RAILROAD to AMERICA’S
PARADISE
The
FLORIDA SOUTHERN RAILWAY
Part 1:
Hartwell C. Howard, M. D.
August 3,
2017:
1877,
November 20: “Dr. H. C. HOWARD, on behalf
of Gainesville, Ocala & Charlotte Harbor RAILROAD, appeared before the Board and
made a proposition.” Minutes of Florida’s Internal Improvement Fund ‘Board’ exposes the 1877 involvement of Dr. Hartwell
C. Howard, of Champaign County,
Illinois, and tells of the man’s efforts to circumvent a court order that had
effectively prohibited building railroads in the State of Florida.
Board
Meeting Minutes, Florida Internal Improvement Fund
Capitalist Francis VOSE
of New York had been granted, in 1870,
an injunction to stop the State of Florida from using Public Lands to entice the
building of railroads until his Pre-Civil War railroad debt was paid in full.
Standard practice throughout the country was to reward railroad builders by
conveying to them public land. Dr. Howard proposed the State sell his firm, at
five cents per acre, portions of public land on six miles of each side of his
proposed railroad’s route, and that the sale would not, “go into effect until the claims of VOSE and others are settled.”
At age 47, Dr. Howard had come to Florida in 1876 for health reasons, being “attacked with pneumonia,” according to a
History of Champaign County (1878). It
was then that the physician became “interested
and impressed with the country.”
The Illinois doctor departed Tallahassee with a favorable
Resolution in hand: Howard’s firm was to file with the State a survey of its intended
route from Gainesville to Charlotte Harbor, and in turn, Florida would reserve
public land along that route for six months. An extension of those reserved
lands would be granted provided Dr. Howard’s railroad completed at least twenty
(20) miles of track within that six
month period.
Dr. Howard and his partners could now go to work organizing
the railroad. “He has heretofore been
quite prominently identified with railroad interests,” said the 1887 ‘Portrait & Biographical Album
of Champaign County, Illinois,’ of Hartwell
Carver Howard, M. D., “having been President of the Gainesville,
Ocala & Charlotte Harbor Railroad in Florida.” The railroad that was to
become known as Florida Southern Railroad had many hurdles to overcome before
train service could begin, but the good doctor from Champaign, Illinois had
accomplished a very important first step.
Hartwell C. Howard’s interest in Florida was only then
beginning. On the 20th of March, 1885, Hartwell C. Howard, of
Champaign County, Illinois, was deeded 158
Florida acres by the U. S. Land Office, acreage situated in Polk County. Quoting
the 1887 biographical sketch
published by Champaign County, Illinois: “He
has also been occupied in buying and selling Florida orange lands, having a
town laid out on his own estate there, Auburndale. He donated 80 acres of land to secure the South
Florida Railroad through that town.”
Auburndale, Polk County, Florida
Dr. Hartwell C. Howard was but one of eight #ILLINOISANS to organize Florida Southern Railroad, organized a
decade before he enticed yet another railroad, South Florida Railroad, to cross his Auburndale estate, thereby
greatly increasing the value of his acreage as well as establishing a city. Dr.
Howard died June 5, 1922, age 93, at his home in Illinois.
Next week, in Part 2 of this series, you will meet an Illinois Sheriff who relocated to Alachua
County so as to meet terms of the agreement negotiated by Dr. Howard in 1877. In addition to meeting the
Sheriff turned Civil Engineer, we visit as well a town first named for him.
This
RAILROAD to AMERICA’S PARADISE series is sponsored by:
Florida,
America’s 19th century Paradise, became the promise of health and
wealth in the land of sunshine. But then, Florida’s Great Freeze of 1894-95
destroyed not only a record-setting citrus crop, but wiped out as well the ambitious
dreams of many of the wealthiest individuals in the world. Climb aboard the
Orange Belt Railway at Sanford, Florida, and meet true life individuals
struggling to recover after a devastating, real-life event. Now in Second Edition, available
at Amazon.com
CitrusLAND:
Ghost Towns & Phantom Trains
A
Historic Novel by Richard Lee Cronin
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