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This famous landmark, named after a prominent national figure once locally revered, was adorned with a coconut palm but is now the home of a statue with a story.
Haney Circle, where the statue “Abundance” now resides, is named in honor of Cynthia Burnette Haney. Born in Ohio, Cynthia Burnette was a prominent national figure in the Woman’s Christian Temperance Movement (WCTU) when she moved to Florida in 1897 and married Dr. Horace Haney. The Haneys lived on the north side of the St. Lucie River until their divorce in 1903. After the divorce, Cynthia moved across the river to Stuart where she became a revered member of the community. An inspiration to pioneer women, she worked to improve the status of them and their children. She helped found the Woman’s Club of Stuart and sponsored the community’s first library. A Suffragette, Mrs. Haney campaigned for the women’s right to vote both locally and nationally. She got the commission to place an amendment on the ballot allowing women to vote in city elections, but the male electorate turned it down. She wrote articles for national and local newspapers. On her 80th birthday in 1920, the traffic circle in downtown Stuart was named after her. In 1929, she was recognized as the state’s oldest active newspaper woman and continued to write until she passed away on July 24th, 1932. As legend goes, the Woman’s Club had plans to install a recently purchased 1939 World’s Fair statue named “Abundance,” in Haney Circle in the 1940s. As veteran Stuart News journalist Joe Crankshaw tells the story, reporter Ernie Lyons was with the women when the shipping crate holding the award winning statue was opened. Joe recalls Ernie saying that they: “opened it up, they stood there and looked at it, put it back, and packed it up.” Apparently, there were concerns it might not be appropriate to install a scantily clad statue, that could be interpreted as holding wine jugs, in a place honoring Cynthia Haney. “Abundance” was eventually removed from storage and placed next to the Martin County courthouse. When the courthouse was enlarged, the bronze statue that had developed a green patina was moved to Memorial Park, where it was “painted bronze.” In 1991, “Abundance” finally made her way back to Haney Circle as part of the revitalization of downtown Stuart. Sandy Thurlow ponders in her book Stuart on the St. Lucie, “One wonders what Mrs. Haney would think now that the statue ‘Abundance’ has replaced the coconut palm she planted in the circle long ago.” Sandy asked Mrs. Haney’s great niece, Gladys Miller Atkisson, who responded, “I rather think she would like it.”