promissary note found from 1861
Way back in 1861, the Mayor’s Office (John Jackson?) of the City of Tampa issued a promissory note for $299.58 to pioneer storekeeper Thomas Pugh Kennedy.
Now his great granddaughter Joan Kennedy Biddle wants to collect on the note. With 147 years of interest added at 8%, Biddle says the city owes her $22.7 million.
Nice. Just who is this 77 year old Biddle? Joan Kennedy Biddle grew up on Davis Islands and attended Plant High School. She moved to east Hillsborough in the 1960s and ran a lumber business with her late husband. She now owns a three-bedroom home in Brandon. But she may have trouble getting her $22M
Tampa was originally incorporated in 1855, but was abolished in 1869; the city had no money to pay its bills. Tampa was rechartered in 1887.
Tampa is literally a different city now.
Ms. Biddle, perhaps you could donate that note to our friends at the Tampa Bay History Center.
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March 19th, 2008 at 10:24 am
Further rendering the note useless, on January 10, 1861, the Florida Secession Convention formally left the United States of America, joining the Confederacy. One Simon Turman, Jr. represented Hillsborough County on that Commission.
Unless the Biddle note was issued prior to January 10th, it was issued not unly under a defunct city government, but also a rebel state operating under a defunct federal government.
March 19th, 2008 at 11:30 am
seems to me this would be covered by the 14th ammendment section 4….
“Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.”
March 19th, 2008 at 11:55 am
Just for the sake of discussion I wanted to ask this. As I am certainly no expert in Constitutional Law, does this Amendment apply here? I agree that the dissolution of the issuing body should void the note, but I must claim ignorance for failing to assume that the debt of a municipality is by virtue a public debt of the US or the State of FL.
March 19th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Good quesiton WP, and I am certainpy not a lawyer myself nad could not answer.
My quesiton is to whether or not the $299 assumed US or Confederate currency?
If the latter, it calls into major question the current value and accrued interest she claims.
March 19th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
From the current Florida Constitution
Article XII, Section 8:
SECTION 8. Public debts recognized.–All bonds, revenue certificates, revenue bonds and tax anticipation certificates issued pursuant to the Constitution of 1885, as amended by the state, any agency, political subdivision or public corporation of the state shall remain in full force and effect and shall be secured by the same sources of revenue as before the adoption of this revision, and, to the extent necessary to effectuate this section, the applicable provisions of the Constitution of 1885, as amended, are retained as a part of this revision until payment in full of these public securities.
This makes it sound like she has a case, though the 1885 Constitution is vague.
However, the 1868 Constitution reads:
“All recognizances heretofore taken shall remain valid, and all bonds executed to the Governor of the State of Florida, either before or since the 10th day of January, A. D. 1861, or to any other officer of the State in his official capacity, shall be of full force and virtue, for the uses therein respectively expressed, and may be sued for and recovered accordingly,
“unless they were contrary to the laws of the United States or to this Constitution”
March 20th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
or there’s always your friends at the University of South Florida Tampa Library Special Collections. Don’t forget us!