George REED of Forest City, Florida

REED & REID names are found often in the story of 19^th century central Florida. Fort REID was only the second settlement south of Lake Monroe, founded in 1842 after the Army departed, thinking they had ended the Indian War. Much of East Orange County has its origins in an Englishman named REED, while Orlando, well it could have become a ghost town had it not been for Robert R. REID of Palatka.

People named Reed and Reid had been so involved in the early days of central Florida development that historians began getting them confused. So for the sake of Righting History, the mission of REED vis-à-vis REID Week is to sort one from the other. A six part series featuring six different pioneering families having similar names, I wrap up my series shining the spotlight on George REED, a determined Connecticut merchant whose motto had to be, “if at first you don’t succeed….”

Village of Tontogany, Ohio, 25 miles southwest of Toledo, flourished in the 1870s in part because a railroad line from Cincinnati pushed northward in the direction of Toledo. A native of Connecticut, George and Sarah REED moved west, and by 1860, had settled in Ohio. George REED opened a store at Tontogany, and by 1875, was a Councilman. “The Tontogany fire of December 31, 1876,’ says a Wood County, Ohio history, “destroyed Black & Ingraham’s drug store, William Allen’s store, George REED’s Store, the Masonic Hall above it; Cooley’s Grocery, and Ridgeway’s tailor shop.”

REED picked himself up, dusted himself off, and by 1884 had relocated to Forest City, an up and coming new Orange County town founded by Cleveland Department Store owner John G. HOWER. George REED was appointed Forest City Postmaster March 19, 1884, and the following year, Webb’s Historical described the town as: “three and one-half miles from the South Florida Railway.”

Orange Belt Railway began serving Forest City by 1886, and where a Target Department Store stands today at SR 436 and Forest City Road stood, in the 1890s, “a handsome rail depot, complete with a telegraph office.” On the western outskirts of Forest City was the residence and grove of George REED, overlooking Pearl Lake. Then came Florida’s great freeze of 1894-95, wiping out most every grower and citrus tree.

Journey aboard Orange Belt Railway

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Prior to the freeze, Fred H. REED, son of George & Sarah, had gone out on his, and had both participated in and staked a claim during Oklahoma’s Land Rush of 1889. George and Sarah, nearing their 70s when the freeze destroyed their Forest City grove, moved on once again, this time to Oklahoma City. Son Fred, a merchant by then, had opened a furniture store, following in his father’s footsteps.

Whatever anyone might say of the Reid and Reeds of early central Florida one thing is for certain – they were all, in their own special way, a hardy bunch.

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Jacksonville's Arthur M. REED

Photos adapted from Florida Memory Project & Find-a-Grave memorial

Two Orange County delegates voted against Florida’s 1861 Secession, but as years passed, one was erased from the pages of early historical accounts. In 1927, Historian Blackman wrote of delegate Woodruff, yet never mentioned delegate Rutland. It was during my search for the missing Florida delegate that I happened upon an Isaac N. Rutland deed in which he acquired 200 acres from “Arthur M. REID of Duval County.” The deed proved Isaac was still alive in 1863. I eventually located an 1865 Provost Marshal file titled The Rutland Mule Matter, in which was correspondence from Mrs. Rutland, wanting her mule returned. Isaac, I learned was deceased. The REID deed helped me track down Isaac, and in turn helped me write the conclusion to my book, The Rutland Mule Matter. But who was Arthur M. REID?

Straddling both sides of the Wekiva River in 1863 Orange County, the land REID sold to RUTLAND was smack dab in the middle of nowhere. It was however adjacent to acreage belonging to Isaac N. Rutland, 80 acres he had named RUTLAND’S Ferry. Today, SR 46 crosses the river at Rutland’s Ferry of yesteryear.

The Land Office had made out a deed to Arthur M. REED, not REID, dated within two months of Isaac Rutland’s deed. Orange County had indexed the name as REID, while Duval County’s 1850 census listed Arthur & Harriett READ. Harriet N. REED signed the Reid sale to Rutland, so Arthur’s actual name, it seems, was REED!

This week long series has covered a Governor REED, a Territorial Governor REID, a British Capitalist named REED and Orlando’s town builder REID, all of whom played a unique role in the 19^th century development of central Florida. So who then was Arthur M. REED, aka REID, aka READ – all of Duval County?

Born 1813 at Hartford, Connecticut, Arthur came south as a young man in the 1830s. He married Harriett at St. Augustine in 1838, and the next year, October of 1839, he was living at Jacksonville and working as an Army Pension agent. The second Seminole Indian War was going on at the time.

By 1860, as winds of a Civil War began blowing, Arthur M. REED was running his own bank at Jacksonville, owned Mulberry Grove Plantation on the St. Johns River, and had just acquired 200 acres on the Wekiva River in Orange County. Then came War, and the REED family reportedly moved to the plantation because Union troops were occupying Jacksonville.

Civil War obviously interrupted whatever he had planned for his Wekiva River property at Rutland’s Ferry in Orange County. After War’s end, Arthur, still in Jacksonville, got into the real estate business, listing his office as 1 ½ Bay Street in the 1870s, while his residence was given simply as “up the river.”

Arthur’s wife Harriet had been a native of Indiana. The couple had two children, twin girls, born at Jacksonville in 1842. Named Harriett Douglas REED and Louisa Burritt REED both girls married a PEARSON, and one of the girl’s settled originally at Volusia County. Arthur & Harriett died at Jacksonville, she in 1894, he in 1899.

Meanwhile, at Longwood, Florida, a Russian immigrant had set out in 1886 to open up West Orange County to development by building a railroad. The Orange Belt Railway paved the way for dozens of new towns stretching from Lake Monroe to the Gulf of Mexico. One such town was Forest City, where tomorrow, we conclude our week-long series, REED vis-à-vis REID.

For more on central Florida history, visit www.CroninBooks.com

Town Builder Robert R. REID

A contentious Governor REED, a fort named for Territorial Governor REID, and a British Capitalist named REED, combined in Florida history to confuse 19^th century surveyors. That confusion spread to historians, as William F. Blackman, in 1927, told of a place called Fort REED, a fortress and town we know now to be Fort REID.

The most confusing of all however, I believe, is found at ORLANDO, the hub of Orange County, and of a merchant from Palatka named Robert Raymond REID III. The son of Territorial Governor REID, the Palatka merchant singlehandedly rescued a county seat on the verge of becoming a Ghost Town. Two Southerners, in 1860, believed they owned a 120 acre tract surrounding a small log cabin courthouse at Orlando. The exact same 120 acres actually! Both men, like so many who had departed central Florida in the early 1860s to fight a Civil War, died in that War.

On the first Monday in January, 1867, the steps of Orlando’s Courthouse was scheduled to be auctioned off - on the steps of Orlando’s Courthouse. As that day approached, 100 miles north, a Palatka merchant boarded a steamboat at his war-torn Teasdale & Reid Wharf. That merchant followed the St. Johns River south, along the same route taken only two years prior by a Navy vessel on a mission – a mission to close out ‘The Rutland Mule Matter’ file.

The merchant disembarked at Mellonville that January of 1867, the very pier where a mule had been delivered in 1865. Here, REID III began a 25 mile trek down on the ‘First Road to Orlando’, passing first through Fort REID, the settlement named a quarter century earlier for his father, REID II. Continuing south REID III eventually arrived at the County Seat, his intended destination, in time to accomplish HIS mission.

Robert R. REID III of Palatka submitted the low bid of $900 to Sheriff John IVEY on the 7^th of January, 1867. Then, with deed in hand, he returned home, perhaps even stopping to visit an aging Veteran of the Indian War, Augustus J. VAUGHN, to thank Fort REID’S elderly homesteader for preserving the fort named for his father.

REID III resumed his role as a prominent Palatka merchant. 13 years later though, he and wife Mary also became Orange County land developers by filing a two page plat of an 80 acre Town of Orlando. The REIDS’S continued living at Palatka. Their two page plat identified the landowner on page one, the north half, as Robert R. REID, while the south half, page two, was said to be owned by R. R. REED.

Now then, about that mule. While researching the man at the center of an 1865 U. S. Provost Marshal file, I happened upon the individual next in this series of Reed vis-à-vis Reed. He will be featured in my Part Five, in this week long series. Arthur Read, aka Reed, aka Reid – tomorrow.       

Florida's Sir Edward James REED

Sir Edward James REED of England was an interesting player in the story of Florida’s developing 19^th century Citrus Belt as well. Parts One & Two of this week long series featured two Florida Governors, pre-Statehood REID and one post-Statehood REED. They were not related, but in their own unique way left their marks on central Florida history. This Part Three introduces a REED from across the pond.

Sir Edward James and wife Lady Rosetta REED, of Hextable, Kent County, England, acquired 65,000 acres of central Florida wilderness in 1883, transferring the land to a holding company, Florida Land & Mortgage Company Limited. REED was Chairman.

Born at Sheerness, England in 1830, Sir REED became Chief Constructor for the British Navy, holding that position from 1863 until 1870. REED then wemt out on his own, and as a naval constructor and engineer, did business with Russia, Australia and Turkey.

Sir Edward James REED’S financial interests in the 1880s expanded to include railroads and land development in the USA, Florida in particular. He organized Florida Central & Western Railroad, planning to lay down 234 miles of railroad from Jacksonville to Chattahoochee.

REED also acquired the 65,000 acres in CitrusLANDFL, as well as other Florida land, and his company provided financing to their buyers. Orlando Municipal Airport began service in 1928. Operating as Orlando Executive Airport today, its runways cross land that, in 1883, belonged to John DEUTSCHMAN, a German immigrant who purchased his land from Sir Edward James REED of Hextable, England.

Yet another purchaser of REED properties was George W. Lockwood of Connecticut. An early East Orange County settler, Lockwood and his son founded Lockwood Post Office, an early Econlockhatchee River crossing. Much of REED’S land surrounded BITHLO of today.

REED outlived his Florida business ventures, living until 1906, and being laid to rest in his birth country of England.

We’ve now presented three histories of 19^th century individuals who played key roles in a developing central Florida, each being named REID or REED. But tomorrow we tell the story of Floridian who, like the comedian Rodney Dangerfield, couldn’t get any respect. He first rescued one of Orange County’s most important cities, only to have that town’s plat spell out his name as both REED and REID. We’ll sort out that mess in tomorrow’s Part Four of REED vis-à-vis REID Week.

Florida Territorial Governor Robert R. REID

The story of Florida’s developing 19^th century Citrus Belt, as stated in our Part One, includes a half dozen or more individuals named Reed & Reid. Most were not related, and yet each played, in their own unique way, key roles in the development of central Florida. As historians began documenting these folks, they often misspelled names, so in turn, the area’s true story blurred. All this week CitrusLANDFL will Right History, beginning with Governor REED in Part One. Today we feature Florida’s 4^th Territorial Governor, Robert Raymond REID (1789-1841).

“We ascend the crest of a park-like forest on the old Fort road; and passing between tall picket fences, over which hangs the dark varnished green of the orange, grove after grove, we come to old Fort REID.” South Florida Railroad in 1887 was able to get right what earlier surveyors could not – spelling the name of Fort REID correctly. The first surveyor spelled the name REED in 1845, an error that has been perpetuated to some extent throughout Florida history. A mile and half inland from Lake Monroe, Historic Fort Reid evolved from a fortress to a 19^th century town, all because of one soldier by the name of Augustus Jefferson Vaughn. After serving at the military outpost, Vaughn remained as comrades departed, and he then made the old fortress his residence.

Of four forts on the 25 mile old forts trail south to Gatlin, Reid was the only fort named to honor a living person. Monroe, Maitland & Gatlin were each named for soldiers who had died in the war.

Territorial Governor Robert R. REID had argued in favor of releasing the shackles from the Army to allow them to do their job in the war against the Indians. His endorsement earned REID a fort named in his honor. Born 1789 in Prince William Parish, SC, as an attorney REID married twice while living in Augusta, GA. After the loss of two wives he relocated in 1835 to St. Augustine, accepting a Presidential appointment as U. S. Judge of East Florida. Robert R, REID became the 4^th Territorial Governor in 1839.

Fort Reid was established November 9, 1840, and Robert R. REID completed his term as Governor March 19, 1841. He died July 1, 1841 during a yellow fever epidemic. A son, also Robert R. REID, is a story for another day.

Florida Governor Harrison REED

The story of Florida’s developing 19^th century Citrus Belt includes a half dozen or more individuals named Reed & Reid. Most were not related to one another, yet each played, in a special way, key roles in the development of central Florida. As historians began documenting these folks, they often misspelled names, so in turn the area’s true story blurred. Fort REID near Sanford is a prime example, for historians often referred to the old fortress as REED. This week, CitrusLANDFL will attempt to set the record straight, starting today with Florida’s 9^th Governor, Harrison REED (1813-1899).

Sworn in June 8, 1868, the Massachusetts native did not begin to serve as governor until July 4, 1868. REED had to await formal recognition from the Federal Commander, for in the aftermath of America’s Civil War, Florida was still under control of the Military Reconstruction Act. Navy ships were still patrolling the waterways, including central Florida’s main transportation artery, the St. Johns River.

Abraham Lincoln assigned REED in 1863 as Florida Tax Commissioner.  As his job then included resolving confiscated Confederate property, REED met with a lot of resistance from opponents later as Governor. Twice during his one and only term anti-REED opponents tried to impeach him. As Governor, REED also served as President over the Florida Internal Improvement Fund board, and in that capacity, he signed off on two huge land deals involving 1.3 million plus acres. Both deeds were eventually overturned by the U. S. Supreme Court.

One of the two transactions dealt specifically with central Florida. On March 1, 1871, he authorized the sale of 81,137 acres to a New Yorker. The price: ten cents per acre. Most public land at the time was going for no less than $1.25 per acre. Acreage was scattered across 15 Orange and Volusia County townships, and one small sampling is 160 acres at Lakes Hope and Charity in present day Maitland. The Governor’s intent may have been honorable, but the price and fact that the board’s co-signer on the deed doubled at the time as a Real Estate Agent, certainly raised the ire of local citizenry of that time.

There is nothing to suggest locals named anything in honor of this 9^th Florida Governor, but that’s not so with our next featured Florida founder. Reed vis-à-vis Reid continues tomorrow.

Martha & Lucinda JERNIGAN - Sisters of the old fortress

The FINALE!

I’ve shared stories of thirty plus remarkable frontierswomen throughout March, each of whom, in their own unique way, changed the course of central Florida’s history. Many never made it into history books, with exception of my books, yet each and every one is certainly deserving of being remembered. The final spotlight shines on Lucinda and Martha JERNIGAN, daughters of one of the first area settlers, Aaron JERNIGAN.

Each daughter left a unique mark on local history. Martha wrote memoirs, painting an excellent picture of how challenging life was for the earliest of settlers. Lucinda paid the ultimate price for those attempting to tame a remote Orange County wilderness. Few today realize however that one #Orlando icon was meant to memorialize HER.

LUCINDA was married in 1858 to merchant George HUGHEY when her father gave her 160 acres near the newly established village of Orlando. “In consideration of the sum,” wrote Aaron Jernigan, “of the mutual love and affection which I have and bear toward my daughter.” Any plans George and Lucinda might have had for their acreage is not known, as George died later that year. Lucinda, left with two children ages 2 and 3, married again in 1859. Lucinda’s second husband was Orlando merchant George W. TERRELL, but within a year, at age 27, Lucinda (JERNIGAN) Hughey-Terrell died, likely in childbirth.

The lake on her land came to be known as Lake LUCINDY. Lucinda paid the dreadful price for living in Orange County’s rugged wilderness. A later developer messed with lake’s name a tad, but Lucinda was indeed the inspiration for naming Lake LUCERNE. Today, a Lake Lucerne fountain welcomes visitors arriving from the south.

MARTHA (Jernigan) Tyler was also gifted lakefront land by her father. Her parcel was on Lake Conway, but Martha’s central Florida’s legacy remains her memoirs, a telling history of hard times early settlers were forced to endure. Martha was nine (9) when the families south of Orlando, fearing an Indian attack was imminent, “fortified” themselves at Fort Gatlin. 67 individuals represented the population of South Orange County at the time, and Martha’s detailed account of those families provided the first history about these courageous settlers.

Martha reported that 17 adults and 50 children were gathered at the fortress, 50 young Orange County citizens representing the future of central Florida. I am honored to meet descendants of these brave souls nearly every time I’m asked to address those who want to hear of the region’s earliest days.   

The history of 19^th century central Florida is packed full of amazing individuals, men and women, all of whom struggled to overcome a constant bombardment of unimaginable hardships. The history itself is fascinating, but is made so not merely by events, but rather because of the character of each participant.

These courageous souls are, and will remain, the main focus of my historical writings. I hope you have enjoyed this #WomensHistoryMonth series. I invite you to look over my www.CroninBooks.com website, and please, let me know your thoughts and comments at Rick@Cronin.Books.com

Myra "Lena" (SHORT) Lovell, Teenage Schoolteacher

Born December 1880 in Kansas, Lena SHORT and her family moved to Orange County when she was five. At the young age of 15, she was given a contract to teach in Orange County Schools for a seven (7) month period. Her teaching assignment though was in a remote corner of South Orange County. Out of a $25 monthly salary, Lena had to pay room and board of $8 monthly to live with a family of six, four of whom being the young teacher’s students.

Lena left her Orlando home aboard a horse drawn wagon in October of 1895 to begin her first teaching assignment on a farm seven (7) miles south of Pine Castle. Years later she wrote of her assignment, saying this of her sleeping quarters:

“I was shown my room. It was what is known as a ‘shed room’. That is, one end of a porch had been boarded up. It had a stationary, one pane glass window with a nice scrap of lace curtain over it, a homemade bed with native moss mattress and a pillow, and a small table once known as a washstand with a towel bar at each end. The floor, of course, was far from water or air tight – being a porch – and the cracks between the boards were wide enough to run a lead pencil through. If I dropped any small article woe to me – for that was the last of it. I was soon fast asleep – how long I do not know – for I was awakened by bumping and scraping under the low floor and squeals and grunts of a mother hog coming home to her lair to feed her babies in the bed she made for them and herself under my room. These hogs are infested with ‘hog fleas’ which are very large and can leap incredible distances and heights. Many a time I was obliged to get up in the dead of night that winter and shake the fleas out of my bed so that I, a tired and weary fifteen (15) year old, could sleep. It was some time before there was a rain. When it came it was in the middle of the night, and I was awakened by splashes in my face. I was obliged to get my huge umbrella and open and sit under it while the rest of the bed got a soaking.”

As an adult, Myra married Frederick Charles Lovell, the son of central Florida pioneer and first school Superintendent, William A. Lovell. Education, it seems, ran in Lovell’s family bloodlines, for this excerpt is from a story was submitted to me by another in the Lovell line, a retired schoolteacher of 50 years himself. A special thank you to the Lovell family for sharing the story of this very special #cflParadise frontierswoman.

Tomorrow - our series finale: Sisters of the old fortress

Henrietta (WORTHINGTON) Speer

The pain and suffering endured by the tiny village of Orlando before, during and after America’s Civil War was memorialized in the life of Henrietta WORTHINGTON Speer, first daughter of Orlando, and the eldest child of John R. Worthington.

Her father served as Orlando’s first postmaster beginning September 18, 1857, moving from South Carolina to Orange County after a brief stay in Georgia. Henrietta was born January 28, 1842 at South Carolina, and was only 17 years old when her mother and a sister died, presumably at Village of Orlando, in 1859.

Robert B. F. Roper, an eyewitness to 1860 Orlando, described the Worthington House: “There was a frame house north of the court house owned by J. R. Worthington and used as a boarding house; here the judge and lawyers boarded when holding court.”

After War was declared, Henrietta’s father and eldest brother, Milton, went off to serve with Florida’s Calvary. Neither man ever returned home to the Worthington House. Her brother Milton died of disease at Florida’s Camp Finegan in 1863. Her father John was killed during a ‘skirmish’ at Gainesville. A younger brother died in 1868.

One of an Orlando family of six in 1858, Henrietta was alone by 1868. History lost most all memory of the Worthington family.

Henrietta relocated to Mellonville after marrying, September 28, 1870, Arthur Algernon Speer, first son of Orange County’s first family, Dr. Algernon & Christiania GINN Speer. (Christiania was featured in our March 9 post in this #WomensHistoryMonth series).

Arthur Algernon was named for his grandfather Arthur Ginn, and his father. Arthur and Henrietta made their home at Mellonville as Sanford was still in its infancy. They had four children, naming each to memorialize family ancestry: Christiania Speer (born in 1871); Arthur Ginn Speer (Born 1872); Milton Alexander (born 1877); and Ella Louise Speer (born 1881).

The Widow Henrietta (Worthington) Speer and her children departed Orange County after burying Arthur Algernon in 1889. They settled first at Live Oak before moving to Alabama. At age 80, October 11, 1922, Orlando’s first daughter, Henrietta Worthington Speer, lost to local history, died at Birmingham, Alabama. Only one of her children is believed to have survived Henrietta, a #cflParadise frontierswoman who had witnessed firsthand the death and despair of Orlando during the Civil War.         

Tomorrow: The 15 year old Orange County Educator

A #WomensHistoryMonth celebration. For more on central Florida history visit CroninBooks.com

Emily Harriet (WATSON) Hull

If Orlando were ever to designate a “Foremother”, the most logical, I believe, would be Emily WATSON Hull. Although the city remains uncertain as to its founding fathers, Emily has been cited by at least two early historians as THE pioneer who kept doors to an abandoned village of Orlando wide open during the Civil War. Had it not been for Emily, no telling what might have happened to four acres planned as a county seat.

Born at Marietta, GA, Emily married May 21, 1854. Soon thereafter, she being only 18, the Hull’s journeyed overland to Orange County, traveling with 32 other courageous souls in covered wagons. At the time of their 1855 arrival, all of Orange County to the south of Lake Monroe counted fewer than 300 residents.

Orlando did not yet exist. A few families were clustered around old fort sites such as Mellon, Reid, and Gatlin, while other small settlements existed at present day Apopka and Winter Garden. There was no railroad, wouldn’t be for another 25 years. Dirt paths carved out a decade earlier by the military were the sole means for settlers to get around.

William & Emily Harriet Hull settled first at Fort Reid, but within a year or two, moved further south, setting up home at Orlando. By 1860 the Hull family, then including two children ages one and three, had become residents of Orlando.

Established in 1857, the village of Orlando was but three years old when the Hull’s set up house. The village itself was but four years old when War broke out. Emily’s husband went to war with the Mizell brothers, was wounded twice, and captured at Gettysburg. William Hull was then imprisoned for 23 months at Fort Delaware, and couldn’t return home to Orlando until after War’s end.

A boarding house established by the Hull’s remained open during the war, run entirely by Emily, although she only had an occasional guest. Emily served as the Confederate Postmistress of Orlando as well. “Mrs. Hull furnished dinner to every man in the county,” said a 1915 biographical sketch, and when provisions ran low, Captain Mizell’s father, David, Sr., would butcher a cow and take her a quarter.

While most residents abandoned the village during the War, Emily Harriet Watson Hull stayed behind, lodging folks in need of a room, feeding hungry guests, managing mail, keeping up the family farm, and generally keeping the doors to Orlando open.

The Hull’s owned Lots 2, 3, 4 and 11 of the twelve lot Village of Orlando. Lots 2 & 3 are presently the location of the County’s History Museum, but back in Emily’s day, was the location of Worthington House. Arriving in 1857, John R. Worthington built the House, and it then passed to the Hull family.

Tomorrow: The Village DAUGHTER and more on the Worthington House

A #WomensHistoryMonth celebration by CroninBooks.com

Angeline Augusta (MAY) Mizell

TWO (2) Mrs. David Mizell’s lived among the 1,100 Orange County residents of 1860, but only one, the younger of the two, would spend most of her adult years as the family’s sole head of household. Angeline Augusta MAY married David W. Mizell, Jr. in 1854. He at the time was 21 years old. She had just turned 17.

Within a year of their marriage, the first of seven children was born. By the year 1860, David, Jr. had followed his parent’s to Orange County. David Mizell, Sr. located 5 miles south of Village of Orlando, acquiring 600 acres fronting Lake Conway’s Upper basin. David, Jr. and wife Angeline selected land east of village of Orlando, land fronting on present day Lake Underhill, three miles east of the nearest “dirt’ trail.

Far from the turmoil brewing north of their homeland, David & Angeline celebrated their 6^th wedding Anniversary in December of 1860. A few days later, delegates decided Florida would secede, and both Orange County Mizell families learned soon thereafter that the Confederate Army invaded Fort Sumter.

Civil War had begun, and life for Angeline, 24 and a mother of four, was about to take a drastic turn for the worse. Her husband David enlisted in Florida’s 8^th Infantry, so Angeline, like many a central Florida mother, daughter and wife, was suddenly on her own.

Every young man departed Orlando for the warfront. The only two village of Orlando stores were shuttered. Central Florida’s wilderness became more remote than ever.

David Mizell, Jr. mustered out of service in 1863, but two of his brothers, fellow comrades, were not as fortunate. David’s return home however was to be brief. In February 1870, Sheriff David W. Mizell, Jr. was ambushed and killed. Angeline was a mother of seven then, her oldest only 15. Angeline was on her own again.

On the 30^th of August, 1873, Widow Angeline purchased 50.4 acres, paying $1.25 per acre for property closer to town, yet still in a sparsely developed area. Her parcel is now preserved as the Harry P. Leu Gardens.

Angeline Augusta MAY Mizell, among Orange County’s earliest citizens, died October 25, 1911 at age 74. She had lived within a few miles of Orlando’s city center for 52 years, and at the time of her death, 57 years had gone by since marrying David Mizell, Jr.

Angeline had fewer than 15 of the 57 years of her marriage to enjoy the company of her spouse. During the other 42 years, she had survived on her own in the wilds of Florida. I’ve said this often, the story of central Florida is incomplete without inclusion of the story of the remarkable women who assisted in taming a #cflParadise.  

Tomorrow: The Village MOTHER.

A #WomensHistoryMonth Celebration - for more central Florida 19th century history be sure and visit www.CroninBooks.com

Emily (LOW) Gibson of Orlando's Lake Highland

“HER form could be seen floating among the orange trees,” wrote historian Kena Fries in 1938, in telling of an event that had occurred many years earlier on Orlando’s Lake Highland. “A jolly Christmas party” Miss Fries said, “the guests leaving long after midnight, in the darkened house the hosts slept peacefully. In the early morning the wife awoke, a choking sensation in her throat. The room was filled with smoke, and lurid flames leaped about the building. Frantic efforts failing to arouse her husband, she ran to the nearby water plant, clad only in her night robes.”

The tragedy on Lake Highland, which is not found in other local histories, tells of a young Central Florida bride who, after her husband was rescued, collapsed and died of exhaustion. “After that, for many years, just before sunrise on the morning of December 27^th, her form could be seen floating among the orange trees, from the charred remains of the old house to the water plant, where it dissolved into thin air and vanished.”

The Orlando Water Plant was built at Lake Highland in 1887, so was there really a ghost visible among the orange trees surrounding the water plant? Below are the facts, you decide!

The most popular guy in town during the summer months of the 1880s had to be John W. Anderson. Why? He managed the Orlando Ice House! Born in Indiana, Anderson grew to adulthood in Iowa, and after the Civil War, married Miss Adeth Bell GIBSON.

But five days after the birth of the second Anderson child in 1877, Adeth died. John married his deceased wife’s sister, Emily, and in 1881, the couple relocated to Orlando, Florida. By 1886, John W. Anderson had moved his family to Lake Highland, but he did not buy the land they lived on.

The deed to Anderson’s land had been issued to, “Emily Gibson Anderson, sole heir at law of Peter Gibson, deceased.” A resident of Ryegate, VT, Peter had purchased five acres upon which Lake Highland Preparatory School is now located.

Peter had died at his Vermont hometown. He was buried at a Ryegate hillside cemetery, and a handsome grave marker memorializes not only the life of Peter, but that of his wife as well. And there, on the side of Peter’s tombstone, is a bone chilling inscription, a tragic story replicated in the annals of Ryegate, Vermont history.

Peter married Emily LOW in 1846. They were parents of two girls, Adeth and Emily, both of whom, according to the Vermont town’s history, had been married to John W. Anderson. Now then, about that bone chilling tombstone inscription, it reads: “Emily LOW Gibson died at Orlando, FL, December 23, 1883.”

“A jolly Christmas party” said Miss Fries of her haunting Orlando story, “the guests leaving long after midnight, in the darkened house the hosts slept peacefully. In the early morning the wife awoke.” Vermont recalls Emily LOW Gibson, a central Florida frontierswoman who died in 1883.

You now know the facts, so what do you think? Was Emily LOW Gibson the ghost of Lake Highland’s Water Plant?

Tomorrow: The Sheriff's Widow during #WomensHistoryMonth

Nancy & Martha Hudson of OAKLAND Plantation

HUDSON is a family name rarely associated with central Florida history, a very sad fact, especially considering the earliest role a father-son team, and their courageous spouses, all played in an 1850s attempt to tame a remote #cflParadise.

As is often the case with many of this region’s earliest pioneers, the Hudson line is not easily located when searching early Orange County histories. And even when occasionally mentioned, only Isaac and Edward Murray Hudson appear briefly as one-time early county residents. Women’s History Month seems the perfect time to set the record straight.

Nancy (MURRAY) Hudson was the wife of Isaac. Martha (GRAY) Hudson was the wife of Isaac and Nancy’s son, Edward Murray Hudson. Nancy and Martha both died within a month of one another in 1858, the same year the father and son Hudson team sold their Florida land and moved west.

Nancy and Martha Hudson remain significant clues to learning the origins of central Florida, but like pieces to a complicated jigsaw puzzle, the clues, or puzzle pieces, are not always easily discovered.

Historian Blackman quoted Robert B. F. ROPER in 1927 as saying that his father, William C. Roper, purchased the 660 acre Oakland Plantation (at present day Winter Garden) from Isaac Hudson in 1859. The Oakland Post Office was established by Roper the next year.

Isaphoenia C. (Ellington) Speer (Women’s History Month Post of March 5, 2018) was accumulating hundreds of adjacent acres along Lake Apopka at the same time as Isaac Hudson.

Talladega, Alabama, where the bodies of Nancy and Martha were laid to rest in 1858, was one common connection between the Hudson women and Isaphoenia, the half-sister of Benjamin F. Caldwell of 1857 Talladega, the 4 acre land donor of #ORLANDO.

Another common puzzle piece link between Isaphoena, the Caldwell’s, and the two Hudson women was their birthplace, ABBEVILLE, South Carolina. As early as the 1850s, one family was coming together to establish a new central Florida homeland. The Hudson’s however, after the loss in one month’s time of both spouses, picked up and moved to Texas. “Isaac Hudson, deceased,” Talladega court records state, “who died in Texas, intestate, on the 13^th May, 1865; and whose only child, Edward M. Hudson, also died in Texas, intestate, on the 23^rd October, 1861.”

“Dr. Starke, finding himself and many of slaves stricken with malaria”, wrote Blackman in 1927 of Hudson’s 1858 neighbor, “moved out from the hammocks of Lake Apopka.” Soon after Dr. Starke sold to Isaphoenia, the two Hudson wives had to be buried, and two Hudson widowers, with four motherless children in tow, each child under the age of 10, departed for Texas. Within a year, the four children would be orphans.

Did Nancy and Martha Hudson die at Oakland in West Orange County of malaria? The puzzle piece required to answer that question is still missing, but whatever took place on the southern shore of Lake Apopka in 1858, the event was tragic enough to send the Hudson men packing.

Tomorrow: “Her form floated among the orange trees.”

#WomensHistoryMonth

Mary Margaret (SMITH) Reid, Hospital Organizer

She walked home to Florida, 650 miles, leaving behind a hospital she had founded at Richmond, VA, as well as a fresh grave site containing her one and only son. The third wife of Florida Territorial Governor Robert Reid, Mary (SMITH) Reid did not live in central Florida, but many an eternally grateful mother, daughter and wife throughout the State thought highly of this remarkable frontierswoman.

At the start of America’s Civil War, Mary followed her 18 year old enlisted son to Virginia, where she campaigned rigorously for a Hospital to care for Florida’s injured sons. After winning her battle, Mary stayed on to help care for Florida Infantryman wounded on Virginia’s battlefields. Sarah Whitner, wife of Orange County Surveyor Benjamin F. Whitner, wrote to Mary Reid personally, thanking her for treating her boy, Benjamin III, a soldier who survived the War, and eventually homesteaded near Sanford, Florida.

Another soldier, wounded at Virginia’s Battle of Wilderness and brought to Mary’s hospital, was her son, Robert J. Reid. He did not survive.

Robert J. Reid was a half-brother of Robert R. Reid, the Palatka merchant who rescued, in 1867, the town of Orlando, by buying the town, at auction, on its courthouse steps.

Born 1812 in Georgia, Mary Martha (Smith) Reid, married Robert in 1836. She was the sister-in-law of Florida’s Brigadier General Joseph J. Finegan, second owner of the Moses E. Levy Grant, part of which is the modern day town of Sanford. Mary M. Reid Hall at University of Florida is named in her honor, as was the first Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

My FREE downtown Orange County Library presentation is this Sunday, March 25, 2018 at 2 PM. Hope to see you there!

ORLANDO REEVES: Fact or Fiction?

Orange County Public Library Presentation

Sunday, March 25, 2018 at 2 PM

Visit Facebook Event Page:

https://www.facebook.com/events/164581127512728/

Tomorrow: The Hudson’s of the Wekiva during #WomensHistoryMonth

Cornelia (WRIGHT) Whipple of Maitland, FL

“Mrs. Whipple was, as the Bishop has always said, his right hand in all good work.” Bishop Henry B. WHIPPLE and wife Cornelia (Wright) became Orange County snow-birds in 1876. FARIBAULT, Minnesota residents, the two looked forward each year to spending winters at MAITLAND, where in addition to building a winter residence on the ‘Maitland Branch’, they also established Church of the Good Shepherd. Their historic church still stands today.

Accounts of the Whipple’s in central Florida very often center around the Bishop, but one could argue the spotlight should shine on Cornelia. The Bishop himself credited his wife for him joining the Episcopal Church in the first place. Cornelia was very often the driving force behind his actions.

A devout Christian, Cornelia was the first born of one of our State’s earliest influential Christian families. Sister Sarah was the first wife of St. Augustine Attorney, State Historian, and prominent member of the Episcopal Church, the esteemed, George R. FAIRBANKS. As early as 1850, Fairbanks owned 1,000 acres in northern Orange County. Her brother was the Reverend Benjamin Wright of Leon County, Florida.

Cornelia (Wright) Whipple was a staunch supporter of educating women, and for years served as house mother of St. Mary’s Hall. She cared as well for American Indian families near their Minnesota home town.

“After the death of two of her children,” said Cornelia’s obituary, “Mrs. Whipple determined to build a Church and Parsonage to their memory.” The Maitland Church, said that obituary, “is made up of those reared in different communions and is known as the church of the Good Shepherd.”

Cornelia (Wright) Whipple died in 1890 of injuries sustained in a railroad accident. Her train derailed while on her way south to her #cflParadise winter residence at Maitland, Florida.

Tomorrow: Her Hospital saved lives, but not one dearest to her.

www.CroninBooks.com 

Leora (BETTISON) Robinson, Author Educator & Developer

Property at the intersection of East Colonial Drive and Cathcart Avenue, on the northern outskirts of downtown Orlando, have legal descriptions that are a bit misleading. Shown as “Norman Robinson’s Addition to Orlando,” the actual recorded plat states: “MRS. Norman Robinson’s Addition to Orlando.”

Cathcart Avenue itself has family ties not to Mr. Robinson, but to Leora, wife of Norman Robinson. Further, Norman was no longer among the living when the Addition to Orlando Plat was filed.

Leora (Bettison) Norman was more than a developer though. ‘American Women, 1,400 Biographies’, published in 1897 by Frances Willard, includes a biography of Leora: “It is conceded, that by her contributions to the press and her pamphlet, “Living in Florida,” she has done more to induce immigration to the state (Florida) than any other has accomplished.

Born at Little Rock, Arkansas, her parents, Dr. Joseph and Ann (Cathcart) Bettison, moved soon after to Louisville, where as a young adult she became a teacher. There, Leora met and married, in 1864, Norman Robinson, a teacher as well.

Norman and Leora partnered in opening Holyoke Academy, a private school they continued running until 1881, when the Robinson’s relocated to central Florida. “Always the genius during her school-days, her writings attracted attention, and many of her early efforts were published in the local (Louisville) papers.” Among the acclaimed writings of Leora Bettison Robinson were “Than,” and “The House of Spectacles.”

Between writing and expanding the town of Orlando, Leora home schooled her daughter, Jeanette Cathcart (Robinson) Murphy. Born at Louisville, Jeanette was raised in Orlando, and went on to become, as reported by the ‘Musical Gazetteer’ in 1918, a “Singer, music teacher, and lecturer.”

The old forts trail originally traced the east side of Orlando’s Park Lake of today, but was known in the 1880s as “Lake Leora.”

Tomorrow: Maitland, Florida’s Good Shepherd!

Clarissa YATES of GOLDEN ROD

Tradition suggests GOLDEN ROD, aka GOLDENROD, has a 20^th century origin, but in fact this ‘place’ dates to the 1880s. A Golden Rod railway depot at this east Orange County ‘place’ is shown on an 1890 central Florida map. At that time Golden Rod was a stop along the short-lived ‘Orlando, Winter Park & Oviedo Railroad.’ Today the area is typically called ‘Goldenrod’.

Golden Rod depot was located on land first conveyed August 25, 1882 to a Clarissa YATES. Born 1837 in Georgia, Clarissa’s deed included 150 acres. Lake NAN occupied the northeast corner of Clarissa’s property, although in the 1880s, it was called BRIGHT Lake. A Widow, Clarissa YATES lived in 1880 Orange County with her 24 year old son, George W. PETTIS, also a native of Georgia.

Clarissa started selling small parcels on her homestead the very same year she received her deed. In 1882, she sold lots to no fewer than four (4) individuals: George Holleman; John Cummings; Alfred D. Le Vesque; and J. P. Magruder. By 1884 however, Clarissa’s last piece of land was sold off by “J. E. Clark, Trustee for Clarissa Yates and George W. Pettis”.

Clarissa does not appear in the 1885 Orange County Special Census, nor does she appear in later Orange County records. Even the whereabouts of George Pettis in 1885 is mystery. Although her presence in #cflParadise appears to have been brief, Clarissa’s story is quite different from any of the frontierswoman told to date.

Clarissa YATES was of African American descent. Her buyers Holleman & Cummings were also identified as “Black” by the census takers. The son of Widow Yates, George W. Pettis, was identified in 1880 as a “Mulatto.” As for the Trustee J. E. Clark signing in 1884 for Clarissa and her son, he was Joseph E. Clark, the prominent 1880s merchant and founder of Eatonville, celebrated as the first all-black town incorporated in America.

Clark himself had been a former slave turned Orange County merchant. He not only envisioned an all-Black city, he played a vital role in incorporating Eatonville in August of 1887. Eatonville is about 7 miles west of Clarissa’s 150 acre lakeside homestead. Obviously a slave herself before the Civil War, Clarissa, in 1860 a young mother to a 4 year old Mulatto boy named George W. Pettis, remains a mystery today.

Neither individual has yet to be located in records prior to 1880, nor have I located either after the year 1884. 19^th century Golden Rod, aka Goldenrod, remains largely a mystery today. The railroad passing through this “place’ soon failed, and the early historians - they failed to mention a 19^th century settlement on land first owned by the courageous Widow and mother, Clarissa YATES.

Tomorrow: A Central Florida Author, Educator & Developer