Politics
During the late 1860s and 1870s, Gleason traveled between his Fort Dallas residence and Tallahassee, seeking business and political connections. As a consequence of this and a few powerful Republican friends, on July 7, 1868, he was sworn in as the state's second lieutenant governor. During an attempted impeachment of Governor Harrison Reed, Gleason claimed the Governorship. The Senate had adjourned on without November 7, 1868 without deciding whether or not to impeach Reed. Reed's supporters, including the state's Adjutant General and the county Sheriff, kept him out of the Capitol. He set up in a hotel and signed documents as Governor. The Supreme Court sided with Governor Reed, and the political struggle ended with his removal from office as Lieutenant Governor December 14, 1868.
Traveling along Florida's coast, Gleason passed many charming harbors. He liked one such area so much that he purchased most of it (16,000 acres (6,500 ha)) at $1.25 an acre and named it Eau Gallie. This was the site of Arlington, founded by John C. Houston. Gleason prepared a plat of his new land, which encompassed the entire area from Indian River Lagoon to Lake Washington, approximately thirty square miles. William Lee Apthorp's 1877 Standard Map of Florida shows Eau Gallie in large capital letters, incorrectly designating Gleason's land as the county seat of Brevard County. Part of Gleason's land eventually became the city of Eau Gallie, Florida and later north Melbourne
Read more about this topic: William Henry Gleason
Famous quotes containing the word politics:
“Of course, in the reality of history, the Machiavellian view which glorifies the principle of violence has been able to dominate. Not the compromising conciliatory politics of humaneness, not the Erasmian, but rather the politics of vested power which firmly exploits every opportunity, politics in the sense of the “Principe,” has determined the development of European history ever since.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)
“The trouble with Nixon is that he’s a serious politics junkie. He’s totally hooked ... and like any other junkie, he’s a bummer to have around: especially as President.”
—Hunter S. Thompson (b. 1939)
“The rage for road building is beneficent for America, where vast distance is so main a consideration in our domestic politics and trade, inasmuch as the great political promise of the invention is to hold the Union staunch, whose days already seem numbered by the mere inconvenience of transporting representatives, judges and officers across such tedious distances of land and water.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)