David N. SKILLINGS and Charles WHITNEY

RAILROAD to AMERICA’S PARADISE

The FLORIDA SOUTHERN RAILWAY

Part 3: David Nelson Skillings and Charles Whitney

This Nation’s largest lumber merchant came to the rescue of Florida Southern Railroad.

Illinois investors organized in 1876 to build a railroad, not in their State, but far to the south, in Florida, a railroad to run 300 miles down through the State’s heartland, from Gainesville in the north, to Charlotte Harbor in the south. Their train was called, appropriately, The Gainesville, Ocala and Charlotte Harbor Railroad.

The basic groundwork for their new train was laid in 1877. Dr. Hartwell C. Howard, of Champaign County, Illinois, met in Tallahassee with the Florida Internal Improvement Fund (IIF) Board, chaired by Florida’s Governor. (Part 1). Florida’s Legislature set up the IIF in 1855, for the purpose of 'improving' the State’s non-existent transportation system.

A half-century before personal autos, canals and railroads, it was decided, were needed if Florida was ever to attract settlers. The first railroad had been built in the northern section of the State - prior to the Civil War, built using funds of New York investors. After the War, Florida couldn’t pay off the investors, so a court injunction was obtained to prevent Florida from using public lands as an enticement to others willing to build railroads.

Dr. Howard struck a deal with the IIF, albeit mostly a one-side deal. The State promised to reserve land along the route of the railroad provided they submit a survey showing the path of the train. Civil Engineer and Illinois Partner Nathaniel R. Gruelle then went to work on that survey (Part 2), even though there was little the State could do other than to hold the land until a future date, after that court injunction was lifted.

By 1879, the eight Illinois investors still couldn’t build their train, not until a group out of Boston appeared on the scene. They brought “valuable consideration,” so after first negotiating ownership in what was by then the “Florida Southern Railroad”, these new investors met with the IIF Board on February 1, 1880.

The Bostonians had in their possession a written agreement entered into prior to the death of “the late Francis Vose,” the New York Capitalist who had been granted the injunction against the State of Florida. Vose had transferred part of his debt coupons, in exchange for $36,000, over to “Charles Francis, D. N. Skillings and Charles Whitney", all three of Boston, Massachusetts.

Charles Whitney was the eldest son of Boston lumber dealer David Whitney. By 1870, brothers David and Hiram had joined with Charles to form Whitney Brothers Lumber Merchants, and soon thereafter, merged with the firm of David N. Skillings to establish Skillings & Whitney Brothers, touted as being the largest lumber dealer in America.  Based out of Boston, Skillings & Whitney Brothers also had offices scattered throughout the northeast, including New York and Michigan.

Florida Southern Railroad opened up the rich timberland in Florida’s heartland to America’s largest lumber dealer, so naturally an investment in that railroad was a natural. By the time a train schedule was published August 21, 1881, five of six listed officers of the railroad happened to be Bostonians.

FLORIDA SOUTHERN RAILROAD is going on vacation!

Part 4: Pine Island and Charlotte Harbor

Will continue September 15, 2017.

       

This RAILROAD to AMERICA’S PARADISE series is sponsored by:

Florida, America’s 19^th 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

https://www.amazon.com/CitrusLAND-Phantom-Trains-Orange-Railways/dp/1514252481/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1502987288&sr=8-1&keywords=cITRUSLAND+GHOST+TOWNS

A Historic Novel by Richard Lee Cronin
 

References available upon request: Rick@CroninBooks.com

Nathaniel R. GRUELLE

RAILROAD to AMERICA’S PARADISE

The FLORIDA SOUTHERN RAILWAY

Part 2: Nathan Rice Gruelle, Civil Engineer

August 10, 2017:

In September of 1884, Sallie Perry, daughter of Florida’s 4^th Governor, Madison S. Perry, reportedly petitioned to change the name of her tiny Alachua County crossroads town. Sallie wanted #Rochelle rather than Gruelle. Miss Perry’s request was eventually granted, but not overnight, for Palatka Daily News of December 10, 1885 reported the “Florida Southern Railroad dispatcher’s office”, originally located at Gainesville, “had been relocated to Gruelle”. The #Gruelle railroad depot appeared on a January, 1884 schedule of the Florida Southern Railroad, but later time-tables listed the stop as #Rochelle.   

    

Dr. Hartwell C. HOWARD, President of ‘Gainesville, Ocala & Charlotte Harbor Railroad’, had, so he thought, convinced Florida’s Internal Improvement Fund board to circumvent a court injunction that had effectively tied the hands of anyone desiring to build new Post-Civil War railroads. Dr. Howard (Part 1 of this series) met with the board November 20, 1877.

The fragile 1877 agreement negotiated by Dr. Howard however came with a condition. His railroad was required to submit a survey showing the railroad’s intended route. If that survey proved acceptable, the Board would reserve for Dr. Howard’s firm, for a period of six months, public lands along both sides of their planned railroad. It was a deal worth millions of developable wilderness acres.

The Board also agreed to extend the land reservation, provided 20 miles of track had been laid by the end of that initial six month period. Facing a monumental task, Dr. Howard looked to partner Nathaniel Rice Gruelle to accomplish this next phase.

A Kentuckian and ex-prisoner of America’s Civil War, Major Gruelle, as his comrades knew the Illinois Calvary man captured in 1864 at Jonesville, VA, was also a Civil Engineer. And so in 1877, Nathaniel Gruelle stepped down as Iroquois County Sheriff, departed Illinois, and settled his young family at Alachua County.

When Gruelle arrived in Florida, the southernmost railroad was a pre-Civil War train, referred to by its 1850s builder as, the Sea-to-Sea Railroad. The train operated between Jacksonville and Cedar Key. Gainesville, in Alachua County, was a hub. Gainesville was also to be the northern starting point for the Illinois investors, Gainesville, Ocala & Charlotte Harbor Railroad.

The first challenge Gruelle encountered was likely looking for a route to Ocala that would avoid the 20,000 acre Savanna, Paynes Prairie. The route selected followed the Savanna’s east rim in the direction of Perry Junction, a dirt crossroads at the 3,000 acre homestead of the deceased Florida Governor, Madison S. Perry. The Governor’s Widow and daughter, Sarah ‘Sallie’ J. Perry, still resided here at the junction.

Gruelle chose Perry Junction as the location to veer his railroad south, toward Ocala, but added a plan to survey a second railway line due east – toward Palatka and its busy St. Johns River pier. Perry Junction soon became known as GRUELLE.

Surveyor and later General Superintendent of Florida Southern Railroad, the new name of Dr. Howard’s, ‘Gainesville, Ocala & Charlotte Harbor Railroad’, Nathaniel Gruelle truly played a decisive role in influencing Florida’s early inland development.

Many an Alachua, Marion and Putnam County railroad town was founded alongside a track alignment selected by Nathaniel Gruelle, even after the railroad man took on his final assignment, as Chief Engineer of the Silver Springs, Ocala & Gulf Railroad.

A Florida State chartered line, the SSO & GRR set its sights on “Hernando or Levy Counties.” Today, Ghost Town Chatfield, in Marion County, was once a stop along the Gulf coast bound railroad system.

Not only did Nathaniel R. Gruelle participate in charting Florida’s intriguing 19^th century history, the man died as a result of it. The main event interrupting Florida’s accelerated growth, and seldom mentioned in the annals of Florida history, was the ‘Yellow Fever epidemic’ of 1888. But far north at St. Paul Minnesota, as in most every other northern city, newspapers covered the Florida crisis in detail. The St. Paul Daily Globe, of September 30, 1888, reported on aid a ‘Citizens’ Relief Association’ was preparing for McClenny, Florida, adding: “A Gainesville dispatch says Major N. R. Gruelle died this afternoon, making three deaths since the fever broke out.”

Nathaniel Rice Gruelle (1843 – 1888) was buried at Gainesville, Florida.

The Florida Internal Improvement Board did not come through for Dr. Howard and his Illinois partner, not as hoped anyway. The investors of Gainesville, Ocala and Charlotte Harbor Railroad, already renamed Florida Southern Railroad, needed help if ever they were to get trains rolling. And so while Nathaniel Gruelle surveyed the land, the firm itself began looking to yet another group for assistance. Next Wednesday, Part 3 and the first of the #Bostonians.

This RAILROAD to AMERICA’S PARADISE series is sponsored by:

Florida, America’s 19^th 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

https://www.amazon.com/CitrusLAND-Phantom-Trains-Orange-Railways/dp/1514252481/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1502292420&sr=8-1&keywords=Citrusland+Ghost+Towns+%26+Phantom+Trains

CitrusLAND: Ghost Towns & Phantom Trains

A Historic Novel by Richard Lee Cronin

 

References always available upon request: Rick@CroninBooks.com

Dr. HARTWELL C. HOWARD

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 20^th 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 19^th 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

https://www.amazon.com/CitrusLAND-Phantom-Trains-Orange-Railways/dp/1514252481/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1501680803&sr=8-1&keywords=Citrusland+ghost+towns

CitrusLAND: Ghost Towns & Phantom Trains

A Historic Novel by Richard Lee Cronin