“YOU have seen,” William A. Whitehead wrote to his grandchildren, “the pencil sketch of the Custom House….” It was a reminder they may very well have needed, part of a “brief outline of the events” of his own life, in which he set out to convey some faint impression of an island home he’d first seen long before they were born, when he was just eighteen years old.
The drawing to which he referred in this memoir is not known to survive. It portrayed his workplace and living quarters between the ages of 21 and 28, the years when he was collector of the customs for the Key West district. The appearance of this building was perhaps of some interest to his grandchildren, more because it showed the birthplace and first dwelling place of the mother of some of them.1
Even before it welcomed the arrival of a wife and children, “My establishment,” he recalled, “was a very comfortable one.” While a bachelor he took his meals at Ellen Mallory’s boarding house, but still preferred to sleep and spend his leisure hours under the custom house roof. Bringing, toward the end of his second year, “more furniture and household effects” from the North, he “commenced housekeeping,” employing one of his boat hands as cook, and another as waiter.2
Aside from the commercial and official business conducted there, the custom house during the early years of Whitehead’s tenancy was a focal point of Key West life. Visitors “in considerable numbers” came to sit and converse on its wide verandas, watch incoming and departing vessels, and savor the refreshing trade winds. The monthly deliveries of newspapers from more northerly cities made Whitehead’s home “a favorite place of resort.” There was even space for the occasional tenant to lease an office, if not to find lodging.3
Such hospitality would have seemed unthinkable when, in January 1831, William A. Whitehead first assumed the collector’s duties. He found himself on his second day, and again two weeks later, complaining to the Treasury Secretary about the condition of the place. Several years of neglect had left a leaky roof above, loosening weatherboards and rotting wood pilings underneath, making much of the house “unlivable,” even unsafe.4
The Treasury authorized the needed repairs, which were made probably that summer or fall–not, however, before the landing of an army company whose commanding officer was, for some months, billeted with the collector. Presumably, his accommodations kept the Major and his family sufficiently warm and dry; Whitehead, at least, would remember having “shared its comforts” with them, even then.5
Not long before this Whitehead, when all of 18, had been commissioned to survey and draw both the island and its mostly hypothetical street plan. His town map showed the custom house site as a large, roughly trapezoidal lot, bounded on the east by Clinton Place and on the west by the sea. Designated Square 4, its purple shading on Whitehead’s pen-and-ink draft signified that it had been set aside “for the common use of the proprietors.” His manuscript version showed no buildings, but the custom house and a couple of other structures did materialize once it was printed.6
Ownership of this lot and the origins of the custom house are separate matters, yet both belong to a complex and contested history. They illuminate but also complicate the chronicle of Whitehead’s life, bound up as they are with characters, events and influences that both predate and reach far beyond the years he spent working and living on the premises.
Key West’s “official” history may be said to begin in March 1822, when Lieutenant Matthew C. Perry arrived in command of the Navy schooner Shark to plant the flag of the United States. Perry named the harbor in honor of Commodore John Rodgers, and christened the island in homage to Navy Secretary Smith Thompson. “Port Rodgers” found its way onto Whitehead’s map, but the name was soon forgotten. Likewise “Thompson’s Island,” as Whitehead observed in 1835, was “a title it has long ceased to bear, and which it is probable will never be revived….”7
Perry had landed on an island uncultivated but not unpeopled. Two of its four original purchasers, lately arrived from Mobile, were among those present at the raising of the U.S. standard: John Whitehead of New Jersey, the half-brother of William, and John W. C. Fleeming of New Bedford, Massachusetts. The original purchaser, John W. Simonton, had sold to each a quarter share of the island.8
The flag raising and the attendance of these men were about more than ceremony. They were calculated at least partly to counter the claim of a former governor of South Carolina, John Geddes, to be the island’s rightful owner.9 On both sides of this contest, the strategy seems to have been to send workmen and supplies, erect buildings, and give news of these “improvements” wide circulation, seeking thus to strengthen their own claims, preempt the claims of their opponents, or both. Hence Fleeming’s landing on 24 March “with a number of men,” bringing “timber properly formed to erect a house of 60 feet [in length],” was acclaimed in northern newspapers as the probable “foundation of a great city!”10 Geddes, having similar designs, hastened to dispatch artisans, enslaved laborers and tools, and solicited for them the Navy’s protection until he could take “peaceable possession” of the island.11
Simonton, his fellows and his foes apparently believed that demonstrating an early and continuous occupation would eventually serve to confirm their title. It’s a notion that seems to have remained potent even a decade later, judging from an assertion William Whitehead made (albeit anonymously) in the Key West Gazette:
Early in the Spring of 1822, Mr. Simonton, in conjunction with Messrs. J. W. C. Fleeming and John Whitehead, commenced the first permanent settlement, and at that time built the first house–which is still a very comfortable tenement, as we can testify, it being at present occupied by ourselves.12
Could Whitehead’s “comfortable” accommodations really date to the island’s very beginnings, and even be the island’s first house? Or was this declaration a distant echo of the battle for peaceable possession that began in 1822? Do events following the planting of the American standard in that year supply any answers?
Whereas the claims of Simonton and his associates would, after a few years, prevail over those of John Geddes, any degree of possession proved far from peaceable. The centerpiece of the Key West project was its designation as a port of entry: in no other way could the place become the mercantile mecca they felt it destined to be. But these gentlemen were frustrated, beginning in April 1823, by the island’s conversion to a garrison under Commodore David Porter, commander of the Navy’s anti-piracy squadron.
The Navy’s control of “Thompson’s Island” appeared, to the proprietors, nothing short of tyrannical. Ignoring their property rights and their plan for a town, Commodore Porter put up buildings wherever he chose, and blocked their efforts to improve what they saw as their own property. Porter’s marines took the proprietors’ wood and water and slaughtered their livestock without compensation.
While the commodore professed to treat both sides in the ownership dispute equally, he operated in complete disregard of their claims. “It is the United States,” he said, “and the United States alone, to whom the territory belongs by purchase, that I recognise as proprietors.”13
Key West was made a port of entry in 1823, but until a customs officer arrived Porter turned commerce away.14 The first collector and inspector of the customs, seeking to rent space for an office or warehouse, learned that such would be difficult to find and costly, and could be secured only at their own expense.15
The commodore had different ideas, reserving, for a future custom house, land on which the proprietors had planned to build a private warehouse.16 What piece of ground this was, or what stood on it after Porter resigned his command and the fleet withdrew to Pensacola, can’t easily be determined. Yet somehow, by 1826, collector William Pinkney was found to be occupying, “for a Custom House,” one of the buildings the Navy had left behind. Of the few structures not sold at auction late in that year, or rented the year after, “the Commodore’s dwelling house” remained, on the Treasury Department’s orders, in the possession of the collector of customs.17
Because Porter’s control over affairs on the island had been so nearly complete, that the “Commodore’s dwelling house” and the collector’s quarters were one and the same may not be so far-fetched.18 But if such was the case, and if Porter erected a dwelling for himself rather than simply take over one already existing, Whitehead’s identification of the custom house with the earliest house has to be dismissed. Indeed, the record does show that the house William Pinkney inhabited was built as part of the naval station, rather than within the first few weeks of settlement.19
Probably not long after the cloud of military occupation was lifted, John Simonton, who lived for part of the year in Washington, began to sound out officials there about whether the government would buy the lot of ground on which the custom house stood.20
In the winter of 1828-29, when the proprietors combined William A. Whitehead’s survey and map with an elaborate lottery to divide up the heretofore undivided island–young Whitehead himself acting as their “disinterested” recorder–they reserved the custom house lot for possible purchase by the United States. Pinkney relayed to Washington the asking price–four thousand dollars–describing it as “extremely reasonable,” as he believed the lot worth a good deal more.21
Serious consideration of the purchase had to await a new administration, and a new intermediary. Before the end of his first year as collector, Whitehead raised the question again with the Treasury Secretary:
I have been requested by the Proprietors of the Island to address you in relation to the lot on which the Custom House now stands and which has been so occupied since the first settlement of the place, and enquire whether or not the Government will become the purchaser thereof. They offer it for the sum of Four thousand Dollars which is thought reasonable when all the circumstances of the case are taken into consideration.22
He went on:
The site is one which commands a perfect view of the whole harbor. No vessel can enter or depart without being observed, and [it is] so situated as to afford the best water for wharves and will be the best situation for public stores when it is thought proper to erect them. If deemed too large, it presents facilities in the extent of front for division into smaller lots that the improvement of the place may render valuable.
Finally, the work lately done to shore up and weatherproof the house greatly enhanced the site’s desirability:
The Custom House having within a few months undergone a thorough repair will answer all the purposes of the Government for some years. The site is evidently the best that could be selected….
In late December 1831, the Treasury asked for a delay, with a price guarantee, until the end of the next session of Congress. The proprietors, through Whitehead, refused a guarantee, saying they felt at liberty to entertain higher bids if any were made. Their $4,000 price, Whitehead pointed out, for a property having a 400-foot frontage, compared very favorably with another waterfront lot whose frontage was not even one quarter as long: that ground had recently sold for $2,500. He further cautioned the department that the proprietors might choose to subdivide “so large a lot” in order to sell it. If that happened, the government would be forced to move the present house, or pay to build a new one.23
Whether from lapses in communication or preoccupation in the capital with other matters, no immediate action was taken in Washington. The proprietors, for their part, either had no better offer or decided to bide their time until the government made a move. Their price remained unchanged, but Whitehead requested an additional sum to cover the cost of adding a large cistern. With this improvement, the custom house’s long roof that once admitted the rain could now collect it, promising to supply revenue cutters cruising the Florida strait with much needed fresh water.24
Although it would be another year before Congress appropriated the asked-for purchase price, Whitehead was authorized to pay the proprietors four years’ back rent on the custom house lot, charging the sum to his account as collector. The allocation for a cistern, unfortunately, had to wait for a later Congress.25
Photographs of Key West’s custom house and a plan of the ground floor, although these were made many years after Whitehead’s occupancy, correspond in several details with the few glimpses of it that can be found in his writings. The main building was his residence, while a small one annexed to it served as the office. Shaded “piazzas” extended along the front and back, where merchants and others would have gathered and “descanted upon the contents” of the past month’s newspapers. Another piazza divided the main house from the office forming a covered passageway, the ideal place to mount a thermometer. Whitehead was quite particular about the placement of the instruments he used for his daily weather observations: “hung within doors, but in a free circulation of air, night and day.”26
Around 1890, the house represented in these photos was dismantled and removed. A fragment of it, preserved and re-erected on busy Duval Street, seems unlikely to surrender any custom house secrets it may yet be keeping.
Copyright © 2026 Gregory J. Guderian
Last updated 2026.09.19
[1] “Childhood & youth of W. A. Whitehead 1810–1830,” a manuscript volume at the Florida Keys History Center, Monroe County Library, Key West, Florida (hereafter “Whitehead, ‘Childhood & youth’”), transcription pages 1, 31. In 1838, Whitehead drew two views of Key West from the lookout tower of the Amos C. Tift & Company warehouse, of which one, facing southeast, included the custom house. In 1871, he gave these “two large pencil sketches” to the city of Key West; five years later, “reduced” lithographs of them appeared in Walter C. Maloney, A sketch of the history of Key West, Florida (Newark 1876), following page 85. See my previous post 068–Tift’s Tower for more on these views. I’m not aware that the originals, or any other sketches showing the custom house, are still extant. After she married William A. Whitehead in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, in the summer of 1834, Margaret Parker became a resident of the Key West custom house. Their first child Penelope was born there in June 1835; Penelope married her cousin Cortlandt Lewis Parker and by 1874, the year Whitehead seems to have begun writing his memoir, had given her parents five grandchildren, of whom at least three survived infancy. Her brother William is known to have fathered only one child, who died an infant. The memoir was likely preserved by one of the five grandchildren born to William and Margaret’s youngest son Cortlandt. The Whiteheads’ descendants down to the 1920s are traced (not in all respects accurately) in W. Northey Jones, The history of St. Peter’s Church in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. The oldest congregation of the Church in the State of New Jersey ([New York] 1924) 429, 504.
[2] Whitehead, “Childhood & youth,” transcription pages 32, 34, 35.
[3] Whitehead, “Childhood & youth,” transcription page 37. W. A. Whitehead, “Reminiscences of Key West. No. 1,” Key of the Gulf (Key West, Fla.) 31 March 1877. Clippings of this series formed the basis of the edition of Thelma Peters, “William Adee Whitehead’s Reminiscences of Key West,” Tequesta: the journal of the Historical Association of Southern Florida 1:25 (1965) (3-42) 6 (hereafter “Whitehead, ‘Reminiscences No. 1’”). William R. Hackley passed an unusually cold January evening as a guest of fellow attorney Robert B. Stanard, in “a room Stanard has got at the custom house with a fire place….” William R. Hackley, Diary, in Goulding Collection, Special Collections, Florida State University Libraries, Tallahassee, MSS 0-128, entry of 19 January 1831.
[4] These two letters are known from copies Whitehead made from his own files and sent to Washington after the burning of the Treasury building in 1833. The first letter touched only on the roof: “I find the Custom House very much out of repair, the greater part of it being unlivable from the leaky condition of the roof and it is absolutely necessary for the preservation of the property that it should be attended to as soon as possible.” W. A. Whitehead, Key West 25 January 1831, to Samuel D. Ingham. The second letter gave a more thorough reckoning: “In a letter I had the honor of addressing to you on the 25” Ult. I took the liberty of adverting to the condition of the Custom House and its want of repairs. Since which time I have become more fully impressed with the necessity that exists for their being made. – The house is built upon Wooden piles driven into the ground nearly all of which are in a decaying state, so that there is some apprehension of the building’s settling unless their places are immediately supplied by new ones – The weather-boarding in many places has become so loose that the rain has access to the timbers and the roof as I observed in my former communication is in such a leaky condition that part of the house is untenable from that cause – As the building has received no reparation as I understand during the last six or seven years, and as it belongs to the Government I would respectfully suggest that it should receive the necessary repairs as soon as possible.” W. A. Whitehead, Key West 7 February 1831, to Samuel D. Ingham, copy in “Letters to and from the Collector, Key West, Dec. 13, 1826 to Mar. 29, 1833,” Correspondence of the Secretary of the Treasury with Collectors of Customs, 1789–1833, Record Group 56, General Records of the Department of the Treasury, National Archives and Records Administration, Microcopy 178, Roll 38 (Washington 1956; hereafter “Letters to and from the Collector, Key West”), 74, 97. Collector William Pinkney had recommended repairs to the custom house two years earlier, apparently without effect: William Pinkney, Key West 24 December 1828, to Richard Rush, in Clarence Edwin Carter, ed. The territorial papers of the United States. Volume XXIV. The Territory of Florida 1828–1834 (Washington 1959; hereafter “Territorial papers XXIV”) 124.
[5] Whitehead, “Childhood & youth,” transcription page 32. In the fall and winter of 1832-33, a number of guests enjoyed the “hospitalities” of the custom house: proprietor John W. C. Fleeming arrived in November and died within a few weeks; Sanson K. Brunot, the first clergyman assigned to the island, came in December but left the next spring for his Pittsburgh home, “far gone in consumption”; and Whitehead’s brother John with his wife and mother-in-law stayed there in December and January. Whitehead, “Childhood & youth,” transcription pages 34-35.
[6] The only known manuscript copy of Whitehead’s map is found in the Harvard Map Collection. For a description of this copy and the lithograph version, see my earlier post 016–A key of many colors.
[7] Notices of Key West for John Rodman Esq. St. Augustine, written December 1835, manuscript copy in Florida Miscellaneous Manuscripts Collection, P. K. Yonge Library of Florida History, Special Collections, University of Florida (hereafter “Notices of Key West”), 2b, published in Rember W. Patrick, ed. “William Adee Whitehead’s description of Key West,” Tequesta: the journal of the Historical Association of Southern Florida1:12 (1952) (61-73) 64. References hereafter to Patrick’s text appear in parentheses thus: (Patrick 63).
[8] Notices of Key West 2a (Patrick 63). A little over a month from Simonton’s original purchase from Spanish official Juan Pablo Salas, he and his associates petitioned for Key West to be made a port of entry, claiming to have “formed a considerable Settlement” and “incurred considerable expense in building and making other improvements….” Memorial to Congress by John W. Simonton and associates, 31 January 1822, in Clarence Edwin Carter, ed. The territorial papers of the United States. Volume XXII. The Territory of Florida 1821–1824 (Washington 1956; hereafter “Territorial papers XXII”) 352-353.
[9] Geddes claimed purchase from one John B. Strong of a transfer of the rights to Key West from Juan Pablo Salas, the same Spanish official who sold the island to Simonton. See William G. D. Worthington, St. Augustine, E.F., 18 March 1822, to John Q. Adams, in Territorial papers XXII 381-383. Geddes’s claim that he had secured a court injunction against Simonton was refuted by the latter: “Key West,” The Charleston (S.C.) courier 2 May 1822 2:5; “Key West,” The Charleston courier 29 May 1822 2:3-4.
[10] The original newspaper report rendered Fleeming as “Mr. Hemming, a gentleman from Mobile,” and was widely reprinted: “Extract of a letter from an officer on board the U.S. schooner Shark, off the Moro Castle, Havana, March 30, to his friend in this place…,” Norwich (Conn.) courier 1 May 1822 3:2; cf. “Valuable acquisition,” Niles’ weekly register n.s. 10:11 (11 May 1822) 176.
[11] John Cassin, Charleston, S.C., 19 March 1822, to “the Commanding Officer or Officers of any vessel of the U.S. near Key West East Florida”; B. R. Montgomery and George W. Geddes, on board the Schooner Emeline off Key West, 4 April 1822, to Capt. George W. Hamersley; both in Letter book of M. C. Perry 1821–1823 203, 217, transcriptions via Florida Keys History Center, Monroe County Public Library, Key West. The name of Dr. Benjamin Montgomery, a brother in law of John Geddes and one of his agents on Key West, became attached to a house apparently built to reinforce the Geddes title. The “Montgomery House” was later purchased jointly by the proprietors: see Monroe County Deed Records, Monroe County Public Library, Key West, Book A:48.
[12] Key West (Fla.) gazette 11 January 1832 2:3. In the surviving copy of this newspaper at the University of Florida, an unknown hand has penned “W. A. Whitehead” at the end of the unsigned piece.
[13] Statement of P. C. Greene & Co., Key West 1 February 1825, in J. W. Simonton & others. July 24, 1846, 29th Cong., 1st Sess. (H. Rept. 792) (34-39) 36; John W. Simonton, and others. February 9, 1848, 30th Cong., 1st Sess. (H. Rept. 189) (41-47) 43. See also David Porter, Washington 18 August 1824, to James M. McIntosh, printed at the end of these reports.
[14] Porter reported to the Treasury the absence of a collector and inspector of the customs, leaving “no protection here to the revenue but myself. I have not allowed vessels, coming from foreign ports, to land their cargoes, but have sent them elsewhere, persuaded, as I am, that there can be no motive in their doing so, but the interest which they hope to derive from illicit practices.” Some merchants complained: “A large business has commenced with the port of Havana, which must be discontinued until the custom-house is re-established.” Porter, however, said the absence of a collector was a small matter, “as the number of vessels which arrive and depart is so limited.” John R. Mifflin et al., Thompson’s Island 15 June 1823, to William H. Crawford; David Porter, U.S. Galliot Sea Gull, Allenton, Thompson’s Island, 24 June 1823, to William H. Crawford; in Revenue at Key West. Letter from the Secretary of the Treasury, transmitting the information required by a resolution of the House of Representatives, of the 28th ult. in relation to the revenue which has accrued, and the amount collected at Key West, since it was made a port of entry. May 6, 1826, 19th Cong., 1st Sess. (H. Doc. 173, Serial set 140. Washington 1826. Hereafter “Revenue at Key West”) 18, 19.
[15] Joel Yancey, Norfolk, Va., 28 January 1823, [to William H. Crawford?], and Joel Yancey, Glasgow, Ky., 29 August 1823, [to William H. Crawford], Revenue at Key West 16, 21-22; Samuel Ayres, Key West 10 April 1824, to Joseph Anderson, Territorial papers XXII 920-921; Joseph Anderson, Treasury Department 2 August 1824, to William Pinkney, Revenue at Key West 7.
[16] “I should not have felt myself justifiable,” Porter wrote, “in allowing any one to occupy a piece of ground for private purposes so necessary for public use.” Pardon C. Greene, one of the proprietors, construed this action as retribution for opposing Porter’s attempt to claim the cargo of a French ship recaptured from pirates, for the sale of which Greene’s company had been appointed agents. David Porter, United States Ship John Adams, Thompson’s Island 28 January 1825, to P. C. Greene & Co., and statement of P. C. Greene & Co., Key West 1 February 1825, in J. W. Simonton & others. July 24, 1846, 29th Cong., 1st Sess. (H. Rept. 792) 46, 34-39; John W. Simonton, and others. February 9, 1848, 30th Cong., 1st Sess. (H. Rept. 189) 54-55, 41-47.
[17] Richard Rush, Treasury Department 5 September 1826, to William Pinkney, copy in “Letters to and from the Collector, Key West,” 3 (hereafter “Rush to Pinkney, 5 September 1826”); William A. C. Farragut, Pensacola, Fla., 18 November 1826, to L. Warrington, in Clarence Edwin Carter, ed. The territorial papers of the United States. XXIII. The territory of Florida 1824–1828 (Washington 1958; hereafter “Territorial papers XXIII”) 669-670. Reporting in 1829 on Navy department buildings standing on the island, the U.S. marshal for the district stated that “the commandants quarters, are now, and I believe have been, since the establishment of this as a port of entry, occupied by the Collector….” John Dean, Key West 14 October 1829, to John Branch, in Territorial papers XXIV 276-278.
[18] Such, at least, seems to be the import of a much later statement identifying “what is now called the custom-house lot” with “that on which was subsequently [i.e. in 1823] built the commanding officer’s quarters.” Deposition of Griffith W. Roberts, 3 November 1842, in J. W. Simonton & others. July 24, 1846, 29th Cong., 1st Sess. (H. Rept. 792) (17-19) 18; John W. Simonton, and others. February 9, 1848, 30th Cong., 1st Sess. (H. Rept. 189) (22-24) 23.
[19] Rush to Pinkney, 5 September 1826.
[20] A letter from Whitehead suggests that the idea of purchasing the lot originated in Washington: “On the partition of the Island among the several proprietors during the winter of 1828-9 Mr Pinkney then Collector expressed some desire that the Square should not be divided with the rest of the property in order that if the Department should wish to procure it for a permanent establishment they might do so without any unnecessary trouble or expense. He did so it is supposed at the suggestion of Mr Rush then Secretary of the Treasury as application was made about that time through Mr Pinkney to know the terms upon which the lot might be purchased.” William A. Whitehead, Key West 15 November 1831, to Louis McLane, Letters … Key West 111. Secretary Rush showed an early interest in enforcing revenue laws in the Florida Strait: see Richard Rush, Treasury Department 8 October 1825, to Captain William K. Polk, in Territorial papers XXIII 337-338.
[21] Monroe County Deed Records, Monroe County Public Library, Key West, Book A:145-153; William Pinkney, Key West 24 December 1828, to Richard Rush, Territorial papers XXIV 124-125.
[22] William A. Whitehead, Key West 15 November 1831, to Louis McLane, copy in “Letters to and from the Collector, Key West,” 111.
[23] Louis McLane, Treasury Department 26 November 1831, to William A. Whitehead, and William A. Whitehead, Key West 24 December 1831, to Louis McLane, copies in “Letters to and from the Collector, Key West,” 70, 112.
[24] “The Custom House buildings having an extensive surface of roof a large quantity of water might be saved, and the Revenue Cutters cruizing in this quarter be supplied at much less expense than they now are. Rain water being the only kind generally used in this climate the cutters oftentimes experience considerable inconvenience in getting the quantity they require: a Cistern sufficiently large to contain from 8 to 10.000 Gallons can be erected at an expense of between $350 & $400. – Having heard nothing to the contrary from the Proprietors I am led to believe they still remain willing to make a sale of the lot at the price before asked Four thousand Dollars.” William A. Whitehead, Key West 18 October 1832, to Louis McLane, copy in “Letters to and from the Collector, Key West,” 82.
[25] Louis McLane, Treasury Department 3 December 1832 and 8 March 1833, to William A. Whitehead, copies in “Letters to and from the Collector, Key West,” 88, 90. Louis McLane, Treasury Department 9 May 1833, to William A. Whitehead; Roger B. Taney, Treasury Department 17 and 18 October 1833, to William A. Whitehead; Levi Woodbury, Treasury Department 2 July 1834 and 18 April 1835, to William A. Whitehead: Letters sent by the Secretary of the Treasury to Collectors of Customs at all ports (1789–1847) and at small ports (1847–78), Record Group 56, General Records of the Department of the Treasury, National Archives and Records Administration (Microcopy no. 175, Roll 4), 1:36, 161, 162, 261, 420, 2:71. For some details of the island’s early cisterns, see Carston R. Heinlein, “Key West’s search for fresh water,” Florida Keys sea heritage journal 9:2 (Winter 1998-99) (1-10) 4.
[26] Whitehead, “Childhood & youth” 31; Whitehead, “Reminiscences No. 1”; “Table of mean temperatures from observations at Key West, Florida, the most southern town in the U. States,” The American almanac and repository of useful knowledge, for the year 1838 (Boston 1837) 186. Whitehead used a Rutherford self-registering horizontal thermometer, “kept in a free circulation of air during the night as well as the day.” “Meteorological table for 1835. From the journal kept at the Custom House, Key West,” The enquirer (Key West, Fla.) 9 January 1836 4:1. See further my previous posts 040–No enemy but winter and rough weather on his Key West weather readings, and 058–Climate of Newark for those in Newark.