The Legacy of a Red Hills Hunting Plantation: Tall Timbers Research Station & Land Conservancy

2. The Beadels in the Red Hills

17 2 TheBeadelsin theRedHills Henry Ludlow Beadel was born on Staten Island, New York, on October 9, 1875, the son of Henry Beadel and Sarah Margaret Jones. The first Henry Beadel, Henry Ludlow’s grandfather, had moved in the 1850s from Baltimore to New York City, where he had accumulated substantial real estate on Fifth Avenue, Front Street, and Wall Street. He had five children, including Henry (b. 1844) and his brother Edward (b. 1852). As grown men, these brothers would have a real estate office at 120 Front Street in downtown Manhattan, and their inherited property was on some of the most valuable land in the United States, if not the world. HenryLudlowBeadel,calledHarrybyclose friends andfamily,grewup onHamilton Place, a 36-acre estate on Staten Island. Born to wealth, Henry and his younger brother (Gerald Woodward Beadel, b. January 6, 1878) grew up in a family that devoted a good part of every year to traveling, hunting, and fishing. They spent vacations in the Charleston Lake region of Ontario, Canada, just across the St. Lawrence River from New York; in Vermont; and in the South. Harry’s upbringing in the outdoors led to an early interest in natural history, especially birds and their eggs. He also became a diarist, with daily entries that began in 1888 at the age of twelve and continued to nearly the end of his long life. The 1889 diary contains several entries about the teenager finding and collecting bird eggs from the nests of various species of songbirds near his home on Staten Island. He recorded his first sightings of birds and described their coloring, sounds, and nests, often including sketches. Harry took drawing lessons and made cameras at home from parts. His aptitude for drawing and photography developed at an early age. His first trip to the South was in January 1892, when his family went to Avoca, North Carolina, where they hunted the native southern quail, among other game. This was Harry’s first exposure to quail hunting. Already familiar with Canada and the Upper South, Harry was introduced to the Tallahassee region for the first time in the winter of 1894–1895, when he and his younger brother Gerald accompanied their father to Tallahassee. The father, Henry, was so taken by the hunting in the area that he purchased some land, 440 acres on the north side of town, on March 7, 1894.                         figure 2.1. Henry Beadel, 1894. Tall Timbers Archives. figure 2.2. The Leon Hotel, Tallahassee, Florida, January 1895. The Beadels stayed at the hotel for two weeks before moving to The Grove. Tall Timbers Archives. figure 2.3. The Grove, owned in the time of the Beadels by Judge R. C. Long, grandson of Governor Keith Call, builder of the house. It was operated as a boarding house, and in January 1895 the Beadels rented rooms there. Tall Timbers Archives. The Beadels in the Red Hills · 19 Harryandthe family,probablyincluding Edward(Uncle Ned),arrivedinTallahassee on January 6, 1894, and took rooms at the Leon Hotel, but after two weeks they moved to Judge Richard C. Long’s house, The Grove. In the late nineteenth century, The Grove, the former home of Governor Keith Call, was owned by Judge Long, grandson of Governor Call, and was operated in part as a boardinghouse for hunting parties such as the Beadels.1 At The Grove, Harry made a lifelong friend of Dick Long Jr., a son of the judge. The youths spent long times together looking for bird nests and eggs and recording their findings.The Beadelspassedmanyweekswiththe Longsover the nextseveralyears.The male Beadels spent much of their time in Tallahassee hunting and fishing, and there are many accounts in the diaries of family members of visits with friends on Leon County plantations and farms. Ononeofthesevisits,anauspiciouseventoccurredonFebruary21,1894,whenHarry visited the Winthrop home on their Barrow Hill Plantation and pulled candy with the Winthropboys.GenevieveDillon,whosefamilywasvisitingheraunt,LilWinthrop,was also at the candy pulling. Gen, as she was called, was a year younger than Harry, having been born July 16, 1876. She would become Harry’s wife nine years later. Gen was born in St. Louis, Missouri, to Blanche Valle and John Alvarez Dillon. Gen’s father was the founder of the newspaper that became the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The paper was later purchased by Joseph Pulitzer, who sent John Dillon to Orange, New Jersey, to manage his growing...