James and Elizabeth McMullen built a one-and-a-half-story log cabin near Alligator Creek in what is now part of Clearwater, where they raised livestock and farmed crops including cotton. Their cattle were sold throughout the South and to Cuba, and in the turbulent years after the Civil War they pursued opportunity by selling cattle there because its economy was stable. By 1869 the family manufactured syrup barrels and held sugar cane grinding parties, and later they converted their cotton fields into citrus groves. James Parramore McMullen had first come from southern Georgia in 1841 at age 18 while suffering from consumption, or tuberculosis, and regained his health living alone on the Pinellas Peninsula before returning to Georgia and later coming back with his wife to make upper Pinellas their home. Even after the Second Seminole War, when skirmishes continued in the region for years, the family persevered, and between 1851 and 1871 James's six brothers followed him to Pinellas one by one. Elizabeth Campbell McMullen, a native of Hernando County, was probably the area's first midwife, and by 1900 the cabin had witnessed the birth of nearly 60 children, including many in the extended McMullen family. During the Civil War, Elizabeth protected the homestead and raised their children while James served with the Confederate Cow Cavalry. For nearly 20 years the cabin was the most substantial home in Upper Tampa Bay, and Elizabeth's hospitality made it a favorite stop for overland travelers, who spent evenings dancing to guitar, fiddle, and organ music. Its interlocking heart pine logs, unglazed window openings, wide porches, and dogtrot breezeway let in fresh air and many animals, and family members recalled both James's pride in a house with wide cracks and the children's chore of pouring boiling water between them to drive off hogs under the cabin at night. In the 1870s, miles from their home and farm, the McMullens established the Bay View settlement where farmers loaded livestock onto boats in Tampa Bay, then added a store and hotel. James, his six brothers, and their children later helped shape Pinellas as community leaders, business developers, and politicians, and James and his neighbor Richard Booth were said to have carved a pathway between their cabins that became part of McMullen-Booth Road, considered the first Pinellas road built to surveyors' specifications.