The Father of Sarasota Golf
By Sue Blue, Photos from the Sarasota County History Center

IIn 1886, a young man stepped from a wooded area near Sarasota’s Main Street into a clearing where he observed a most curious sight. A tall, ruddy faced, mustached, impeccably clad gentleman seemed to be chopping away at a particularly vexing plot of grass; or was it a snake? He held a long stick up in the air and then...wooosh...leveled it toward the ground, crossing it in front of his body. Finally, the young man’s curiosity overcame him and he approached the man with the “stick” to ask him what he was doing.

In strangely accented English, the man replied that he was practicing his swing. The young man inquired, “Swing?” The gentleman replied, “Aye, ye do not play golf? Mon, y’er missin’ half y’er life!”

Golf had arrived in Florida, and more particularly to Sarasota, in the person of Colonel John Hamilton Gillespie, of Edinburgh, Scotland, commissioned officer in the Royal Company of Archers, Queen’s Body Guard of Scotland, and newly appointed manager of the Florida Mortgage and Investment Company.

This managerial position was not going to be an easy occupation. The Scottish company, headed by the Colonel’s father, Sir John Gillespie, had purchased 49,431 acres of Florida land which included the heart of Sarasota. Lots had been sold to Scottish colonists who, upon their arrival, found that the town with the homes they had been promised existed only on a map drawn by promoters. Many of them left and the colonization was deemed a failure. Having never visited Florida, the directors of the investment company did not know of the conditions with which their colonists had to contend. Sir John, in particular, was disturbed by this turn of events and hoping to salvage their good names, as well as help the remaining colonists build the foundation for a town, he sent Colonel Gillespie to manage the company’s interests.

The Colonel promptly hired workers to clear streets of trees and underbrush, dig ditches for drainage, drill an artesian well at Five Points and lay a water main down Main Street. He contracted for the building of the DeSoto Hotel, enlarged the company store and built an office building and a town hall on Main Street. Sarasota began to boom.

In 1902, a meeting was held which included all of the 53 Sarasota voters. Gillespie declared that Sarasota should be a town. He proclaimed, “Aye, if we luve this place we must incor-r-r-porate!” Everyone cheered and agreed. Gillespie was elected mayor, an office he was to hold for six terms.

During those early years all was not rosy for the Colonel. He had been married in Scotland only a short time before coming here and soon found that his wife, Mary, had become a liability, particularly in his efforts to establish the Church of England in Sarasota. The first services of the Anglican Church (known here as Episcopal) were held around his dining room table. Later, services were held in the town meeting hall. It was there that an event occurred which served as a subject of gossip among the citizens for years. On one particular Sunday, while the Colonel was reading the lesson of the day, Mrs. Gillespie wove her way to a prominent seat in front where she opened up her large red silk parasol and held it over her head until he had finished the reading. Then she stood, closed her parasol, and waving her hand she called out, “Nice goin’, darlin”, and wove her way out of the building. It became quite obvious that Mary Gillespie was quite fond of her wee nips...which were sometimes not so wee.

The Gillespies went back to Scotland for a short time during the 1890s and Colonel Gillespie returned to Sarasota alone. Some say that Mary died in Scotland; others say that he divorced her. Besides the incident during the church service, there had been many other embarrassments along the way including the spilling into the lap of the visiting Bishop an entire tureen of hot soup. It was 1904 before Sarasota was officially recognized as an Episcopal missionary district of South Florida.

Romance came to Gillespie on the golf course that he had devised when he met Blanche McDaniel. They were married in Sarasota in 1905. The Sarasota Times printed the story; “Prettiest Wedding in Sarasota”. The very proper Scotsman referred to his bride as “my darling little Bright Eyes.” They honeymooned in Scotland and returned to their home in Sarasota on Links Avenue.

The Colonel’s other “true love” continued to be the game of golf. He was Florida’s Father of Golf and one of the most prominent golfers in the entire country. When he first came to Sarasota, he had placed a two-hole practice course in his front yard. Shortly after, this grew into a one hundred fifteen-acre course plus a club house. He became a frequent contributor to the golfing periodicals “New York Golf” and “The Golfers Magazine of Chicago” writing under the pen name of The Colonel.

Gillespie was responsible for setting into motion events which contributed greatly to Florida’s popularity as a tourist resort. He sold Henry B. Plant, famous railroad builder, on the value of golf as a Florida attraction and was hired to lay out courses for Plant’s investment company in Jacksonville, Tampa, Bellair, Winter Park and Havana, Cuba. He was very confident of his own golfing abilities and having said that he would be willing at any time to meet any other amateur on the links.

Colonel J. Hamilton Gillespie died of a heart attack on September 7, 1923, while playing a game of golf on his golf course. They say he died a happy man. He was buried in Rosemary Cemetery, the site that had been set aside by the Florida Mortgage and Investment Company as the town’s cemetery.

Today, the name of Gillespie is remembered by a city park. Owen Burns, the developer from Chicago who purchased many of the Gillespie property holdings, sold a ten-acre tract of land to the city for a price well below the assessed value stating that he was doing this as a civic proposition. “Ever since the death of Colonel Gillespie, I have been anxious to see a park somewhere in the city which would be named after him, and in which a beautiful monument to his memory could be erected.” Burns wrote. The park is still there but no monument exists. His home on Links Avenue was torn down making way for modern complexes. When the City of Sarasota celebrated the opening of the 18-hole municipal golf course in 1927, it was named for a golfing celebrity who had never lived in Sarasota. There is no golf course named in honor of Colonel John Hamilton Gillespie.

Researched material from: Florida Edition, Makers of America Volume III , B. F. Johnson, © 1909; Hidden History of Sarasota, Jeff LaHurd, © 2009; History of the Church of the Redeemer, © 2006-2008; The Story of Sarasota, Karl H. Grismer, © 1946