained rooms at the Astor House across the street from the Herald, in order to receive encrypted dispatches to which he held the only key.

At this point his health broke. James Gordon Bennett, Jr. offered him positions in either California or Georgia. He chose Georgia and moved back to Atlanta with his family. His wife Joanna owned printing equipment, which was stored on Forsyth Street. With this, St. Clair-Abrams founded the Daily Herald. Soon after Robert Alston and Henry W. Grady joined the business: St. Clair-Abrams became managing editor, Grady served as general editor, and Alston as the business manager.

St. Clair-Abrams' writing apparently never caught on in Atlanta. Grady thought it was because the journalist had a certain coldness and "in small cities, there must be provincial touches in the journal – concessions that the journalist must make to circumstances". When he took over running the Atlanta Constitution, Grady made sure his personality shined, unlike the practice of his former colleague.

In 1872, St. Clair-Abrams was also involved in a standing feud with former governor Joseph E. Brown. He had denounced the policy of the state leasing the Western and Atlantic Railroad and criticized the associated business deals that had given free rides to certain prominent stakeholders. St. Clair-Abrams was pressured to give up control of the Daily Herald by a threatened foreclosure of a $5,000 mortgage by Citizens Bank, unless he ceased the attacks on Brown. He sold his interests and moved further south to Florida.

In Florida

Union Congregational Church in Tavares. The first church in town, built on land donated by St. Clair-Abrams

In Florida, St. Clair-Abrams returned to law practice, representing large companies such as Seaboard Air Line Railroad. Railroads were being built throughout Florida, and would be critical for stimulation of citrus production, by easing shipping to northern markets. They also vastly encouraged the growth of tourism, as visitors from the North came South for the mild winters, and this became an important part of the state economy.

As a reward for his contributions to the election of George Franklin Drew, the first Democratic governor, and the first Democratic-dominated legislature since the end of the Reconstruction era, St. Clair-Abrams was appointed state attorney for the Seventh Judicial Circuit.^[1]

In 1880 he founded Tavares, Florida, hoping to develop it as a centrally located state capital.^[1] There St. Clair-Abrams constructed a sawmill, hotel, office building, and opera house. He donated land for the first church, Union Congregational. In 1883 two companies which he partly owned: Peninsular Land, Transportation and Manufacturing Company and the Tavares, Orlando and Atlantic Railroad, were chartered by the state.

Population increased in this area and St. Clair-Abrams was instrumental in gaining legislative approval to organize Lake County in May 1887; its territory was made up of parts of Orange and Sumter counties.^[1] At the time, Tavares was designated as its county seat.

=Member of the Florida state senate

In 1892 St. Clair-Abrams was elected to the Florida senate. He resigned the office in 1893 because of a controversy over the location of the Lake County courthouse.^[1]

Family

He and his wife had one son, Alfred St. Clair-Abrams, who followed his father into law. By 1896 he was serving as prosecuting attorney of Lake County, Florida. He fatally shot W. Bailey Tucker, known as a railroad man, ostensibly for using unfair means to defeat his candidacy for the Florida legislature. Alfred St. Clair-Abrams was running as an anti-railroad candidate.^[5][6] Alfred St. Clair-Abrams shot Tucker in the head with a shot gun loaded with buckshot.^[5] The attorney was acquitted. Later that year he filed for divorce from his wife, on the grounds that she had had an affair with Tucker and also with another man.^[7]

Legacy

• In 1887, the Dickson Manufacturing Company named a 4-4-0 locomotive with serial number 574 after the senior St. Clair-Abrams.
• The major perpendicular road to Main Street in downtown Tavares is named St Clair Abrams Ave
• A Great Floridian plaque was installed in his honor at the St. Clair-Abrams House, 305 New Hampshire Avenue, Tavares.
• The Alexander St. Clair-Abrams House, 1649 Osceola St., in Jacksonville, was placed on the National Register for Historic Places in 1985.

Writings

• Works by Alexander St. Clair-Abrams at Project Gutenberg
• Full and Detailed History of the Siege of Vicksburg (1863), Atlanta: Intelligencer Steam Power Presses
• The Trials of the Soldier's Wife: A Tale of the Second American Revolution (1864), Atlanta: Intelligencer Steam Power Presses
• Manual and Biographic Register of the State of Georgia, 1871-1872 (1872), Atlanta: Plantation Press

References

• Joseph E. Brown of Georgia (1977), Joseph H. Parks, Louisiana State University Press, p. 478
• Partisans of the Southern Press (1994), Carl R. Osthaus, University Press of Kentucky, p. 169
• Vicksburg, 47 Days of Siege (1969), A.A. Hoehling, Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, PA
• Tavares Florida Profile and Resource Guide, City or community of Tavares, Florida Facts, Information, Relocation, Real Estate, Advertising at www.usacitiesonline.com
• Letter from Abrams to Atlanta Constitution, dated June 10, 1928 but printed on June 14