February 15, 2004

TAMPA TRIBUNE

Section: BAYLIFE

Page: 14

by Leland Hawes

PRESSING FOR TAMPA'S EARLY EDITIONS

A descendant of the publisher of Tampa's first afternoon daily continues his quest for lost copies of the paper's first days.

A discovery in the attic of a deceased grandmother has propelled 31-year-old Devin Marks onto a quest for information about an ancestor who founded Tampa's first afternoon daily newspaper.

A resident of Washington, D.C., Marks is a great-great-grandson of Silas A. Jones, a lawyer and promoter who engineered the launch of The Tampa Daily Times in February 1893.

Finding clippings and background on Jones in his grandmother's home in Wilmore, Ky., motivated Marks to search for more. And he has traveled to Tampa several times to enlist help in an effort he calls "Reclaiming Our Heritage."

Marks, a graduate of the acclaimed S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, has been assisted in the project by his cousin, Bruce Smathers of Jacksonville, formerly Florida's secretary of state. Smathers is a great-grandson of Jones; his father is former U.S. Sen. George Smathers.

A primary missing link in the search is a bound volume of the editions from the first 19 years of the newspaper, which played a significant role in Tampa's early day-to-day existence. The Times proved a strong competitor against The Tampa Morning Tribune, often beating the Tribune on local stories. But afternoon newspapers faced increasing obstacles in the latter half of the 1900s. The Times was sold to The Tribune in 1958. It continued publication as a separate newspaper until 1982.

VOLUME DISAPPEARED

The copies of the Times published from 1893 through 1912 disappeared when Tribune management gave early bound volumes to the University of Tampa. Somehow, the volume was lost in the transfer.

Marks found copies of two early issues in his grandmother's attic. They have spurred him to plead with area residents to search their family scrapbooks and other attic artifacts for The Tampa Daily Times. He has enlisted a number of history buffs and genealogists through a series of wine-and-cheese "Tampa chats," and he has set up a Web site at reclaimingourheritage.org.

At the Tampa Bay History Center on Monday, Marks exhorted a dozen invitees to see what they can find, not only from his family but from theirs.

A VISIONARY MAN OF ACTION

Why is Col. Silas Armistead Jones an important figure in Tampa's history?

The late D.B. McKay, who worked as a reporter at the Times and later acquired ownership, said of Jones: "Of all the men I have ever known, I consider [him] the most worthy of the designation "human dynamo.' He was always "racing'-mentally and physically."

Jones had been born in Shelby County, Ky., in 1853 and early on decided he wanted to become a carpenter. While working at his trade in Texas, he studied law on the side and was admitted to the bar.

He went back to Kentucky to marry and brought his bride to Limona, just developing as a community east of Tampa. A cousin, Joseph G. Knapp, had persuaded him that the Tampa area was ready to surge in growth.

Jones reputedly built "the first house with a glass window in it outside of Tampa in Hillsborough County." And he began amassing jobs as a sash and door provider.

A go-getter, Jones became a founder of an early version of Tampa's Board of Trade and developed a friendship and business partnership with Harvey J. Cooper, a real estate man. Jones also was influential in persuading railroad magnate Henry B. Plant to bring his South Florida Railway to Tampa instead of the Cedar Keys. Part of his persuasion hinged on convincing Plant that Tampa's port would be strategic in providing mail and freight passage to destinations in the Caribbean and Central America. He accomplished that by taking railroad trips throughout the Midwest and bringing home endorsements from civic leaders in numerous cities.

A BETTER NEWSPAPER

Jones led a losing lobbying effort to urge the federal government to turn over ownership of Fort Brooke to the city of Tampa once U.S. Army troops vacated the reservation in the late 1870s. He also resumed his promotional travels on behalf of channel deepening to enhance Tampa's port.

"He brought several hundred businessmen of Chicago and other Western cities to Tampa on a special train to give them proper understanding of the possibilities of the port," McKay wrote.

Sometime during the 23 years he called Tampa home, Jones "began agitating for a better newspaper to represent Tampa," according to McKay. The two small dailies competing in the early 1890s had no telegraphic service for national or world news.

Jones called together a group of businessmen who came up with $25,000 to buy the two papers and create The Tampa Daily Times.

Jones became president of the Tampa Publishing Co., with William B. Henderson vice president, A.J. Knight secretary and T.C. Taliaferro treasurer.

The businessmen apparently retained control of the Times only for a few years until McKay took over. Jones' descendants said his business fortunes rose and fell periodically. Eventually, Jones incurred health problems while slogging with surveyors through South Florida mud-part of an effort with millionaire Hamilton Disston to drain the Everglades for farmland.

He was forced to seek a different climate and left Florida. He eventually wound up in Waynesville, N.C., promoting the mountains of western North Carolina as avidly as he had the business prospects in Tampa.

He died in Waynesville in 1933.

Cutline: Tribune photo by PHIL SHEFFIELD

Cousins Bruce Smathers, left, and Devin Marks examine a four-page edition of The Tampa Daily Times from February 1893. Marks is a great-great-grandson of Silas A. Jones, below, a lawyer and promoter who created the newspaper.