LIVING HISTORY
Talley Crary moved from Tampa
to Stuart and fell in love with the
house that would become the
only home she ever owned.
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newly completed cross-state canal, making it “the Atlantic
Gateway to the Gulf of Mexico.” The same developers were
among those who threw $1,000 in a pot to fund the County
Division Committee.
The population explosion and port never became a reality,
but the County Division Committee succeeded in creating
Martin County. Crary House is a perfect structure to represent
the county’s creation and the more gradual than initially
hoped for development.
CRARY’S ARRIVAL
A Tampa native, Evans Crary was recruited as an assistant
to Stuart City Attorney Edwin Brobston, just as he was
finishing law school at the University of Florida. In Rick
Crary’s words, “The county
seat of freshly formed Martin
County was having all kinds
of legal troubles trying to raise
revenues to keep its fledgling
government functioning. Issues
of law involving municipal
bonds were complicated, and
Brobston wanted to find a new
associate who could help carry
the load. Undoubtedly, in 1927 it
was becoming obvious to most
everyone that the big boom was
going to stay busted for good.”
In relatively short order Edwin
Brobston bailed out and moved
to Tampa, leaving Evans Crary
with the Stuart law practice.
Within a year after Crary came to Stuart he married his
childhood sweetheart, Talley McKewn, and brought her “kicking
and screaming” from the city life of Tampa to tiny Stuart.
Again, according to Rick, “she never really learned to love
Stuart, but she loved Evans and Evans loved the little town.”
But Talley did love the enchanting house built for Scott and
Minerva Atkin on Cardinal Way. The Crarys first rented one of
O’Reilly’s Mediterranean style houses next door to their future
home, but it wasn’t long before they bought the Atkins place. It
would be the only home the Crarys ever owned.
Emma Kitching, widow of Walter Kitching, Stuart’s
pioneer merchant and banker, held the mortgage when the
Atkinses defaulted. In 1933, she foreclosed The Crary House under construction in late 1925 or early 1926. and acquired >>
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