Cleveland Likely First President To Visit Area

Q: Who was the first sitting president to visit Palm Beach County?
A: A good question to raise this election week. By the way, we should say, “first to visit what is now Palm Beach County,” since it wasn’t formed until 1909. Also, keep in mind that, in 1900, the population of Dade County, which then stretched from the Keys to Stuart, totaled 4,955 souls. Most of South Florida was still wilderness.
The leading candidate appears to be Grover Cleveland (1885-1889, 1893-1897).
Jupiter pioneer and historian Bessie DuBois writes in History of the Jupiter Lighthouse that a steamer unable to navigate the Loxahatchee River narrows moored across from the lighthouse and served as a floating hotel.
She wrote, “Among these distinguished guests was President and Mrs. Grover Cleveland,” adding, “The former first lady, to her great joy, landed a huge and gleaming tarpon.” That would mean Cleveland was out of office; it could have been in the period between his two nonconsecutive terms.
As early as 1892, winter residents at Jupiter Island, now just across the line in Martin County, reportedly included Cleveland, who years later bought property in the county.
And the Melbourne Times reported in 1979 that in the early years of the Ercildoune Hotel, built in 1889 in northern Indian River County, Cleveland would sneak away from presidential duties and arrive by boat to spend a week or two, hunting and fishing under an assumed name. Did he come farther south?
We even called the Grover Cleveland Birthplace in Caldwell, N.J. They checked their archives without luck.