The Cuba enterprise lasted 58 years. It is a testament to Floyd Wallace and Charlotte Roxey Pease Crosby and their wish to provide for the family. Floyd set up a sawmill in Bartle. They had eight children. All eight worked in the company business on and off. Son Jesse was the most permanent. He came in 1908 and stayed until 1954.
The timeline is the bones. The meat is in the family letters. Floyd wrote many times that he wished to return to Cuba. He considered it the ideal climate for him.
The sources for the dates below are Ancestors and Descendants of Floyd W. and Charlotte P. Crosby and The Family History of George Francis Crosby.
- 1900
Floyd made his first trip to Cuba in February with son Walter. They stayed in Gloria for the rest of the winter. Floyd returned to Dickson, Tennessee, in the spring. They lived in a tent. After Floyd left, Walter and a friend hunted alligators at night on the Maximo River and sold the hides. Later they moved to the colony of Riverside, bought lots, still lived in a tent, built a brick oven, and sold bread to colonists.
- 1902
Walter moved to Camagüey, bought land near the city, and worked at the Cuba Railroad car shops. Their former mill partner in Dickson, John McFarland, died, so they took back their interest in the mill they had sold him. May 9: Lorina May, daughter of Walter and Marguerite, was born in Camagüey.
- 1904
June 27: Arthur Neil, son of Walter and Marguerite, was born in Camagüey.
- 1906
In June, Walter had an accident that mangled his right hand. It was amputated just above the wrist.
- 1907
Floyd sold his lumber and millwork business in Dickson and went to Cuba with Walter to start another. He was there 14 months. They bought land and equipment and set up the sawmill.
- 1908
Floyd asked son George and his wife Olo to join him. George was pursuing other interests and did not go. Brother Jesse and his wife Lula did. Jesse and Walter ran the mill after Floyd returned to Dickson.
- 1910
Floyd returned with Fannie in January, went back to Dickson, and returned in November with Charlotte, Bertha, and Howard. Walter and a partner bought a burned-out sawmill in Omaja. He sold out and moved to Camagüey in 1912.
- 1912
Clarence and his family moved to Bartle in February. Two of their seven children were born in Cuba. They stayed five years.
- 1914
April 28: Lewis Paul Crosby, son of Clarence and Teresa, was born in Bartle. (Clarence’s page also says Camagüey for this birth.)
- 1915
May 27: Floyd and Charlotte left Cuba to tour old places on the mainland. George came in the fall to help Jesse. Walter and his brother-in-law Herbert Nickerson set up a handle factory in Bartle. The partnership dissolved. Walter ran it until 1918. Revolution started in Oriente Province late in the year. Revolutionaries burned railroad bridges, tore up tracks, and cut communication. Banks closed. Then they burned sugar cane. About 1,700 revolutionaries were around Bartle, once an American colony.
- 1916
March 6: Allen Daniel Crosby, youngest son of Clarence and Teresa, was born in Bartle. November 25: Teresa Levice Day Crosby died and is buried in Bartle.
- 1917
February 21: Elizabeth Charlotte Crosby, oldest child of Clarence and Teresa, died at 12 and is buried in Bartle. The family left Bartle on a railroad push car — the men pushed; the women and children rode — then transferred to an armored train. Machine guns and armed marines kept the rebels off. Papers reported that youngest son Howard had been hanged. That was false. After two weeks at the sugar mills they were taken by boat to Havana. Clarence was there with his six boys. He could not afford the tickets. A collection on the boat paid for the boys. Later in 1917 the revolution was put down. Jesse and Howard returned to look after the property and mill.
- 1918
Walter left Cuba for DeLand, Florida, to put Carolyn and Carl in school.
- 1919
Floyd died April 5 and was buried at Eastman Cemetery, South Wayne, Wisconsin.
- 1920
Charlotte returned to Bartle in mid-April.
- 1932
Sawmill destroyed by cyclone.
- 1933
May 13: the sawmill burned. Some repairs had been made after the cyclone.
- 1937
May 18: Lula Baker, first wife of Jesse, died in Bartle.
- 1938
June 25: Jesse married Remedios Hernández.
- 1939–1952
Children of Jesse and Remedios born in Bartle: Lula Bertha (April 28, 1939), Jenny Charlotte (July 20, 1940), Jesse Remedios (September 9, 1943), Daniel Newell (December 14, 1952).
- 1954
December 25: Jesse and Remedios moved to Gainesville, Florida.
- 1958
The sawmill had been rented after Jesse left. It was confiscated by the Castro government.
Photographs
