Mary Arabella TAYLOR of old Enterprise

Mary Arabella TAYLOR, “Polly” as her father lovingly referred to his little girl, was a Florida native. She traveled down the St. Johns River with her family when she was only 12 years old. That was in the year 1841! Across Lake Monroe, U. S. Army troops were stationed at Fort Monroe, so on the north shore, her father, Cornelius Taylor, founded a small settlement that he called ENTERPRISE. (For our young readers I should clarify that this was not the Starship.) 

Polly’s role in preserving central Florida history is a heartrending one, for Mary Arabella ‘Polly’ Taylor died at the age of 14, of Typhoid Fever. Her tombstone is now a memorial to the original site of old ENTERPRISE, described by Historian Daniel Gold (1927) as being one mile east of present day Enterprise. 

The Taylor family is believed to be the first family to homestead in #cflParadise. An Enterprise Post Office opened at this location June 2, 1842, three years before Florida’s Statehood. Living in early Mosquito (Orange) County was difficult for male pioneers, and all too often, deadly for frontierswomen. 

We cannot forget Little Polly Taylor. You now know of this little girl and her tombstone marking the original site of central Florida’s first settlement. Her memory is preserved as well in my Chapter 3 dedication of CitrusLAND: Curse of Florida’s Paradise.

Tomorrow: First Lady of Fort Reid’s Historic Grove