Nancy GALLOWAY, born 1841 in North Carolina, came to central
Florida with her father, Francis, a Widower. The Galloway’s homesteaded on the
Wekiva River, at a desolate river crossing called RUTLAND’S Ferry. Part of
Orange County then, today it’s in Seminole County, just south of where SR 46
crosses the Wekiva River. Nancy, still a teenager, found herself at the epicenter
of 1860 #cflParadise history. She and her father had settled next door to the
family of Isaac N. Rutland. In 1860, at age 19, Nancy married William W.
Woodruff of Fort Reid, a town two miles east of the ferry crossing. Nancy moved
into the Woodruff Cottage on the historic Woodruff Grove of Fort Reid. Soon
after their marriage, her husband William went with Isaac N. Rutland to
Tallahassee, where the two represented Orange County as delegates at Florida’s 1861
Secession Convention.
Nancy meanwhile attended to the Woodruff Grove, among the
earliest of central Florida citrus groves, planted in 1843 by William’s father.
Making of the Woodruff home “depended largely upon his wife,” says the
biography of William, because when not at Tallahassee, William was serving in
the Civil War as a Home Guard. William died in 1872, leaving Nancy and two sons
to attend to the Woodruff Grove. It was said that no one ever felt a “stranger
in a strange land” at the Woodruff home, and of the lady of that cottage, one
historian wrote: “Being well educated and gifted with unusual personal ability,
she gathered the remnants of property left and so planned, worked and lived to
enjoy the income of one of the finest orange groves in Orange County.”
Nancy (Galloway) Woodruff married a second time in 1877, to
Charles H. Beck, a native of Florida. The couple continued crowing citrus until
1895, when the historic grove was lost during Florida’s Great Freeze. Resolving
to repair their financial crisis, Charles H. Beck departed for the gold mines
of Alaska, determined to bring home new found wealth. Charles failed though,
for he was buried alive in an historic Klondike avalanche, Easter Sunday, April
4, 1898.
Nannie (Galloway) Woodruff – Beck died June 11, 1909, “in the
home she had made, where her last days were spent in the quiet enjoyment of her
children.” Nannie is featured in my book, The Rutland Mule Matter.
Tomorrow: Mellonville’s Steamboat Operator
.
For more on central Florida history visit
www.CroninBooks.com
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