Les the Lesser Known Hemingway and His Micronation`
A brief retelling of the life and nation of the younger Hemingway brother.
Florida/Jamaica area
~Disclaimer: I am not, nor will I ever claim to be a historian. I literally have a list of weird historical topics that I googled and thought were interesting. I do not have a degree in history, and I only tell what I find with the Google Machine on these topics. I appreciate the oddities found in history that are not usually discussed in broad history classes, but I can only know so much about them. Also, although I would love to keep this newsletter about local (Central Valley and Foothill history,) there is only so much to be researched and I would like to keep them peppered throughout the posts rather than only it be about local history and then an abrupt change to broader topics. I understand if you are not interested in historical articles from other areas, but you can always just not read them. I will begin to list at the top of the article what area it is from for ease of access.~
Not many people know that Ernest Hemingway had a younger brother who looked an awful lot like him, who was also a writer, and who, despite it being extremely small, founded a nation that was recognized by the president at the time. His name was Leicester (“Lester”) Hemingway. He was 16 years younger than Ernest, born in April of 1915, and he almost seemed to follow exactly in his brother’s footsteps. Ernest fought in World War I, Les fought in World War II. Ernest was a famous writer, Les was a writer, however less famous for his works of literature. He did write what is regarded by most as the best biography of his brother, Ernest. However, Les can claim one thing that Ernest can’t; Les was the president of New Atlantis.
According to this article, at the age of 19, Les had already built himself a sailboat and sailed, by himself, from the Atlantic Coast of the US to the Bahamas. Les spent a lot of time in Bimini in his younger years. He really loved Bimini. While Ernest came to make his own name for himself there, and people would say he would fight anyone who wanted, Les felt like he could really be himself there. Les also would often buy old sailboats and fix them up to resell them. One that he bought from the US Navy, A 70-foot captain’s launch, ended up being blown up in the movie Thunderball. After long, Les started flying in small planes on his trips to Bimini which introduced him to amateur archeologists also searching in the area. This is also how he ended up on a plane with J. Manson Valentine in 1972. J. Manson Valentine was a writer and “an authority” on the Bermuda Triangle and Atlantis. Les ended up doing an episode of In Search Of… hosted by Leonard Nimoy in 1980 (two years before his passing), along with his daughter Hilary. In the episode, “The Bimini Wall,” he escorts the crew to a small freshwater spring on North Bimini, a place that Les believed was not only proof of Atlantis, but that it had very real curative properties. In the episode, you can see Les and Hilary in the Healing Hole, hoping to get any ailments cured. Hilary swears her mother’s psoriasis was almost instantly healed, and both Les’s daughters believe that the Healing Hole cured their father of his gout. Time would truly tell, however, as Les would take his life two years later, due to depression caused by health concerns regarding his Type 2 Diabetes. In his last year of life, Les had to have several surgeries to help unblock and clean arteries, and doctors had told him that it was recommended he get both legs amputated if he wanted to survive. His brother and father also took their own lives because of depression stemming from physical ailments.
Fifteen years prior to his appearance on In Search Of…, in 1965, Les did something quirky, to say the least. He built an 8x30 foot raft out of bamboo, iron pipes, steel cable, and stones, weighted down with an old Ford engine block. He anchored this raft about 8 miles off the coast southwest coast of Jamaica, in about 50 ft deep water. He claimed half of this “island” for America under the “Guano Islands Act”, an 1856 federal law that states that any island that is found and unclaimed, that has evidence of bat or bird guano, can be claimed as a US territory, although the only guano that was on the raft was brought there by Les himself. In a press release declaring the nation's sovereignty, Les explained that the capitol was located in Coconut Grove, Florida, (a section of Miami) because Les considered the entire remainder of Dade County as one “vast, Philistine suburb.”
Les claimed the other half of the “island” as his own and dubbed it “New Atlantis.” Jamaica did not see New Atlantis as a threat because Les explained that the purpose of the island would be to protect the local fishing, he also outlawed gambling. He was also going to attempt to raise funds to help fund the International Marine Research Society through the use of stamps that were printed. One stamp made in 1964 even praised Lyndon B. Johnson as the “protector of the entire free world.” This comment got a thank you from the President himself, in which he actually referred to Les as the President of New Atlantis. However, this did not help the Swiss-based Universal Postal Service recognize New Atlantis as an actual country, so that did not go as he had planned. Les called the nation’s currency “scruples” and it consisted of common things you would see float onto a Jamaican shore, like shark teeth and other specially marked, nautical-themed items. “Scruple” means to hesitate on a moral basis.
In 1964, a spokesperson for the Jamaican Embassy in Washington told the New York Herald Tribune that Les was a “decent and well-meaning soul.” Les himself said he mostly founded New Atlantis to “make dough” and have fun. Sadly, within the first year of its existence, New Atlantis was swept away in a storm. Les didn't give up on New Atlantis for fifteen years. He suspected that it had drifted somewhere down near Haiti.
Tragically, Les took his own life at the age of 67, in 1982. It was much like his brother and father, who took their lives for similar reasons, because of their failing health.
Sources:
https://stevenewmanwriter.medium.com/leicester-and-ernest-hemingway-brothers-eba84ab4ff0