Paul Helliwell could have boasted, much to Kevin Bacon's chagrin, that there were closer to three degrees of separation between himself and every known money launderer or land fraud artist in Florida.
It would be impossible to dispute such a claim, as we attempt to show here. Possibly by examining the earliest of Helliwell's relationships, we can understand the later ones where he serves as the link between U.S. intelligence agencies, drug running and money laundering.
One Degree of Separation
The earliest fraudster linked to Helliwell was Maude C. Fowler, mentioned in an earlier post. With only one degree of separation from Helliwell, Fowler's biography often states she was known in Kansas City, Mo. as the head of the Women's Athletic Club. Pure hogwash, as we can see here. The actual founder and head of that club was Viola Dale McMurray. In fact, Maude Cody Fowler never even lived in Kansas City!
Maude Cody was married in rural Shelby County, Tenn. in 1890 and moved with her husband to Oklahoma in 1901 when their son Cody was nine. Orin Scott (O.S.) Fowler, her husband, had grown up in St. Louis (not Kansas City), Missouri, where he and his father, Napoleon Fowler, both worked first for John V. Lewis and Co., a pioneer cottonseed oil producer, and later for the American Cotton-Seed Oil Company, known as the cotton trust, which bought Lewis' company.
O.S. Fowler seems to have lost interest in cotton oil after moving to Tennessee. Instead, he moved the family to El Reno, OK in 1901, started a bus line there, and then got into motor cars, founding "Fowler Auto Livery" in Oklahoma City. From there he spent some time in the Texas panhandle before he and Maude settled in Jacksonville, Florida by 1913. Their son had in the meantime attended law school in St. Louis, located 250 miles east of Kansas City, where the land scam connected to Security Underwriters allegedly originated.
It would be impossible to dispute such a claim, as we attempt to show here. Possibly by examining the earliest of Helliwell's relationships, we can understand the later ones where he serves as the link between U.S. intelligence agencies, drug running and money laundering.
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| NY Evening Post, 1909 |
The earliest fraudster linked to Helliwell was Maude C. Fowler, mentioned in an earlier post. With only one degree of separation from Helliwell, Fowler's biography often states she was known in Kansas City, Mo. as the head of the Women's Athletic Club. Pure hogwash, as we can see here. The actual founder and head of that club was Viola Dale McMurray. In fact, Maude Cody Fowler never even lived in Kansas City!
Maude Cody was married in rural Shelby County, Tenn. in 1890 and moved with her husband to Oklahoma in 1901 when their son Cody was nine. Orin Scott (O.S.) Fowler, her husband, had grown up in St. Louis (not Kansas City), Missouri, where he and his father, Napoleon Fowler, both worked first for John V. Lewis and Co., a pioneer cottonseed oil producer, and later for the American Cotton-Seed Oil Company, known as the cotton trust, which bought Lewis' company.
O.S. Fowler seems to have lost interest in cotton oil after moving to Tennessee. Instead, he moved the family to El Reno, OK in 1901, started a bus line there, and then got into motor cars, founding "Fowler Auto Livery" in Oklahoma City. From there he spent some time in the Texas panhandle before he and Maude settled in Jacksonville, Florida by 1913. Their son had in the meantime attended law school in St. Louis, located 250 miles east of Kansas City, where the land scam connected to Security Underwriters allegedly originated.
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| Fowlers in Miami 1921 |
Governor Jennings helped to pass laws granting land to people who would promise to drain and develop what was then mostly swampland. To disguise his own ownership of corporations set up to hide his name, he hired advertising companies to handle the sales on his behalf.
Maude and Orin Fowler's names appeared in the Miami city directory in 1921, as shown above. That happens to be the same year they showed up in Tampa, leaving in their wake the brewing scandal involving the Florida governor.
Maude Fowler moved to Tampa around 1921 and became one of the founding developers of Temple Terrace, according to photos and history in Temple Terrace, a book by Lana Burroughs, Tim Lancaster, and Grant Rimbey:
"... On May 25, 1925, the City was incorporated, with D. Collins Gillette, one of the founding developers, serving as the first mayor, and Maude Fowler, serving as vice mayor. Her son Orin Cody Fowler relocated from Oklahoma City with his wife, also named Maude, at or before 1925, when his name appeared in Tampa’s directory, and he practiced at the firm of Fowler, White in Tampa. Maude Fowler died suddenly in Tampa on April 7, 1942."
Temple Terraces, Inc. was incorporated in 1920 to develop the land that had previously comprised Bertha Palmer's hunting reserve in Hillsborough County. She bequeathed the lands to her brother, Adrian Honore, who also acted as trustee for the trusts covering her Sarasota County lands left primarily to her sons.
The earlier history of Tampa was centered around the families who founded the law firm of MacFarlane, Pettingill, MacFarlane--which hired Cody Fowler when he relocated to Florida from Oklahoma. It was while a member of this firm that Fowler and Paul Helliwell worked together in 1933 at Cuban Rum.
Palmer Development of Sarasota and Tampa Area
When Bertha Palmer visited southwest Florida in 1910, she purchased what she would name Riverhills Ranch in Hillsborough County for a hunting preserve. She left the acreage to her brother Adrian Honore in her will before her death in 1918. He wasted no time turning 7,000 acres of it into Temple Terraces, Inc., incorporated in 1920.
The men associated with that company then recruited the Fowler family to move to the area. Adrian sat on the Temple Terrace board with all of them for years, at the same time he lived in Sarasota and supervised his development of citrus grove farms and residential subdivisions.
Honore was also named as trustee over all the other lands she owned in the area, most of the trusts created for his sisters two sons, but others for grandchildren and other family members. He was also president of the Sarasota-Venice Company.
Bertha had her winter mansion, called "The Oaks" near Osprey in Sarasota County, which passed to a trust for her two sons, Honoré Palmer and Potter Palmer, Jr., and their wives. Bertha's sister, Ida Honore Grant, also had a home nearby, called "The Acacias," located just north of what is now called Centennial Park on Sarasota Bay, west of 10th Street downtown. Ida died in 1922, survived by her daughter, Princess Cantacuzene, and a son, Ulysses S. Grant III.
Bertha's brother, Adrian Honore, was trustee for the estate, and it was he who sold the Hillsborough County land to Burks Hamner, Vance Helm, D. Collins Gillette, and Maude Cody Fowler (mother of Tampa Attorney O. Cody Fowler). Adrian kept a seat on the corporate board of Temple Terraces, Inc., so we can assume the Palmers and Honores retained stock in the company.
They wanted to "foster the realization of Mrs. Potter Palmer’s citrus and golf course community vision," and make a few dollars in the process.
According to one historical website of the area, the new owners developed a golf course with residential areas surrounding it, as well as 5,000 acres of orange groves.
According to one historical website of the area, the new owners developed a golf course with residential areas surrounding it, as well as 5,000 acres of orange groves.
Within that enclave, in 1922 Cody Fowler, son of Orin Scott Fowler of Oklahoma City, built for his family a five-bedroom home, where they resided until a similarly styled home was built on Davis Island's Baltic Circle, looking out on Hillsborough Bay.
The Fowler law firm (MacFarlane, Pettingill, MacFarlane and Fowler) was located at 706 Franklin in Tampa, on the 10th floor of the Citizens Bank Building. Fowler subsequently formed a firm with Morris White, now called Fowler White Burnett.
Mayor Gillette, a Tampa associate of Maude Fowler, thus had three degrees of separation from Paul Helliwell, who worked with Maude's son, Cody, in the Cuban Rum importing firm. Could there be a political or intelligence connection Helliwell may have acquired at this early point in his career? That question spurs us to dig deeper into the Palmer family.
The Fowler law firm (MacFarlane, Pettingill, MacFarlane and Fowler) was located at 706 Franklin in Tampa, on the 10th floor of the Citizens Bank Building. Fowler subsequently formed a firm with Morris White, now called Fowler White Burnett.
Mayor Gillette, a Tampa associate of Maude Fowler, thus had three degrees of separation from Paul Helliwell, who worked with Maude's son, Cody, in the Cuban Rum importing firm. Could there be a political or intelligence connection Helliwell may have acquired at this early point in his career? That question spurs us to dig deeper into the Palmer family.
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