Lillie Pierce Voss

Background

Lillie Pierce Voss was born Lille Elder Pierce on August 15, 1876 at United States House of Refuge Number.

Career

Early Life and Family

3 in Dade County, modern-day Delray Beach in Palm Beach County. She was the first white child to have ever been born between Jupiter, Florida and Miami, Florida, a geographic area that today has nearly 6 million inhabitants. A National Register of Historic Places marker, erected in the 1970s, sits upon the location of her birth, along State Road A1A at the Delray Beach public beach.

She was the daughter of Captain Hannibal Dillingham Pierce and Margretta Moore Pierce, who in 1872 became one of the first non-Native American families to settle in Southeast Florida.

As a child, she learned to interact with the Seminole Indians and became an expert at hunting, fishing, and sailing. She was largely educated at home and was a prolific writer who left behind many letters and diaries that are frequently used by historians to obtain glimpses of early pioneer life in South Florida.

Together, they had six children, one of which died in childhood. The couple built a house along the west shore of Lake Worth in the Town of Hypoluxo, where they farmed fruits and vegetables, ran a steamboat service up and down Lake Worth, and piloted yachts between Palm Beach and New England for wealthy seasonal Palm Beach residents.

She was inducted into the Florida Women"s Hall of Fame in 2012-2013.

Achievements

• Voss and her husband played significant roles in the early development of South Florida, including bringing Major Nathan Boynton, for whom the City of Boynton Beach is named, and William S. Linton, the founder of Delray Beach, to the area.