LIVING HISTORY
11
History is one of those things that can
disappear forever if no one is watching
out for it. There needs to be somebody —
a professional historian, a journalist — a
beekeeper? — to keep it alive.
Usually it’s the historian or the journalist who does
the job for a community, but the Treasure Coast was
lucky enough to have a particularly talented beekeeper
whose skills ran to more than making honey. Indian
River, St. Lucie, and Martin counties can thank Harry
Hill, an apiarist — that’s a beekeeper — extraordinaire
and a former Canadian, for preserving a substantial
slice of the area’s heritage.
Hill may not have considered himself a historian
— it’s possible he didn’t consider history much at
all — but he had the imagination to wed his vocation
with photography, a technical marvel of the late Nineteenth
Century and a perfect medium for upgrading
the beekeeping magazine he was editing. Eventually
the magazine folded, but by that time Hill had perfected
his photographic skills and had started a family
business that was to become the source of a chunk of
Treasure Coast history. He called it the Florida Photographic
Concern.
Hill started out taking pictures for the fun of it, as an
amateur photographer. But later, first with The American
Bee Keeper and later with the Photographic Concern, he
was doing it for the money. And he must have made
quite a lot. The Florida Photographic Concern became
famous for its great photos, fashionable post cards and
commissions from foreign countries like Japan.
MORE THAN BEES
From the mid-1890s until the mid-1930s, Hill
photographed a lot more than bees. He aimed his
cameras at people, what they were doing, what they
built. The region’s leaders were usually preserved on
his glass negatives, but so were the ordinary people
as they went about their ordinary lives. He promoted
local industries and photographed the construction
of buildings, roads, bridges, railways and canals. He
photographed conveyances of all kinds — ox carts, au-
THURLOW COLLECTION
Images of the era of steam were captured by the Hills. An example is the houseboat
Vagabondia, built for W. L. Mellon, founder of the Gulf Oil Corporation.
A.A. HENRY III
This photograph of Alfred Snellgove, who had a dairy on Avenue B in what is now
downtown Fort Pierce, documents early agriculture on the Treasure Coast.
Through his
photography,
Hill documented
the life of the
Seminoles. This
photo he took of
Polly Parker, one
of the most important
women in
Seminole culture,
is one of the few
photos that exist
of her. Hill’s wife,
Catherine, was a
photo colorist and
perhaps colored
this one.
TAYLOR/ASHLEY FAMILY ARCHIVES
The Florida Photographic Concern covered the Martin County birthday festivities that
took place in late January 1926. Here, Gov. John W. Martin greets architect Addison
Mizner while William G. “Fingy” Conners, developer and builder of the Connors
Highway near Lake Okeechobee, looks on.
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