Useppa Island Historical Society
Upcoming Events:
2026
Saturday January 24th, 2026 - 5:30 pm
Program: Steve Arvey
He’s back! Get ready for another night of music with Steve Arvey, one of the top cigar box guitar players in the world.
His career began playing the blues in Chicago, but his genre also includes Rock Blues and Americana. Steve continues to play venues across the globe. Expect a great night of music!
Please register for this event
UIHS members and member’s guests only please.
Saturday February 14th, 2026 - 5:30 pm
Save the Date!
Program: To be announced
Saturday March 7th, 2026 - 5:30 pm
Speaker: Sir John Scarlett
About the Speaker: Sir John Scarlett is the Non-Executive Co-Chair of SC Strategy, a geopolitical firm in London. He served as Chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) from 2004-2009, following a distinguished career that began in 1971 with postings in Paris, Nairobi, and Moscow as well as senior rolls in London.
Saturday April 25th, 2026 - 5:30 pm
Sunset Cruise with Bob Macomber
Join us for a delightful and entertaining sunset cruise on the Lady Chadwick with Robert N. Macomber, a multi-award-winning author, internationally recognized lecturer, storyteller and avid historical researcher.
Past Events:
2025
Saturday December 24th, 2025 - 5:00 pm
Program: Useppa Wassail
Celebrate the holidays with tradition: The “Useppa Wassail”, an evening of Christmas carols, family and friends.
Please bring your own beverage.
Saturday April 12th, 2025 - 7:30 pm
Love Letters
by A.R.Gurney
with
Dan O’Connell and Linda Colgan
Love Letters, a play by A.R. Gurney, follows the lives of two friends, Melissa Gardner and Andrew Makepeace Ladd III, who share their hopes, dreams, disappointments, and triumphs through letters, notes, and cards. The play was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and has been performed extensively, both on and off Broadway.
Saturday April 2nd, 2025 - 2:30 pm
Saturday March 29th, 2025 - 5:30 pm
Spirit of the Island
The Useppa Island Historical Society
invites you to a night to honor our island’s history and to show your support for the preservation of Useppa’s past and future
Saturday March 29th, 5:30PM
Barbara Sumwalt Museum
Saturday March 8th, 2025 - 5:30 pm
THE AMERICA’S CUP & HISTORY’S
MOST FAMOUS RACING
SCHOONER-TURNED-WARSHIP
Join multi-award-winning author and lecturer
Robert N. Macomber
for his presentation on the remarkable, but little-known,
94-year life of the most famous schooner in the world.
It’s the story of triumph and tragedy, war and peace, fame
and decline — with Florida playing a critical role!
Saturday, March 8th 2025
5:30PM
Barbara Sumwalt Museum
Saturday February 15th, 2025 - 5:30 pm
Cardiac Surgery in China – 33 Years of Remarkable Change
Dr. Michael Carmichael
Please join us to hear an inspiring lecture featuring the important work of long time Useppa Island resident Dr. Michael Carmichael, a cardiovascular surgery specialist with 48 years of experience, and a pioneering figure who helped establish cardiac care in China.
Saturday, February 15th 2025
5:30PM
Barbara Sumwalt Museum
Useppa Island Historical Society Members and house guests only.
Membership applications will be available, so please join us!
Saturday January 25th, 2025 - 5:30 pm
Museum Program Saturday, January 25th
Please join us in the Museum for a fun filled evening with your fellow members and listen to the music of Steve Arvey, one of the top cigar box guitar players in the world.
Steve’s career began playing blues in Chicago and he now plays venues across the globe, with his most recent performance being last week at the New Orleans Jazz Museum.
His genre includes Blues, Jazz, Rock Blues Americana, and Traditional.
Saturday, January 25th 2025
5:30PM
Barbara Sumwalt Museum
Light snacks and libations
This event is for UIHS Members, New Homeowners, and Members with active memberships in 2024.
We welcome previous members!
Bring your cash, check or credit card and
rejoin this important organization at the event.
2024
Program:
Saturday April 20th, 2024 - 6:30 pm
4/20/24 – Sunset Cruise aboard the Lady Chadwick with Bob Macomber
Saturday April 20th, 2024
Departing main dock promptly at 6:30 pm
Ahoy UIHS Members!
Please join us for a delightful and entertaining sunset cruise in Pine Island Sound aboard the Lady Chadwick with Bob Macomber, a multi-award winning author, storyteller and historical researcher.
Relax and enjoy the view as you learn a little history and watch the sunset into the Gulf of Mexico on this 2 hour cruise.
Ticket for entry is your UIHS Membership!!!
If you are not a member yet, please join on our webpage at www.useppahs.org, or the Museum.
Hor d’oeurves will follow the talk.
Cash Bar on the boat.
Saturday January 6th, 2024 - 5:30 pm
1/6/2024 – 25 Years of Weird Florida
Saturday January 6th, 2024
5:30pm at the
Barbara Sumwalt Museum
New Homeowners, UIHS members and member’s guests
Cocktails and Hors d’oeuvres will be served after the presentation.
Books will be available for sale.
Please come early.
The programs will start promptly at 5:30.
Program: 25 Years of Weird Florida
Speaker: Eliot Kleinberg
About the Program:
In 1998, the original Weird Florida posited that Florida was the wackiest of all. Cows in the Intracoastal Waterway to haunted airlines to celebrity sex scandals: it all happens in Florida. That much weirdness called for a second volume in 2006: Weird Florida II: In a State of Shock. Now, more than two decades later, who can argue otherwise?
This presentation includes a whirlwind tour of 500 years of Florida history, capped with a strong argument for Florida’s transplants to become Floridians and ask the question
“Is Florida one of the weirdest places on earth?”
About the Speaker:
Eliot Kleinberg was born in South Florida, spent nearly a half century in daily journalism before retiring in December 2020 after 33-½ years at The Palm Beach Post in West Palm Beach. In addition to covering local news, he also wrote extensively about Florida and Florida history.
He has written or contributed to more than a dozen books, all focusing on Florida. They include Black Cloud, about the great 1928 Okeechobee Hurricane; two Weird Florida books, and Palm Beach Past and Wicked Palm Beach, collections of items from “Post Time,” his weekly local history column that ran for more than two decades in the Post. “Florida Time,” covering the history of the entire state, debuted in 2019 in Gatehouse newspapers statewide.
2023
Saturday January 21st, 2023 - 5:30 pm
Program: The Patriot and The Widow
Speaker: Robert N. Macomber, Multi-award-winning author
Location: Barbara Sumwalt Museum
New Homeowners, Members and Member’ s Guests.
Cocktails and Hors d’oeuvres will be served after the presentation.
About the Program: The fascinating, non-fiction tale of a young mixed-marriage couple who became pro-Union refugees on Useppa Island during the American Civil War.
It’s a story of love, war, the bitter-sweet Christmas of 1863, and a woman’s incredible resiliency against daunting odds, with a poignant legacy which has lasted until this very day.
About the Speaker: Robert Macomber is a multi-award winning author, internationally recognized lecturer, history enthusiast and avid researcher, who grew up on the waters along the SW coast of Florida. By age seventeen, he was an offshore racing skipper and raced the next thirty-two years in Florida, Mexico and the Bahamas. When not traveling the world on research treks, lecture tours, or book signing, he lives on Pine Island, the same coast where he grew up. When not writing, he enjoys sailing among the more remote islands and cooking the exotic cuisines from his novels.
Mr. Macomber lectures at sea and on shore. He’s been guest author and enrichment lecturer aboard many of the most elegant ships afloat. He has spoken at historical and academic venues around the United States. His lectures span 58 maritime and literary topics. He has appeared in Florida PBS maritime history documentaries, and has been a featured author at state, regional, and international book festivals as well.
He is best known for his popular Honor Series of naval thrillers that describe the career and personnel life of a fictional naval officer Peter Wake, which starts in 1863 during the Civil War to the end of his career in 1908. The novels illuminate the U.S. Navy’s critical role in the expansion of America from a continental country in the mid-19th century into a global power in the early 20th century. There are 17 novels planned for the Honor Series and you can find a listing of his books and the awards they have earned by following this link.
Saturday February 18th, 2023 - 5:30 pm
2/18/2023 – Speaker Cynthia Barnett – Rain
Saturday February 18th, 2023
5:30pm at the
Barbara Sumwalt Museum
UIHS members and member’s guests only please.
Program: Rain
Speaker: Cynthia Barnett
About the Program: Explores a natural and cultural tour of Rain, from the torrents that filled the oceans four billion years ago to the modern story of climate change, range is a shared experience. This presentation shares the history of rain and how the world can come together to live more ethically with water and adapt to the stormy times ahead.
About the Speaker: Cynthia Barnett is an award-winning environmental journalist.
Saturday March 25th, 2023 - 5:30 pm
3/25/2023 – Speaker Craig Pittman – Cat Tale
Saturday March 25th, 2023
5:30pm at the
Barbara Sumwalt Museum
UIHS members and member’s guests only please.
Program: Cat Tale
Speaker: Craig Pittman
About the Program: Florida’s school children chose the panther as the state animal, and a decade later it nearly went extinct. A ragtag band joined together to pull off a risky experiment to save them.
About the Speaker: Craig Pittman is environmental journalist and author.
Saturday April 5th, 2023 - 5:30 pm
4/5/23 – Music at the Museum For Kids with Jillian Van Ness
Saturday April 15th, 2023 - 5:30 pm
4/15/2023 – Speaker John Pether – Wood, Fiberglass and Steel: The History of Boat Building on Florida’s Gulf Coats
Saturday April 15th, 2023
5:30pm at the
Barbara Sumwalt Museum
Program: Wood, Fiberglass and Steel: The History of Boat Building on Florida’s Gulf Coast
Speaker: John Pether, co-author and director of the Gulf Coast Maritime Museum in Sarasota
About the Program: The book and the presentation is about the history of boat building on the west coast of Florida from the Panhandle to the Keys. Enhanced by photographs and brought to life by personal remembrances and historical newspaper accounts, Wood, Fiberglass, and Steel is a fascinating tribute and depiction of how demand and technology transformed boat building methods and how the boat building industry impacted the economy and employment opportunities along the Gulf Coast.
The author will be selling books so please bring cash. There will be no IOU’s.
Tuesday April 18th, 2023 - 10 am-3 pm
4/18/2023 – Museum Field Trip: Cruise to Tarpon Lodge & Calusa Indian Mounds on Pine Island
Tuesday, April 18th, 2023
10am to 3pm
Museum Field Trip
Cruise to the historic Tarpon Lodge for lunch and a guided
walking tour on the Calusa Indian Mound Trail at the
Randell Research Center.
THE USEPPA ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY
in partnership with CAPTIVA CRUISES
Travel the waters of Pine Island Sound enjoying the wildlife and a narrative of “A Thousand Years of Fishing” in SW Florida. Get an up close look at historic fish shacks and observe fish and marine life during the trawling net segment of this cruise.
Please join us for this fun day on the water!
Captiva Cruises will depart Useppa’s dock
April 18 at 10:00 and return at 3:00.
Cost is $55 per person (Lunch not included)
You must sign up by leaving a check/cash at the
Museum or in our mailbox, or you can sign up
with a credit card in the museum (a small fee will apply.)
If you have any questions, please contact
Cindy Ryan at theryans8@comcast.net or
Carolynne Krusi at CTKrusi@gmail.com.
2022
2021
January 14th, 2021 - 5:30 pm EST
Program: Florida Soul
Speaker: John Capouya
Author, Pop-culture Scholar
About the Speaker: John Capouya is an author and professor of journalism and non-fiction writing at the University of Tampa. During his career in journalism he worked at Newsweek, The New York Times, SmartMoney, and New York Newsday. His nonfiction books include the biography Gorgeous George and, most recently, Florida Soul.
About the Program: The people and the music that define Florida Soul, from Ray Charles, to Sam and Dave, James Brown to Bobby Purify and many more. This rich but under-appreciated musical heritage comes to life in music, words, and vintage photos.
February 11th, 2021 - 5:30 pm EST
Program: The Man Who Swam Inside the Planet
Speaker: Julie Hauserman
Journalist, Author
She has twice been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, once for her stories about pollution in Florida’s Fenholloway River, and once for her stories about arsenic leaking out of pressure-treated lumber all over America. She won the Scripps Howard National Journalism Awards’ top environmental prize for her work on the arsenic stories. Hauserman was a Capitol bureau reporter for the St. Petersburg Times in Tallahassee and has been a commentator for National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition-Sunday and Minnesota Public Radio’s The Splendid Table. Her essays are featured in several Florida anthologies, including The Wild Heart of Florida, The Book of the Everglades, and Between Two Rivers. She lives in Tallahassee.
About the Program: Julie Hauserman, award-winning Florida journalist and author of Drawn to the Deep, the Remarkable Underwater Explorations of Wes Skiles (University Press of Florida 2018), gives a striking slide show of photos taken inside Earth and a description of expeditions. She tells the story of Wes Skiles, a Florida man and National Geographic explorer who became one of the top photographers in the world while working in a place with no natural light – the planet’s aquifers.
March 4th, 2021 - 5:30 pm EST
Program: Hidden History of Florida
Speaker: Jim Clark
Author, Pop-culture Scholar
About the Speaker: Jim Clark is a Senior Lecturer in the University of Central Florida History Department. He has emerged as one of Florida’s leading historians, noted for his books and research. He is the author of nine books, and the editor of a three-volume anthology of Florida Literature.
About the Program: Six out of ten Floridians come from outside Florida and know little of the state’s rich history. The Hidden History of Florida uses dozens of stories to tell the little-known facts of Florida history. It is a fast, fun 50-minute journey through 400 years of history with lots of images all based on the book Hidden History of Florida. The trip will leave listeners with a new appreciation of their state’s past.
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