Curious Coast: Who were Clyde Morris, Halifax? The answers (and more) are here

A bank president, a pharmacist, a kindly colonel and a British bureaucrat who likely never set foot in Florida lent their names and titles to some of Volusia County’s most prominent thoroughfares.

Who were men such as Morris, Taylor, Halifax, Williamson and Doyle? What accomplishments called for their names to be memorialized on signs thousands of motorists view each day?

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More than a few readers wanted to know as part of the Curious Coast feature in which readers submit questions to The News-Journal. The answers weren't always clear and required some unorthodox reporting into subjects that ranged both far and close to home. Very close to home.

But first, a tale from distant shores. ...

Halifax River

During an amphibious vehicle tour of Daytona’s beachside and the Halifax River several years ago, Dr. Doug Davies of Ormond Beach heard a story that intrigued him.

A tour guide regaled the group with the tale of Lord Halifax, a well-to-do British fellow for whom the river was named. This “Halifax chap” had a rather low opinion of Florida, Davies recalled being informed. “It was hot, full of bugs, there were savages around and it should be given back to the Indians.”

Davies has wanted to know the full story ever since.

“Here was this British lord who supposedly had great disdain for the area, and we named everything after him," said Davies, 61. "It could have all been blarney, but for all I know it could be true."

The Halifax River was indeed named after Lord Halifax. But the rest is at least partial blarney, Halifax Historical Museum Director Fayn LeVeille and longtime News-Journal columnist Mark Lane agree.

“We have no record of (Lord Halifax) being here,” LeVeille said. “That’s what happens with history — a lot of times people sort of make it up as they go along.”

Here’s the real story.

George Montagu Dunk, the Second Earl of Halifax, was born in 1716. He was a British career politician who held numerous professional titles including the stately sounding Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and the more amusing Lord of the Bedchamber.

The most relevant position to our purposes, however, is his role as Board of Trade president, which involved overseeing colonial matters.

“Lord Halifax had zero interest in us,” said Lane, and may well have held the sentiments that Davies’ tour guide spouted — but not from firsthand experience. “He never strayed much from London and his estate.”

Gerard De Brahm, an East Florida colony surveyor in Halifax’s service, changed the Spanish-named Rio de Mosquitos to the Halifax River “to suck up to the boss,” Lane said. The name appeared in William Stork’s 1767 “New Map of East Florida,” printed from De Brahm’s surveys.

From there, businesses and organizations in the river’s vicinity took up the Halifax name. The British lord’s influence stretched north to Canada where Halifax, Nova Scotia, also bears his mark — and generates quite a few misplaced calls to the Halifax Historical Museum, LeVeille lamented.

Clyde Morris

Clyde Morris, whose name graces the busy boulevard stretching south from State Road 40 in Ormond Beach to Taylor Road in Port Orange, was a pharmacist — and an extremely successful one, according to LeVeille.

The Georgia-born Morris arrived to Daytona Beach in 1936 and operated two businesses. He first owned Morris Drug Co. on South Beach Street, then sold it and purchased Chalker’s Apothecary on Ridgewood Avenue. The second store later was renamed Clyde Morris Pharmacy.

Morris served seven years as Daytona Beach Planning Board chairman and one term as Florida State Pharmaceutical Association president. He received that association’s highest award in 1954.

He suffered a fatal heart attack in July 1965 at age 56. The street name Clyde Morris first appeared in a city directory the following year. It previously had been called South Lake Shore Drive.

Lorrie Fiore, 68, who moved to Ormond Beach 10 years ago from Staten Island, thought “Clyde Morris was a really weird name for a street." In New York City, “we’ve got FDR Drive, Madison Avenue — big streets are named after important people,” Fiore said.

She looked online for answers, but the few results her search yielded didn’t seem to fit. When she asked around, people “just kind of shrugged their shoulders,” she said.

Two side streets bearing U.S. presidents’ names — Lincoln and Ford avenues — puzzled her further. They’re tucked away in an Ormond Beach neighborhood, while Clyde Morris Boulevard spans cities.

But at the time Morris’ name was bestowed, that road, too, was unimportant. A boulevard it was not.

“Back then it was a small road on the outskirts of town,” said Lane. Nova Road was the designated truck route, bypassing U.S. Highway 1’s path through the center of town, and Clyde Morris was even farther to the west.

Why was that road chosen to receive Morris’ name?

“He did an awful lot of beautifying the street that is named after him — trees, plants, that kind of thing,” LeVeille said.

Doyle Road

An internet search didn’t shed much light on how Doyle Road, which extends from Providence Boulevard in Deltona east to State Road 415 in Osteen, got its name, so this reporter turned to a reliable source — her dad.

Born and raised in Osteen, Larry Hirt Sr. recalls the days when Deltona was not a city but a broad expanse of woods and lakes ripe for exploration. And he did know who Doyle was — in fact, he was personally acquainted.

In the 1940s, Col. William Doyle bought property near Sheryl Drive, midway between Osteen and Enterprise, he said. A West Volusia Historical Society book, “Volusia: The West Side,” confirmed this.

Around 1960, right after he graduated high school, Hirt was planting an orange grove. “But it was so dry, I didn’t have a way to water (the trees),” said Hirt, 77. Col. Doyle offered use of his water truck.

“He was probably in his 60s. I believe he was a World War I vet,” Hirt said. “He didn’t ever charge me, he was always helpful and he would give me pointers on what to do with my orange trees.”

Back then, a road from Osteen to Enterprise existed, but “it was a two-rut road,” Hirt said, and a stretch in the middle was so overgrown with palmettos and brush that drivers wishing to pass through had to chop a path.

“We called it Old Enterprise Road, but it wasn’t,” Hirt said. It went unnamed until Doyle’s name was attached later. The colonel also donated the land the Osteen Civic Center sits on, according to Enterprise Heritage Center and Museum staff.

Taylor Road

Lifelong Daytona Beach-area resident Stanley A. Taylor graduated from Mainland High School in 1933 and took a job as a file clerk for the Florida Bank and Trust Co. His starting salary was $50 a month — it was the Great Depression, after all — but Taylor quickly moved up the ranks.

On April 1, 1959, he became bank president and chairman of the board, a position he retained for more than 42 years. He retired in 1976 and passed away in 2003.

Taylor’s wife, Ann, wrote a nonfiction book, “Tales of Florida Crackers,” with his input, Halifax Historical Museum documents show.

“Stanley was a very good president and loved by everybody,” LeVeille said.

Williamson Boulevard

Grady Williamson Sr. was a Daytona Beach commissioner and Volusia County Council member known for his civic work. He protected area beaches as captain of the auxiliary police during World War II and later served on the city planning board.

For performing these civic duties, Williamson Boulevard was named in his honor in 1980, according to news reports. But Bob Davis, CEO of the Lodging and Hospitality Association of Volusia County, heard a different story.

“People think it was named for Grady Sr., but it was named for Grady Jr.,” Davis said, noting that the younger Williamson’s story should be made known.

As a young boy, Grady Williamson Jr. turned his love of dancing into a business. He started teaching dance lessons at age 14. Later, part of the family grocery store was partitioned off to become the Grady and Louise Dance Studio, named in part for his sister and business partner, Nan Louise.

Williamson went on to stage shows around the U.S. and took dancers on United Service Organization tours to perform for troops stationed abroad.

“He would go overseas with some of the most talented kids, to Japan and Korea,” Davis said. “He was really, really something.”

On one such trip in 1971, to Seoul, South Korea, the bus transporting Williamson’s group broke down. His wife and the entertainers went ahead into the city, and Williamson and tour member Rick Hunter stayed behind with the bus.

Around 4:30 a.m. as the men slept, a 2.5-ton truck crashed into the rear of the bus. The Koreans in the truck were killed, and Hunter’s back was broken. Williamson developed a blood clot in his brain and died a few days later. He was 37.

Staff Writer Mark Lane contributed to this report.

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