LIVING HISTORY
Family celebrates
125 years on the Treasure Coast
BY Janie Gould
The Summerlin family’s affinity forfishing is evident here, as Harry Summerlin, left, and an unidentifed man show off a catch of sawfish. Note P.P. Cobb’s
general store in the background.
If you were to pick the family whose name is most
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closely linked with Fort Pierce and St. Lucie Village, it
probably would be the Summerlins.
“The patriarch, Edward Cabell Summerlin, came to
St. Lucie from Middleburg in north Florida in 1887 to
grow pineapples,” said a grandson, Herman Summerlin, 75.
“He built a home along the trail where the Old Dixie and
railroad run now,” he said. Edward Summerlin and his wife,
Polly Ann Idell Summerlin, had 13 children.
Direct descendants and other members of the extended
Summerlin clan, nearly 200 in all, representing six generations,
met last summer for a reunion marking the family’s
125th year here. They had an old-fashioned fish fry at Museum
PHOTOS PROVIDED
Pointe Park, behind the county’s historical museum on
Seaway Drive. Inside the museum, family members viewed
the exhibit about early settlers, including Summerlins.
Outside, they posed for group photos in front of Summerlin
Dock, dedicated to the late Astor Summerlin for his service to
the Florida Inland Navigation District.
The family is known for fishing.
“They got into fishing around the turn of the century and
shipped fish, oysters and turtles to northern markets,” Herman
Summerlin said. “My daddy was a commercial fisherman
and I fished too, and then I found you couldn’t make a
very good living at it, so I went on to do other things.”
He says the postwar population boom brought motor >>