Our listeners have heard much about Frank Laumer. Twice, he led a team to walk the 60-plus mile route of Dade’s fatal march. He co-founded the Seminole Wars Foundation. He authored three books. With the immediacy and intensity of a novel, his Massacre! tells the story of Dade’s battle. He followed this up with Dade’s Last Command, a fact-based chronicle of the overall march, Finally, he penned a novel, Nobody’s Hero, about Private Ransom Clark, one of only three so...
Our listeners have heard much about Frank Laumer. Twice, he led a team to walk the 60-plus mile route of Dade’s fatal march. He co-founded the Seminole Wars Foundation. He authored three books. With the immediacy and intensity of a novel, his Massacre! tells the story of Dade’s battle. He followed this up with Dade’s Last Command, a fact-based chronicle of the overall march, Finally, he penned a novel, Nobody’s Hero, about Private Ransom Clark, one of only three soldier survivors of the battle.
In the summer of 2019, Drs Scot French and Amy Giroux, from University of Central Florida, visited Frank Laumer at his Dade City home, Talisman. They sought to hear from Frank Laumer himself about his research practices and to hear his thoughts on some contentious aspects of the Dade Battle itself and the Second Seminole War in general. Since he began his research in the early 1960s, the late Frank Laumer’s research, books and articles on the Dade battle and the Seminole War have informed and inspired many. One inspired group is the Veterans’ Legacy Project or VLP at the University of Central Florida. Project Director Dr. Scot French said Frank’s research and writings are at the heart of the VLP and are a great inspiration to the team.
[We have invited Dr French to join us in a later episode of the Seminole Wars podcast to share more fully just what that important and noble project is all about and how the Seminole Wars provide ample material. We have also invited UCF’s Dr. Amy Giroux to discuss her project for identifying every Second Seminole War soldier at eternal rest under the three memorial pyramids at St Augustine’s National Cemetery.]
Regular Florida Frontiers radio program contributor, Holly Baker, recorded the session and in October 2019 produced a 10-minute segment. Florida Frontiers is the weekly radio program/podcast of the Florida Historical Society. Holly is the Society’s Public History Coordinator as well as the archivist for the Society’s Library of Florida History in Cocoa. She and the Society graciously shared their interview recording with us to give our listeners an extended opportunity to hear from Frank Laumer in his own words. The Seminole Wars Foundation extends our great gratitude for this opportunity. We have adapted that interview with minor edits for clarity and narrative flow.
About a month after Holly’s Florida Frontiers feature aired, Frank Laumer died, Nov. 18, 2019. Coincidentally – or not – that was the same day that Ransom Clark died, back in 1840. Clark was only in his twenties; Frank Laumer departed this world at the ripe age of 92. On Frank Laumer's next birthday, March 4, 2020, his daughter Suzanne ("Shorty") sprinkled his ashes on the grave of Ransom Clark in New York state, uniting the two men in perpetuity.
This week mark’s the second anniversary since his death. In this episode, we present Frank Laumer in his own words. We encounter his folksy personality. We hear his strong opinions on certain matters related to the Seminole Wars. We learn firsthand what a persistent, tenacious attitude he had. He turned over many stones, so to speak, to uncover forgotten or neglected accounts about what he termed, “This Land, These Men.”
Although this graduate of the school of hard knocks declaimed being anything akin to a scholar, Frank Laumer’s body of work says differently. He himself would merely say he was a seeker of historical truth, wherever it might lead him. He quipped that while he was in the land development business, not the digging up bodies business, to discover the truth, digging up bodies sometimes became essential. One literal stone he overturned was – a headstone -- that belonging to Ransom Clark. Frank Laumer did so to determine if Clark had been truthful about his Dade battle injuries. A fascinating story followed where at least one dead man did tell tales.
On the occasion of his 90th birthday, the Seminole Wars Foundation presented Frank Laumer with a seldom seen image featuring Guy LaBree's painting of U.S. Army Private Ransom Clark evading Seminole pursuers after the Dade Battle of 1835.
In his interview, Frank Laumer issued an open invitation for scholars to inspect his research materials. He very much desired for future generations to continue this study – enabled from one central comprehensive repository of books, pamphlets, letters, diaries, memoirs, maps, in print or, where possible, in digital form. That dream will soon become a reality when the Seminole Wars Foundation completes its Frank Laumer Library of the Seminole Wars in Bushnell. It contains more than 500 books related to the Seminole Wars in some fashion, along with priceless survey maps, unpublished letters, and an extensive digital archive of articles, photographs, period newspapers, podcasts – ahem -- and videos. When complete, the Laumer Library will be fully and digitally catalogued for ease of research by visiting scholars to the Foundation’s homestead.
Host Patrick Swan is a board member with the Seminole Wars Foundation. He is a combat veteran and of the U.S. Army, serving in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, and Kosovo, and at the Pentagon after 9/11. A military historian, he holds masters degrees in Public History, Communication, and Homeland Security, and is a graduate of the US Army War College with an advanced degree in strategic studies. This podcast is recorded at the homestead of the Seminole Wars Foundation in Bushnell, Florida.
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