Taver Bayly

(1890 - 1979)
First Club President

Taver Bayly, was born in Key West in 1890 and moved to Clearwater with his parents that same year.  His father, Phillip J. Bayly, immigrated from England to Key West in 1883 and met his mother, Emma Louise Lowe, in Largo while on a world tour bound for South America after  his graduation from Cambridge.   Taver Bayly originally planned to become a mining engineer and spent three years at the Colorado School of Mines but returned to West Florida upon the death of his father and assumed the family citrus business.

"We got ice out of Ocala by weight, wrapped in sawdust and burlap...and our water came from wells - both hand pump and windmill," recalled Bayly to a Clearwater Sun reporter in 1964.  Bayly joined People's Bank in 1912 (which became First National Bank in 1932) as a teller and climbed the corporate ladder to the presidency of the bank.  He retired from the bank in 1960.

"I remember back in the early 1900's when John McClung put in the first electricity and the first ice plant...and John R. Davey installed the first telephone system.  Electricity was only on at night for lighting purposes...and the phone only worked during the day because nobody was supposed to be talking at night.  We had a phone down in the country (Harbor Bluffs) and the wires were strung from tree to tree," Bayly related to Sun reporter Irene Albert.

Among Bayly's recollections were the first wooden bridge built between Clearwater Beach and the mainland in 1917; the free causeway that replaced the bridge in 1925; the first modern subdivision developed in Harbor Oaks in 1912 by Dean Alvord; the establishment of the first YMCA about 1916 (of which he later served as a trustee) and the organization of Boy Scout Troop 1 of which he was the first scoutmaster. 

A founder of the Clearwater Public Library, he participated in the decision to accept a Carnegie Foundation grant and purchase the Osceola Ave. library site from John R. Jeffords for $3,000.

Biographical information obtained in 1999 from the Clearwater Sun archives,
courtesy of the Clearwater Public Library System.

 

Past Club Presidents

1924 - 1940
Taver Bayly 1924-26
Bascom D. Barber 1926-27
Charles F. Mason 1927-28
Clarence N. Walker 1928-29
Alfred P. Marshall 1929-31
Victor Morgan 1931-32
Arthur S. Kitchen 1932-33
David G. Perkins, Sr. 1933-34
Edgar John Phillips 1934-35
M. Eldrige Black 1935-36
Frank J. Booth 1936-37
William F. Rehbaum 1937-38
Harry M. Turnburke 1938-39
Leon G. Abbett 1939-40

1940 - 1960
George Gillespie 1940-41
John C. Polhill 1941-43
Jesse G. Smith 1943-44
Paul F. Randolph 1944-45
Chester B. McMullen 1945-56
John Chesnut 1946-47
Herbert Grice 1947-48
Harold C. Martens 1948-49
Daniel P. McGeachy 1949-50
William Watson Clark 1950-51
Wallace Z. Axchach 1951-52
Frank H. Tack 1952-53
Joseph O. Houze 1953-54
David G. Perkins, Jr. 1954-55
Glenn E. Loughridge 1955-56
Plinn J. Sucher 1956-57
H. M. Coachman 1957-58
J. Fred Campbell, Sr. 1958-59
J. Vernon Chappell 1959-60

1960 - 1980
H. Dennison Parker 1960-61
Donald F. Hibbard 1961-62
Robert J. Lattimer 1962-63
Davis H. Vaughn 1963-64
A. F. "Squire" Head 1964-65
William W. Gilkey 1965-66
Frank C. Logan 1966-67

John K. Batstone 1967-68

J. Fred Campbell 1968-69
Joseph W. Daily 1969-70
Scott K. Hale 1970-71
Edward A. Barley 1971-72
Jay H. Tiffin 1972-73
Riley K. McGraw 1973-74
George E. Bouse, Jr. 1974-75
John P. Shafer 1975-76
Donald R. Hall 1976-77
John T. Schwartszbek 1977-78
N. Eugene Ridenour 1978-79
Robert K. Clark 1979-1980

1980 - 2000
George W. Mallory 1980-81
Ralph G. Frick 1981-82
James W. Stewart 1982-83

Lee Arnold 1983-84
Harry S. Cline 1984-85
Robert W. Byrd 1985-86
T. Dillard Nash 1986-87
Stephen A. Smith 1987-88
Charles W. Finegan 1988-89
Terrell V. Hawkins 1989-1990
James S.Watrous 1990-91
E. Scott McCuskey 1991-92
Jared D. Brown 1992-93
Gilbert B. McArthur 1993-1994
John E. Slaughter, Jr. 1994-95
Kevin J. Connelly 1995-96
Arthur D. Deckelman 1996-97
Steven D. Carlisle 1997-98
Carol Warren 1998-99
Fred L. Robbins 1999-2000

2000 - 2020
R. Andy Burwell, Jr. 2000-01
C. Scott Nall 2001-02
J. Patrick Duffy 2002-03
Cliff Snedeker 2003-04
R. Andy Burwell, Jr. 2004-05
James McArthur, 2005-06
Neil Brickfield, 2006-07
Fred Simmons, 2007-08

Douglas L. Hilkert, 2008-09

Dewey Williams, 2009-10

Taver Bayly (continued from left)

Taver Bayly was the first president of the Clearwater Rotary Club and was a charter member and past president of the Greater Clearwater Chamber of Commerce.  He was also a board member of Morton Plant Hospital for many years and was active in a number of other community endeavors.  "The Chamber of Commerce really started in 1914 as the Board of Trade,"  he recalled.   "James V. Davidson and a group of local businessmen got together and set up headquarters at a desk in Mac Duffy's barber shop where Rutland's Store is now."  

The Chamber moved from Cleveland Street to a modern building on the bluff at Osceola Ave. and Drew St. in 1964.  (That building was demolished in 1998.)   In 1965, Bayly was named Mr. Clearwater by the Chamber.  He was commodore of the Clearwater Yacht Club for six years and one of the first Pinellas County Gold Star Pioneers.

Taver Bayly died on November 8, 1979.  In 1982, he was posthumously named a Paul Harris Fellow by the Rotary Club of Clearwater, an honor accepted by his daughter, Anne Bayly Cornett.