LIVING HISTORY
38
A portrait of Gov. John W. Martin by Wm F. “Rick” Crary II.
the county’s creation in 1950, and they treated him like the
governor all over again. Martin County’s population was still
tiny then, and so was the celebration, but it was a big day just
the same. And in January 1958 he came back one last time to
join the ribbon cutting on the new bridges to Sewall’s Point
and the beach. That night Martin gave what may have been
the final speech of his life. He told a small dinner crowd at
the Sunrise Inn that Martin County had always held a special
place in his heart. If he could be born again, he said, he
wanted to be born in Martin County. Three weeks later, the
former governor suffered a massive heart attack. He did not
recover. He was 73.
Quite often, history is what happens to a community
while it is busy making other plans. Instead of a major urban
center to rival cities up and down the coast, Martin County
remained a relative refuge from over-development — a
quiet retreat from the future shock imposed on so much of
Florida’s peninsula. It is a place of irony. Martin County owes
its existence to the grand illusions of its local founders, who
spent their time and personal fortunes trying to make it big.
And most of all, the county owes its existence to a governor
who so wanted to be remembered that he put himself on the
map. Perhaps the greatest irony of that quiet treasure, Martin
County, is its name.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Wm. F. “Rick’’ Crary II has lived in Martin
County for more than 50 years. He practices
law in Stuart at the firm his late grandfather,
Evans Crary, Sr., founded in the 1920s:
Crary-Buchanan.
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