The Palm Beach Post from West Palm Beach, Florida • Page 61

The Palm Beach Post Wednesday, May 23, 2001 City's first postmaster named 'Great Floridiah' y-. 1 VF'" i 4 i A I 4 I fn Charles W. Pierce, a member of one of South Florida's earliest pioneer families, was an author, adventurer, farmer and even a barefoot mailman for a time. He was also Boynton Beach's first postmaster. Pierce, who died in 1939, has been named one of the state's Great Floridians, a distinction created by Florida's Legislature as part of the millennium celebration.

Along with the award comes a commemorative plaque, which Pierce's family members recently received and plan to affix to a building in the 500 block of Ocean Avenue, where the city's original post office once stood. Harvey Oyer III, whose great-grandmother was Pierce's younger sister, is working with the city, the historical societies of Boynton Beach and Palm Beach County and the Lake Worth Pioneer Association to try to organize a ceremony to honor Pierce with the plaque. There was talk of combining it with a celebration of the reopening of the Ocean Avenue bridge, but it now looks unlikely that the city will hold such an event, city spokesman Wayne Segal said. However, the city will work with Oyer to "plan an appropriate ceremony," he said. Meanwhile, Oyer, a lawyer with Gunster Yoakley Stewart in West Palm Beach, wants the community to know just how much his great, great uncle con- postmaster, works at his rolltop in 1864 and died in 1939.

Julie Waresh tributed to the written history of this area. 1 Oyer, whose father, Harvey Oyer runs Oyer Insurance Agency on Ocean Avenue, said the compilation of Pierce's journals, Pioneer Life in Southeast Florida, is "the foundation of every history book about South Florida." Pierce's family moved here from Illinois in 1872, when his father was given the job of assistant keeper of the Jupiter Lighthouse. Pierce, who was 8 at the time, soon began keeping a journal of daily life. A year following their arrival in Jupiter, the Pierce family settled on an island in the center of Lake Worth, which later became known as Hypoluxo Island. Beginning in the 1880s, Pierce served as one of the legendary barefoot mailmen, carrying the mail along a 136-mile weekly postal route along the coast to Miami and back.

Pierce settled in Boynton Beach in the mid-1890s to take the job as postmaster, which he held for more than 40 years. Pierce died in 1939, at age 75, while still serving as the city's postmaster. An 800-page manuscript of his lifetime of 18x18 llAlIlia Starting At R1 1 installed from only $1 10 sdwci 'CUt VILLA BORGHESE, ISLES TUSCANY. Courtesy Harvey Oyer Jr. desk.

The picture is from the late died in military service. Refreshments will be served after the services at American Legion Post 164, 571 W. Ocean Ave. Mayor Gerald Broening and city and county officials are invited, as is the public. Julie Waresh is a staff writer for Neighborhood Post.

She can be reached at 820-3472 or Juliewareshpbpost.com. Faxes can be sent to 265-4872. Charles W. Pierce, Boynton's first 1920s or early '30s. He was born journal entries was condensed to 260 pages and published in the early 1970s.

"The only reason we have an insight as to what was here and who was here is because Pierce wrote it down before he died," Oyer said. "That is what he added to the value of Florida." Memorial Day ceremony set: The Boynton Veterans Council will hold its annual Memorial Custom risidc cm Sewn by Hand I 1 Day ceremony this Sunday at 2 p.m. at Boynton Beach Memorial Cemetery. Color guards from the council's eight posts will present colors at the event, at Seacrest Boulevard and Woolbright Road. Following the ceremony, the group will travel to the Boynton Beach Inlet, where a Marine Patrol boat will take a wreath out to sea in memory of those who a mn AuthorizedF i SPECIAL INSTALLATION PRICES FOR HOMES UNDER CONSTRUCTION! malm IS1I8 Porcelain fill installed from only ffi40 psf Tils installed from only NOW INSTALLING IN: CASCADES, VALENCIA UPGRADE TO BUILDERS JQ GRADE 4 TILE installed Us -J sf With any CUSTOM MADE i a i amp (Minr i Brina in vour own fabric I or choose one of ourst Jimmmt i i i i i 5 i.