May 14, 1997

Tribute to Fred Babcock

“End of an era” is often used to note the death of people who have contributed greatly to their times and places -- yet, there is nothing better to describe the life of Fred Babcock who was pleased to be known by old-timers here as the “axle-tree” of Crescent-B Ranch.

Mr. Fred was born to wealth, but you wouldn’t know it unless someone else told you. He belonged to that old school in which you worked hard, hewed to stern ethics, shared your good fortune with others and treated everyone with courtesy regardless of their station. To him, making money was simply a byproduct of doing the right thing.

The era we mention is that which produced entrepreneurs who succeeded and went on to become philanthropists such as John D. Rockefeller, Henry Ford, Andrew Carnegie, and John North Ringling.

Edward Vose Babcock of Pittsburgh earned such recognition 110 years ago when he started the Babcock Lumber Company. Fred followed in his father’s footsteps.

It is a rarity in American industry that a major company has prospered for more than a century with just a father-son management. The business -- one of the largest lumber companies in the nation -- will now be carried on by his four daughters and other family members. His wife of 58 years, Marion, succeeds him.

The elder Babcock came here in 1912 to hunt and fish. He liked the area so well he bought 100,000 acres of bled-out turpentine pines from Punta Gorda business man Perry McAdow. Other acreage followed. Timber rights were contracted to the Roux Crate and Lumber Company of Bartow, Fla., which produced shores for South Africa and South American mines.

When the timber was logged, E.V. Babcock converted the acreage to a cattle ranch. Young Fred at age 14 came to Charlotte County in the summer months to learn the cattle business. In the winters he worked in the family sawmill near Pittsburgh. This pattern so pleased Fred, he continued it the rest of his life -- except that he prudently reversed the seasonal visits.

Under Mr. Fred’s leadership, the Crescent-B expanded, but then shrank slightly when he gave 23,000 acres to the state wildlife management area next door. Today, the ranch encompasses 140 square miles of pasture, forest, and productive swamp. Fred Babcock introduced enlightened environmental practices well before the term existed.

Since then, Babcock was honored with the Florida Environmental Stewardship Award (1993), the Florida and National Cattlemen’s Association's Award (1992) and the Florida Tree Farmer (1987.)

An especially significant recognition was tendered him two years ago when the Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission re-named the hunting and fishing reserve open to the public the Babcock-Webb Wildlife Management Area. Announcement came from Gov. Lawton Chiles at a reception in his official mansion attended by a host of friends and dignitaries.

Mr. Fred’s great pleasure was a lodge built on the edge of the Telegraph-Cypress swamp where alligators and rare Ibis wading birds made their homes. There he entertained his many friends at small suppers. He died peacefully in his easy chair where he fell asleep after a congenial meal with a friend.

Mr. and Mrs. Babcock contributed generously to educational, cultural and medical projects in the areas where they owned business properties. The couple shunned publicity. However, it is known locally that they were major donors to the Charlotte County Art Guild Visual Arts Center, Crossroads Wilderness Institute of less-fortunate boys, Boca Grande Health Clinic, Medical Center Hospital, Boy Scouts and -- most recently -- the gift of the historic train depot at Punta Gorda.

Mr. Fred was fond of epigrams -- most of them moral or philosophical, but some mischievous -- which he exchanged with friends. He collected these thoughts in booklets which in later years he compiled at five-year intervals along with news and photographs of his family.

He was working on one for his next birthday, when the Great Architect of the Universe called him to that bourne from which no traveler returns. His last tract -- titled “Eighty, Your Future Is Now” -- highlighted the following: “Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.”

He practiced what he preached, and the rest of us mourn with his family.

By Lindsey Williams, columnist for Sun Coast Media Group newspapers