Peter Demens

Peter Demens (May 13 [O.S. May 1] 1850 – January 21, 1919) born Pyotr Alexeyevitch Dementyev (Russian: Пётр Алексеевич Дементьев) was a Russian immigrant to the United States who became a railway owner and one of the founders of the U.S. city of St. Petersburg, Florida.

Pyotr A. Dementyev was born to a wealthy family in Vesjegonsk district, Tver Oblast, Russia. Demens was a liberal minded, well educated aristocrat, a first cousin of Prince Petroff and a captain in the Imperial Guard. "Demens' father had left him two estates, one near the czar's capital of St. Petersburg and another close to Moscow." "His father died when he was an infant [and when] he was 4, his mother died." He reportedly "grew up in a huge stone house with never fewer than 30 servants" and "was the master of his family estate" at 17. He received training as a forester managing his large family estates, which would serve him well in the future.

Demens was raised by his maternal uncle Anastassy Alexandrovich Kaliteevsky, marshal of the Vesyegonsk district nobility, who became the boy's tutor and guardian of his land estates. When he was 10, Demens "was sent to St. Petersburg to study [at] Gymnasium No. 3 (today it is School No. 181 in Solyanoi Pereulok), [which] was one of the best in the city." Demens did well enough to eventually transfer "to the newly founded First Technical School in St. Petersburg."

In 1867, "he entered the military service of Alexander II as a lieutenant in the czar's infantry guard." "He rose to command the sentries at the czar's Winter Palace and the home of Crown Prince Alexander III," but "after four years of military duty, he was old enough to own his family estates [and so] "he resigned his commission as a captain and lived as a country squire." He married Raisa Borisenko, who, reportedly, was "also an orphan brought up by relatives." "He spent the 1870s selling off the trees of the estates' dense woodland and converting his land to agriculture." "Elected by gentry peers as county marshal of nobility, he became an outspoken writer and active in his rural government." "Never adopting Marxist or radical notions, Demens sympathized with populist leaders."

...
Wikipedia