We thought about renting bikes.There is a surf shop nearby that rents them but it was not the best day for biking. We had saved 2 little museums for another rainy day and the Off the Hook restaurant that had been so nice to shelter us from the winds for these days.
The museums were housed in several. buildings from the original settlement of the town in the late 1800’s and 1900’s. The first home we toured was originally a small fish camp. Then it became a year round dwelling. The original post office was next door. The two marinas in the area also were built on sites of old fish camps.
The other museum was the old home of the Pacetti family. The Pacettis were part of a group sent by the Spanish to settle New Smyrna but were kicked out by the English and managed to acquire land at Ponce Inlet, then known as Mosquito Inlet. They later sold some land to the US government for the building of the lighthouse for $400 and used the fortune to build a hotel for people from the north to spend a warmer winter.
It was very much a hunting and fishing type lodge, much like the hotel on Cobb Island except men, women and families spent time here. They also housed the lighthouse workers for a time. Martha cooked for everyone.
The Pacettis were encouraged to build the hotel by the artist William Aiken Walker who had befriended them on his travels. He is interesting to me as his more famous paintings were scenes of southern black sharecroppers during the reconstruction period. He depicted them in the fields and their homes in placid scenes that lacked evidence of their continued struggles. For this reason, his paintings are now considered racist. I do not know if he had a personal relationship with any of his subjects.
He sold many of his paintings as post cards and small paintings to tourists from the north visiting southern cities. The paintings reinforced the fantasy that all was well in the South after the end of the civil war.
It was in his later years that Walker spent a lot of time at Ponce Inlet and he wintered at the hotel for many years. He would help out there, relating stories and history, painting and interacting as an interesting guest.
He spent summers at another hotel, The Arden Lodge, in what is now Arden, NC. The owner of that hotel was one of his patrons. He painted scenes of both Ponce Inlet and the Carolina mountains.
The Pacetti Hotel fell into disrepair after Martha’s death in 1917. It was later purchased and restored by Olivia Gamble, a Proctor and Gamble heiress. She bequeathed it to her niece who, with her husband, owned the Cincinnati Reds. A lot of baseball players were seen in Ponce Inlet at the time. The hotel was then part of a foundation until it was purchased by the local foundation that now owns the lighthouse. They restored it once again, protected it, and manage its ongoing care.
There is a park in Ponce Inlet that has an archeological site where Native American artifacts have been found as well as a nature preserve with boardwalks through the mangroves but we had to save these adventures for another visit.
The winds and intermittent showers continued as we ate some shrimp at the Off the Hook restaurant. Tomorrow, weather permitting, we will head to St. Augustine.
