Barefoot mailman

It refers to the carriers on the first U.S. Mail route (1885–1892) between Palm Beach and the settlements around Lake Worth on the north, and Miami, Coconut Grove, and Lemon City to the south.

On Wednesday the carrier traveled by boat down the New River to its inlet, and then would walk down the beach to Baker's Haulover at the north end of Biscayne Bay.

[7] The barefoot route continued until 1892 when a rock road was completed from Lantana to Lemon City, and the mail contract from the Lake Worth area was taken over by Guy Metcalf.

[9] Another source states that (in 1869) the mail is carried along the coast from St. Augustine to Jupiter Inlet in boats, from there to Miami by foot, and then to Key West by schooner.

[10] The first barefoot mailman was Edwin Ruthven Bradley, a retired Chicago newsman and Lake Worth resident, who won the postal contract in 1885 with a bid of $600 per year.

[11] His second son, Guy Bradley, would later become famous after his murder while serving as an early game warden protecting the egrets being poached for tail feathers.

[12] A "stranger from the north", identified by House of Refuge keeper Charles Coman, was suspected of having taken Hamilton's boat across the inlet and leaving it on the south side.

The original stone statue of the Barefoot Mailman by Frank Varga was permanently displayed on the shores of the Hillsboro inlet next to the Hillsboro Inlet Light with the following inscription: In Memory ofJames E. HamiltonUnited States Mail CarrierWho Lost His Life Herein Line of DutyOctober 11, 1887On March 19, 2012, during an HLPS tour, Hillsboro Lighthouse Preservation Society President Art Makenian and artist Frank Varga unveiled a bronze 8-foot tall statue on a 5-foot tall black galaxy granite pedestal that replaced the 40-year-old Athena stone version, which had incurred significant damage due to age, weather and vandalism.

[18] In 1939 the Treasury Department's Section of Fine Arts contracted with Stevan Dohanos to paint six murals depicting the "Legend of James Edward Hamilton, Mail Carrier" in the West Palm Beach, Florida Post Office.

[19][20] In 1943 the Theodore Pratt novel The Barefoot Mailman, based on the story of James Hamilton, was published by Duell, Sloan and Pearce, New York.

[21][22] The South Florida Council of Boy Scouts of America sponsors an annual 35-mile, 2-day hike along portions of the trails used by the Barefoot Mailmen.