Hamilton Disston (August 23, 1844 – April 30, 1896)"He Died Without Warning", The Washington Post (May 1, 1896). was an American industrialist and real-estate developer who purchased 4 million acres (16,000 km²) of Florida land in 1881, an area larger than the state of Connecticut. Disston was the son of Pennsylvania-based industrialist Henry Disston who formed Disston & Sons Saw Works, which Hamilton later ran and which was one of the largest saw manufacturing companies in the world.
Hamilton Disston's investment in the infrastructure of Florida spurred growth throughout the state. His related efforts to drain the Everglades triggered the state's first land boom with numerous towns and cities established through the area. Disston's land purchase and investments were directly responsible for creating or fostering the towns of Kissimmee, St. Cloud, Gulfport, Tarpon Springs, and indirectly aided the rapid growth of St. Petersburg, Florida. He furthermore oversaw the successful cultivation of rice and sugarcane near the Kissimmee area.
Although Disston's engineered canals aided water transport and steamboat traffic in Florida, he was ultimately unsuccessful in draining the Kissimmee River floodplain or lowering the surface water around Lake Okeechobee and in the Everglades. He was forced to sell much of his investments at a fraction of their original costs. However, his land purchase primed Florida's economy and allowed railroad magnates Henry Flagler and Henry Plant to build rail lines down the east coast of Florida, and another joining the west coast, which directly led to the domination of the tourist and citrus industries in Florida. Disston's immediate impact was in the Philadelphia area, where he was active in Republican politics and a philanthropist, but his legacy is often associated with the draining and development of Florida.
Early life and business Hamilton Disston was born in Philadelphia, the eldest son of nine children born to Mary Steelman and Henry Disston, an English immigrant and descendant of French nobility.Grunwald, p. 83.Wilson, Mary Ellen. "Disston, Henry" (February 2000); American National Biography Online. Retrieved on July 1, 2009. Disston's father was a successful industrialist who rose from being orphaned just days after arriving in the United States to running the Keystone Saw Works when Hamilton was a child.Hartzell, p. 24. Henry Disston was responsible for multiple machining and saw patents, and in the spirit of Victorian-era paternalism, envisioned and engineered a community around his steel factory in Tacony, Pennsylvania.Silcox, Henry (October 1990). "Henry Disston's Model Industrial Community: Nineteenth-Century Paternalism in Tacony, Philadelphia", The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 114 (4) p. 483–515. After attending public school, Hamilton left at 15 years old, opting for an apprenticeship at the saw factory which, by that time, was a $500,000-per-year international venture. His father threatened to fire him for repeatedly leaving the factory to work for a volunteer fire department. Hamilton twice joined the Union Army only to have Henry purchase his release, but Hamilton organized a company of saw factory employees during the Gettysburg campaign. Henry finally agreed to support the "Disston Volunteers" financially.
After the American Civil War, Disston returned to work in his father's factory as an executive. In 1878, following the death of Henry Disston, Hamilton and his brothers Horace, William, and Jacob inherited the company which had been renamed to Henry Disston & Sons. Hamilton became the controlling member of the 2,000-employee company and expanded production to 1.4 million hacksaws and 3 million files per year.Grunwald, p. 84. Only one month after Henry's death, Hamilton gave President Rutherford B. Hayes a tour of the factory where an unshaped piece of steel was manufactured into a hand saw in only 42 minutes, and was presented to the president at the end of the tour—etched with his name.
While the saw manufacturing business continued growing, Disston branched out, investing in a chemical firm, a Chinese railroad, real estate in Atlantic City, New Jersey and mining in the western United States.
Disston Land Purchase In the 1840s and 1850s, the sparsely populated state of FloridaIn the early 1880s, Florida's population was a sixth of Georgia's and a fifth of Alabama's. Most Floridians lived in the northern part of the state. South of Ocala, fewer than two persons lived per square mile. (Stover, John F. (February 2000). "Flagler, Henry Morrison", American National Biography Online. Retrieved on June 30, 2009.) came to own approximately of mostly swamp land, granted by the U.S. Congress to states with wetlands for the purpose of reclaiming the land under water by constructing canals and levees. In Florida, consolidated grants for the purpose of building rail infrastructure and reclaiming wetlands were placed in a trust called the Internal Improvement Fund of the State of Florida (IIF). The trust fund was managed by the governor of Florida and four state officials.T. Frederick Davis, p. 204.Lemar, L. Stephan (January 1944). "Historico-Economic Aspects of Drainage in the Florida Everglades", Southern Economic Journal, 10 (3), p. 197–211. The fund pledged land to railroad companies and guaranteed bonds issued by the railroad companies on the land. When the high costs associated with the American Civil War and Reconstruction caused railroad companies to default on the bonds, the fund became liable and rapidly sank into debt and eventually into Federal Court receivership.Dovell, p. 237.Jack E. Davis, p. 83. By the time Governor George Franklin Drew took office in 1877, the fund was nearly $1 million in debt. The state constitution forbade issuing bonds to repay it; investors were not interested in Florida, no rail lines were built, and progress in the state stalled.
In 1877, diplomat Henry Shelton Sanford invited Disston, an avid sport fisherman, on a fishing trip through Florida.Landry, p. 81.Dovell, p. 238. During the trip, Disston realized the possibility that enormous tracts of land could be reclaimed for agriculture by using canals to drain Florida's Lake Okeechobee.
An application for foreclosure of the IIF and its land was filed in federal court in 1880. Negotiations to relieve the debt were held with various potential investors, including Sanford and Alexander St. Clair-Abrams, but did not come to fruition.T. Frederick Davis, p. 205. Disston and five associates, meanwhile, entered into a land reclamation contract with the Internal Improvement Fund in January 1881.T. Frederick Davis, pp. 205-206.Grunwald, p. 85. The contract stipulated that Disston and associates would be deeded half of whatever land his Atlantic and Gulf Coast Canal and Okeechobee Land Company reclaimed around Lake Okeechobee, the Kissimmee, Caloosahatchee and Miami Rivers.T. Frederick Davis, p. 206.Jack E. Davis, p. 85. Congressman and Disston family friend, William D. "Pig Iron" Kelley, described Disston's first contract: "He instituted broad preliminary investigations from which he received satisfactory reports; he surveyed the entire field of the proposed work, and with Napoleonic instinct and foresight saw in the proposition an opportunity to promote his country's welfare by the reclamation of a more than kingly domain.Kelley, p. 24.
Disston stood to gain up to with his drainage contract, although it would displace numerous squatters. Florida's Armed Occupation Act of 1842 had granted land to squatters in order to force the local Seminole Indians off the land, but Disston's contract would force the squatters off any land that Disston could show was submerged. The drainage contract, however, was in jeopardy because it did not affect the massive debt bearing down on the Internal Improvement Fund.T. Frederick Davis, p. 207. Court orders related to the debt threatened to derail the contract so Governor William D. Bloxham visited Disston in Philadelphia to persuade him to relieve the debt.Grunwald, p. 86. During the visit, Disston tentatively agreed to purchase four million acres (16,000 km²) of Internal Improvement Fund land for 25 cents per acre, an agreement which became a formal contract on June 1, 1881. Disston signed the contract on June 14, and The New York Times described the transaction with, "What is claimed to be the largest purchase of land ever made by a single person in the world".T. Frederick Davis, p. 208. It made him the largest landowner in the United States. On December 17, 1881, Disston sold two million acres (8,000 km²) of his land to English Member of Parliament, Sir Edward James Reed, for $600,000.T. Frederick Davis, pp. 208-209.Hartzell, p. 25.
Promotion and politics
While some in Florida disapproved of the sale for giving away the land too cheaply, it had positive effects.Grunwald, pp. 86-87. In the four years following Disston's purchase, four times as many rail lines were added than the 20 preceding years. Land sales multiplied six times after the sale and the state's taxable property value doubled. Around 150,000 tourists came to Florida during the winter of 1884 alone.Grunwald, p. 87.
To lure people to Florida, Disston opened real estate offices across America as well as England, Scotland, Germany, Italy, Sweden and Denmark.Grunwald, p. 89. He promoted himself as owning two-thirds of the entire state.Jack E. Davis, p. 84. These efforts drew people to the Orlando area; and the major cities of Sarasota and Naples, Florida grew out of land sold by Disston. Fort Myers became the base of his Caloosahatchee River dredging efforts and its population rapidly increased. Disston's headquarters were on the shores of Lake Tohopekaliga and became the city of Kissimmee.
Disston "recreationed" in politics, starting as early as 1876 in local issues."Leaves a Million in Life Insurance", The Chicago Tribune (May 1, 1896), p. 6. He and three other industrialists in Philadelphia—James McManes, William Leeds, and David Lane— were known as the "Big Four", controlling Republican nominations and appointments to city positions in a machine system until new political bosses replaced them in 1890."Hamilton Disston Dead: The Great Saw Manufacturer Passes Away Suddenly at His Home", The North American, (Philadelphia, PA) Friday, May 1, 1896; p. 5.Silcox, p. 55. His wealth allowed him to associate with tycoons and political celebrities, and he was often sought after to advise politicians though he refused to run for office. He publicly supported future president Benjamin Harrison, Congressman William D. Kelley, and political boss Matthew Quay.Grunwald, pp. 83-84.
In 1883, he arranged for President Chester A. Arthur, a fellow Republican, to take a fishing trip to Kissimmee as part of a large publicity campaign for the city.Grunwald, p. 88. Disston founded a sugarcane plantation, out of which sprang the city of St. Cloud.Hartzell, p. 26. Refineries for the plantation were constructed in Kissimmee and near Lake Okeechobee.