Upthegrove Beach, Florida

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Upthegrove Beach
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Upthegrove Beach
Location within the state of Florida
Coordinates: 27°10′33″N80°43′36″W / 27.17583°N 80.72667°W / 27.17583; -80.72667
Country United States
State Florida
County Okeechobee
Time zone UTC-5 (Eastern (EST))
  Summer (DST) UTC-4 (EDT)
ZIP codes
34974

Upthegrove Beach is an unincorporated community in Okeechobee County, Florida, United States. It is located on US 441/US 98, on the northeastern shore of Lake Okeechobee.

Contents

History

Upthegrove Beach was named for the Upthegrove (originally Op Den Graeff) family, including Union Army Captain William Hendry Upthegrove and others. Robert Upthegrove, later one of the inaugural Okeechobee County commissioners, settled in the area circa 1912. His son, Clarence Dewitt Upthegrove (Dewitt), at one time worked for Thomas Edison in Fort Myers, and later owned a heavy equipment operation that helped build the Herbert Hoover Dike around Lake Okeechobee and was the Supervisor of Elections for Palm Beach County. [1] Another family member, Laura Upthegrove, also known as The Queen of the Everglades, was a member of the notorious Ashley Gang, [2] and was the subject of the 1973 movie Little Laura and Big John .

The Upthegroves descended from the German Op den Graeff family of Dutch origin. [3] They were direct descendants of Herman op den Graeff, mennonite leader of Krefeld, and his grandson Abraham op den Graeff, one of the founders of Germantown and in 1688 signer of the first protest against slavery in colonial America.

Geography

[4]

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Op den Graeff is a German and American family of Dutch origin. They were one of the first families of the Mennonite faith in Krefeld at the beginning of the 17th century. Various family members belonged to Original 13, the first organized immigration of a closed group of Germans to America in 1683. There the family had a long history in religious service and politics, beginning in the late 17th century in the Colony of Pennsylvania. In 1688, they became forerunners of the anti-slavery movement by signing the first anti-slavery protest in North America. Their descendants spread into various lines, Updegraff, Uptegraft, Updegraft, Updegrave, Updegrove, Uptegrove, Ubdegrove, Uptegraph, Upthagrove. The Updegraff branch of Ohio belonged to the leading families of the Quaker religious movement and produced a long line of ministers and elders.

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Laura Beatrice Upthegrove Swindal was a 20th-century American outlaw, bank robber, bootlegger, and occasional pirate active in southern Florida during the 1910s and 1920s, along with John Ashley.

References

  1. Kleinberg, Elliot (September 3, 2015). "POST TIME: Upthegrove Beach named for family that saw prestige, shame". Palm Beach Post. Retrieved May 23, 2016.
  2. Robison, Jim (June 16, 2002). "Bank Robber, `Queen Of The Everglades' Lived A Life Of Violence". Orlando Sentinel. Retrieved May 23, 2016.
  3. Prof. William I. Hull: William Penn and the Dutch Quaker Migration to Pennsylvania (2018)
  4. "US Gazetteer files: 2010, 2000, and 1990". United States Census Bureau. February 12, 2011. Retrieved April 23, 2011.