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