Earliest Pioneers Settled Black Community

BAY COUNTY, FL – In 1920, George West wrote St. Andrews, Florida. The book spans Native American occupation, Spanish exploration, and to the 1860s. He interviewed his friend Hawk Massalina and scribbled some notes now held in the collection of the Bay County Public Library Local History Department. It is a remarkable documentation of some Masslieno family history. The name has been spelled various ways over the decades.

From the notes, Hawk states he was born on Point Harmon on April 15th, 1842. His first childhood remembrance was seine fishing.

Hawk said his father, Joseph F. Masslieno, a free Black man of Spanish heritage, came here from St. Augustine via Tallahassee, to Marianna, to St. Andrews, sometime after 1818. Jose aided at the burial of Gov. Clark in 1832. He hewed timber for shipbuilding at Watson Bayou and Capt. Loftin’s house at Parker. He settled on Beatty Bayou (Lynn Haven) about 1836, then moved to the point at today’s Massalina Bayou in Panama City. Capt. David Blood arrived in 1842 and became Jose’s guardian. Jose worked building Blood’s home at today’s W. Beach Drive and Fortune Avenue, and he was a boat builder. Jose looked after the bayfront homes of the Longs, Bakers, and Dixons from Jackson County. He fished in fall and built homes in summer.

When war reached here in 1863, Hawk accompanied his father, Joseph F. Masslieno, to salvage valuables from St. Andrews City homes, along today’s W. Beach Drive from Frankford Avenue to Lake Caroline.

“Moved to Watson Bayou 1863. In latter part 1863 moved to Hurricane Island – called Saddle Island…. In 1866, moved to Davis Point lived there since.”

The family owned significant acreage at Davis Point and provided a building for church and school for the children and families living from Davis to Redfish Points, and also set aside a Cemetery. Like George West, Hawk understood the infrastructure needed for a community. The Masslieno family is deeply established in the foundation of our local history.

Learn more at the Bay County Public Library Local History Department and the Panama City Publishing Company Museum.