Hidden History of Florida by Clark James C

Author:Clark, James C. [Clark, James C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2015-11-02T05:00:00+00:00

A HEARTBROKEN SENATOR VANISHES

Charles Jones should have been one of those politicians for whom schools are named, or at least highways. After all, as a United States senator, he convinced the government to build a naval station in Pensacola that became the financial backbone of the town. He served with distinction on various committees and in 1884 helped Grover Cleveland become president.

First elected in 1874, he was easily reelected in 1880. That year, his wife of twenty-two years died, and some friends noticed that he seemed to change. In 1885, he vacationed in Detroit, although the reasons are not clear. Before the automobile, it was a city of about 100,000.

There, he met a woman and fell in love. Unfortunately for Jones, she was not interested. When his vacation ended, he remained in Detroit, refusing to return to Washington. The woman in question was Clotilde Palms, the heiress to a fortune. The Baltimore Sun said she had inherited $2 million—about $50 million today.

The Florida Times-Union described her as a “plain looking woman of thirty-five years.” Friends and colleagues in Washington and Florida urged him to return to his duties, but he would not leave. He said he was not going to leave until she agreed to marry him. He continued to collect his Senate paycheck, which allowed him to live comfortably.

In 1886, Florida elected a senator to replace Jones, who did not even seek another term. The paychecks stopped coming early in 1887, and Jones was evicted from his hotel and forced to move to a small inn.

He could not pay his restaurant bills and became little more than a beggar. His clothes became shabby. In 1890, he was committed to a hospital in Michigan for treatment of his mental condition. He died there in 1897 at the age of sixty-three.

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