This afternoon I saw this plaque at Bill Bagg’s Cape Florida State Park. I thought it was interesting not only because of the name, but because a West Indian was involved. Moselle, wife of the caretaker Israel Lafayette Jones, was from the Bahamas.

Here is a quote from Wikipedia:

Mary Ann Davis, who had bought the Fornells grant on Key Biscayne in 1821, died in Galveston, Texas in 1885. Her son Waters Smith Davis began taking steps to assert the family title to the island. In 1887 he purchased the rights of the other Davis heirs and received a new deed in his name. He could not get a clear title, however. Venancio Sanchez still claimed a half share of the Fornells Grant, two of the town lots had been sold to William Harney around 1840, and Osborne and Field had their deed from the Florida Internal Improvement Fund. Davis received quitclaims from Osborn and Field, and on the Harney lots, but was unable to settle with Sanchez. He finally received a patent from the United States government for his land in 1898. In 1903 Davis bought the abandoned Cape Florida lighthouse from the United States Treasury for US$400.[34]

Davis started a pineapple plantation on Key Biscayne; six acres (two-and-a-half hectares) had been cleared and planted in pineapples in 1893–94. Davis also directed his caretaker to plant one-half to one acre (two-tenths to four-tenths of a hectare) of bananas. By 1898, a great variety of tropical fruit trees had been planted on the island. Davis also had a large dwelling built for his use. It was a two-story cottage with five bedrooms and verandas on three sides, raised ten feet above the ground on pilings to protect against storm surges.[35]

Moselle’s husband was Israel Lafayette Jones (PBS):

By the 1960s, no one knew Biscayne Bay better than Lancelot Jones, who had been born in the bottom of small boat in 1898 while his father frantically sailed his pregnant wife toward a hospital in Miami. From that time on, the bay had been his home.
Lancelot Jones’ father,  Add to Scrapbook

Jones’ father, Israel Lafayette Jones, had risen up from slavery in North Carolina, migrated to Florida after the Civil War, and eventually managed to buy three of the small, uninhabited islands that separate Biscayne Bay from the Atlantic Ocean. He began a profitable business growing key limes.

In 1935, three years after his father’s death, a hurricane destroyed the family’s lime crops and forced Lancelot into a new line of work as a fishing guide for wealthy visitors to Biscayne Bay.