PBSCV1599
Gen. James Patton Anderson Camp 1599
Celebrating 32 Years 1992 - 2024
JOHN H ANDREWS
George Edward Andrews, Son of John H Andrews
George Edward Andrews (April 5, 1859 – August 12, 1934) was a professional baseball player. He was a right-handed second baseman and outfielder over parts of eight seasons (1884–1891) with the Philadelphia Quakers, Indianapolis Hoosiers, Brooklyn Ward's Wonders and Cincinnati Kelly's Killers. He was the National League stolen base champion in 1886 with Philadelphia. For his career, he compiled a .257 batting average, with 278 RBIs, 602 runs scored, and 205 stolen bases.
An alumnus of Case Western Reserve University, he was born in Painesville, Ohio and later died in West Palm Beach, Florida at the age of 75.
MIAMI — On Sunday mornings, the streets of Overtown became their church, the people walking along Second Avenue were their congregation and a moving car served as their pulpit.Sitting on the hood in full uniform, some of Miami's best black baseball players rode through streets teeming with people just let out of church, exhorting them to attend an altogether different kind of revival meeting.Just blocks away the Miami Giants, the local semipro team, was about to take on another challenger, and the players were doing their best to drum up interest and fill the grandstand at nearby Dorsey Park.With the car horn honking, a megaphone blared their message to the people who walked past the restaurants, bars and theaters that lined Second Avenue."No newspapers, right? We had word-of-mouth," former Giants player Leroy Cromartie said in an interview before his death on Sept. 14 at age 77.
"We'd go all over the town, riding on the car, blowing horns. That's the way we really got them in. It got so that every Sunday we would have a ballgame, and they would come out to see the game. And they were beautiful people, dressed up. They had their Sunday best on. Them women had the nice hats. The guys had their suits. We just had a ball of a time."Little evidence of Dorsey Park's heyday exists today. Only a section of concrete wall remains where the grandstand behind home plate used to be. Park benches serve as beds for the homeless, and tiny, covered chain-link dugouts provide them shade from the hot summer sun.But for much of the 1930s and '40s, Dorsey Park was a focal point of Miami's African-American community"It wasn't too large," Cromartie said, "but we had them packed in there like flies on buttermilk."ead font, with tall and narrow letters, that works well on almost every site.
His passing serves as a reminder of a baseball era fading from memory as the number of surviving former Negro Leaguers in South Florida dwindles to less than a handful.
That's entertainment
Although never home to a team that belonged to one of the several Negro Leagues that formed and dissolved during the 1920s, '30s and '40s, South Florida had a long history of blacks playing baseball.
As far back as 1907, land developer Henry Flagler built baseball diamonds for the entertainment of his wealthy white guests at his hotels, the Breakers and the Royal Poinciana, in Palm Beach. The black teams he fielded, named after the hotels, were made up of players who also worked as bellhops and waiters when they were not playing baseball.
To run the teams, Flagler hired former Philadelphia Phillies center fielder George Edward "Ed'' Andrews, after whom Andrews Avenue in Fort Lauderdale is named. He recruited players from the Cuban Giants, the Cuban X Giants and the Brooklyn Royal Giants. According to Kevin M. McCarthy's book, Baseball in Florida, John Henry "Pop" Lloyd, Smoky Joe Williams and Oscar Charleston were among the great players who entertained Flagler's wealthy hotel guests for at least the first 20 years of the 20th century.
Although the Hurricane of 1928 destroyed the Royal Poinciana and its baseball bleachers, black baseball continued to thrive in South Florida.
Well before Jackie Robinson broke Major League Baseball's color barrier in 1947, Miami was part of a network of semipro teams throughout Florida that played in cities such as Ocala, Palm Beach, Tampa and St. Petersburg.
Players sometimes were paid from the proceeds of passing a hat through the stands, and life on the road often was difficult, with restaurants refusing them service and hotels refusing them lodging.
"At a filling station, we had a guy ask for the bathroom, and he was told we had to go out into the back of woods," said North Miami's Sidney Wynn, 76, who played with the Miami Giants before moving on to the Indianapolis Clowns and Kansas City Monarchs. "It was tough, no doubt about it."
The Giants were an unofficial farm team for the Negro Leagues, especially the Clowns, who originally were based in Miami. And Miami was the site of exhibition games against teams such as the Clowns and Homestead Grays.
"We played all the teams in the Negro Leagues when they come down for spring training," said Monk Silva, 88, who began running the Giants in 1941. "In the offseason, I'd get the guys from the Cuban Stars. The Cubans going back to Panama and places like that, they'd stop and play with me and make some extra money."
hMary Frances Kirby Family Background https://www.lycoming.edu/umarch/.../2008/Kirby.pdf
Transcribed from: The History of Florida: Past & Present, The Lewis Publishing Co., Vol. II, page 246, 1923.
ANDREWS, GEORGE E. One of the men who has been connected with some of the most constructive work at Palm Beach and West Palm Beach, and whose efforts have resulted in a most remarkable development of the county is Capt. GEORGE E. ANDREWS, of West Palm Beach. In much of his work after coming to Florida he was associated with the late HENRY M. FLAGLER, and he is still carrying on many of the plans formulated by them during Mr. FLAGLER's lifetime.
Captain ANDREWS was born in Lake County, near Cleveland, Ohio, in 1859.
JOHN H. ANDREWS, father of GEORGE E. ANDREWS, was a famous shipmaster on the Great Lakes, where he was a navigator for nearly half a century.
Captain ANDREWS was himself intended for the career of a navigator, and in his father's line learned sufficiently of navigation to qualify as a mariner. It was decided, however, that he should finish his college education, which, quite by chance, led him into other fields. His education was received in the old Western Reserve College, now Adelbert College of Cleveland, from which he was graduated with the class of 1882. During his college years he made a fine record as a player on the college base ball team, which led to his being engaged to play during the summer of 1882 with the Toledo Base Ball Club, a fine semi-professional organization of that day. He had in the meanwhile, after his graduation from college, held the position of expert stenographer and private secretary to HARVEY H. BROWN, president of the Jackson Iron Works of Cleveland, continuing to hold this position during the winter of 1882-82.
Long before the 1883 base ball season had begun Captain ANDREWS had received a very flattering offer to fill the position of second base with the Philadelphia National League Club, the offer coming to him from the club's manager, HARRY WRIGHT, who had observed the Captain's work on the Toledo Club. The offer, carrying with it a salary of $3,800, was a large one for those times, and he accepted it and played second base for two years, or during 1883 and 1884, when he was changed to center field, remaining in this position with the Philadelphia Club until 1890. During his career as a professional base ball player he made quite a remarkable record as fielder, base runner and batter, his name standing high among the great ball players of those years. As a sprinter he won the prize in a 100-yard dash which he made in ten seconds flat. His fleetness of foot was proverbial in base ball circles. His record as a batter ranged consistently from .200 to .310 during his professional career. After he left the diamond he was for four years business agent of the Boston Braves, and in various ways, both from the standpoint of the player and business agent, his connection with the great American sport was a complete success. In the meantime, while a player with the Philadelphias (sic), he had been coming to Florida in the winter seasons for sport and recreation, and in 1884 he purchased land and began the development of a plantation on the Indian River in Brevard County. Here he began the cultivation of pineapples as a principal crop, and under his own personal supervision he built up a fine piece of property.
The great freeze of 1895 practically destroyed this business, and during the summer seasons of two or three years following he was an umpire with the Nation al League, an occupation that enabled him to recuperate financially. About this time he met HENRY M. FLAGLER, builder of the Florida East Coast Railway, who had heard of Captain ANDREWS' unflagging energy, his business acumen and resourcefulness. Going to New York at Mr. FLAGLER's telegraphic request, Captain ANDREWS was, after a brief interview, given the position of executive in charge of the entertainment features of the Florida East Coast Hotel System, with headquarters at the Royal Poinciana at Palm Beach. This was a position mainly of diplomacy, in which he met the guests and contrived to see that a congeniality of social life was maintained among them, and that their entertainment, comfort and pleasure were always provided for in proper measure. The act that the Royal Poinciana entertained so many guests of great wealth and great fame made this period of Captain ANDREWS' life very rich in pleasant and memorable associations. He filled this position at Palm Beach for twelve years. Among his other duties he had general supervision of the care of the large number of yachts that annually came to these waters, owned by private parties, and this, in addition to the fact that he is familiar with navigation, has led to his being universally known as "Captain" ANDREWS.
After severing his connections with the Flagler interests Captain ANDREWS went to the Pacific Northwest, and for two years was manager in charge of a 35,000 acre apple orchard near Spokane, Washington. Returning to Florida, he located at West Palm Beach, and immediately began buying up properties in various sections of the city, which was just then getting a start on its subsequent career of continued growth and expansion. Captain ANDREWS has been one of the principal builders of this modern and flourishing city, these developments of his having added greatly to the city's expansion. More recently Captain ANDREWS has retired from active business life, but still takes care of his extensive property interests. He is devoting considerable of his time to literary work, with the ultimate object of having published his memoirs, which because of his varied and eventful life, promise to be of fascinating interest.
In 1888 Captain ANDREWS married at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, MARY FRANCES KIRBY, of that city. They have two daughters, Mrs. ELIZABETH CHAFFIN and Mrs. GRACE GRUBER.
