History of 501 Spring Street

The Three Women Who Lived in the Funeral Parlor

Three elderly women spent their last days in Green Cove Springs. They were sisters. Two were widows and one a spinster. The Pratt sisters, Julia Ann, Ellen Lovinia, and Ermina Almira Pratt were the daughters of a Massachusetts couple named William and Lovinia Colson Pratt. The sisters lived out their last years in Green Cove Springs in a home at the corner of Palmetto and Spring Streets. Today, 501 Spring Street is Broadus-Raines Funeral Home.

The sisters were active socially in Green Cove Springs, being members of the Village Improvement Association, the oldest woman’s club in Florida. They were among the founding members of the club. They were part of the group of wealthy northerners who spent their winters in Clay County. During the hot summer months, they would travel to visit friends and family in Michigan and other cooler climes including trips to Europe. Eventually, the house on Spring Street became their permanent home in their very old age.

Julia Ann Pratt, the eldest sister, was first married to an Episcopal reverend named Samuel Lee Johnson. He died. She then did the thing that most changed her life: she married one of the richest men in Indiana, Stoughton Alonzo Fletcher in 1859, only five months after his second wife, Julia Bullard died. Married in Ohio, Julia and Stoughton lived in both Indianapolis and at his family home in Ludlow, Vermont. They had a 4,000 farm in Marion County Indiana .They also had a home in Chicago, and Julia lived in Green Cove Springs at 501 Spring Street.

Stoughton owned one of the largest banks in Indiana named the Fletcher National Bank of Indianapolis. In 1867 a newspaper reported that Stoughton had the largest income returned in Indiana, a sum of $17,000 dollars or so. They lived an active life of travel, society pages and philanthropy. Julia was not a shrinking violet, she had investments in her own name and managed her money as she saw fit.

When Stoughton died in 1882, he was worth $2 million. He left Julia a small fortune. Julia inherited $100,000 in a trust and the family homestead in Ludlow, Vermont. Sometime after this Julia left Indiana and began to live in Green Cove Springs year ‘round. Today, her $100k inheritance would be worth well over $2 million. In 1884, the bank failed. Apparently, without Stoughton at the helm, things went downhill. The firm went into bankruptcy but was eventually saved when the Fletcher family deeded their personal assets to the bank.

While Stoughton’s children inherited the rest of his estate they did not fare well otherwise. Julia’s stepdaughter in-law (Stoughton J.‘s wife) committed suicide by drinking prussic acid. When her mother found the body, mother too, drank the acid and died. This was in 1921, long after Julia’s death in 1910. Miss Louisa Fletcher, Julia’s step-granddaughter ran away from home to Berlin, where she was sure she was to marry a count. The count’s father rejected her, and she returned to America in shame. Louisa’s brother Stoughton A. “Bruz” III became an actor in Hollywood who committed suicide in 1927. By 1924 the Indiana Fletcher’s empire was ruined and the family declared bankruptcy. It was a good thing Julia and Stoughton were no longer alive to see the disaster that the family had become.

Ermina Pratt, Julia’s sister, married Cornelius Ferris. Per her passport application, she had golden hair and blue eyes. By the 1870s Ermina and Cornelius were living in Denver and running the Pratt-Ferris Cattle Company operation and the Pratt Ferris Freight Company. The freight company was run by both Ferris and Ermina’s brother Col. James H Pratt. Indians and floods regularly caused losses to their enterprise. Land and water rights battles were a constant. Ermina did not sit idly by sipping tea in the parlor; she was a well-educated woman who wrote the occasional article for the Rocky Mountain News.

One such article on Sir Walter Scott graced the August 15, 1894, edition. Ermina was active socially holding receptions in her home and engaging in philanthropy. Ermina’s son, Cornelius, became the Counsel General to the Irish Free State in 1929. She belonged to several women’s clubs including the literary club and the Village Improvement Association. Ermina traveled widely including trips to Florida from her home in Denver. Apparently, Ermina involved her sister Julia in the cattle business. In 1887 Julia was the principle creditor to a failed cattle company in Texas to the tune of $50,000.00. After Cornelius passed away, she began to live with Julia in Green Cove Springs full-time.

When Ellen, Ermina and Julia traveled to Europe from Green Cove Springs they took their servant Frank Gustafson (yes, of Ma & Pa Gustafson milk fame) with them. Frank and his wife had been in the sisters’ employment since at least 1900. But, by 1910, the Gustafson’s lived next door and were dairy operators. The Gustafson’s were movin’ on up.

Ellen L. Pratt, who never married, lived with Julia in town at 501 Spring Street. Ellen Lovinia Pratt was the spinster sister. She was always close to Julia, living with her in 1870’s Indianapolis. She too enjoyed traveling and spending time in Michigan and Florida. In 1912, when she was 82 years old and living in the now funeral parlor, she traveled to Europe.

The sisters drove around town in a buggy, making social calls on their friends like Ellen Graves Borden, Penelope Borden, Marion Borden (of the condensed milk Bordens), Octavia Merrill (mother of Wall Street tycoon Charles Merrill of Merrill-Lynch), and Kate Garner (wife of Captain Charles Garner, president of the largest bank in Jacksonville and the Board of Trade).

Sadly, Ellen’s two sisters died within months of each other; Ermina in April and Julia in August, of 1910. When Julia died, she left her sizeable estate to Ellen. Ellen was no wallflower. Even though she was well up in her years she knew when she was being taken. It wasn’t long before Ellen had to sue her own great nephew, Jerome Magee, scion of one of Omaha’s wealthiest families. He was accused of mismanagement of the estate. In 1917 she sued him and his brother, Wayland W. Magee for $200,000 and won. Jerome’s wife also sued him for divorce and his own father sued him to recover a $250,000 interest in the estate of Col. James H. Pratt, the brother of Ellen, Julia, and Ermina.

It was Ellen who outlived her sisters, not dying till 1919. In 1923 the estate was finally settled; disbursements having been made to many nieces and nephews. It is unknown where the sisters are buried; a search of the local cemeteries was unsuccessful.