Passing Parade: Fact or fiction from Florida

Nelson A. Pryor: Guest Columnist Was Florida’s “Fountain of Youth” rediscovered in the 1860s? That was the question asked in the Nov. 30, 1874 edition of the New York Times, p. 4. It seems there was a bizarre disappearance by one Fred Halsemann down in Tampa Bay.       During the War Between the States, when the Federal fleet was menacing the Bay, a certain old planter of Hillsboro County, Halsemann, who believed in the State motto “Let us alone!” believed the famous Everglad