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

Minnie IVERSON Randolph of South Orange County

A newspaper article in 1895 announced: “one of Florida’s most delightful sopranos, will make her Atlanta debut.” The Georgia article may have gone unnoticed far to the south in Orange County, but so too might a later 1912 Atlanta newspaper article, one proclaiming the very same central Floridian as “one of the most successful of Atlanta’s women in business.” Minnie IVERSON was the daughter of Alfred IVERSON, and both were #Maitland residents in 1884 prior to relocating to #ShingleCreek.  A history of #PineCastle and #BelleIsle too would be incomplete without inclusion of a role played by this special lady, a woman who challenged 19^th century tradition to become a highly successful Atlanta businesswoman.

Minnie married Pine Castle homesteader William Beverly RANDOLPH. Their homestead protruded into Lake Conway, land sub-divided in 1886 by James H. Livingston. After the 1895 freeze, the property became Hoffner’s Homestead, and is today part of the Town of Belle Isle.

Exhibit 81: Beyond Gatlin

A History of South Orange County, FL

Mrs. Minnie (Iverson) Randolph and her son, William B. Randolph, Jr., moved to Atlanta following her 1895 singing debut there, where her earlier upbringing as a #cflParadise frontierswoman provided her the character and conviction to compete, ultimately becoming one of the most successful of Atlanta’s businesswomen. Minnie (Iverson) Randolph is also featured in Chapter 24 of #BeyondGatlin: A History of South Orange County.

Tomorrow: Little Polly of Enterprise.

Lady ISAPHOENIA of Oakland

Lady ISAPHOENIA stepped ashore at Mellonville in 1854, known by then as Mrs. James G. SPEER. A town of Orlando did not yet exist when she and her young family arrived at Orange County. Fewer than 300 souls lived at the time in ALL of central Florida. A mother of five, her sixth child arrived 3 years after arriving in #cflParadise. Lady Isaphoenia consistently used her middle initial in recorded documents, an initial believed by her descendants to be “CLEOPATRA”. Now knowing of Isaphoenia C. ELLINGTON’s family heritage, that family legend could be true. Born 1824 at Abbeville, SC, Isaphoenia, a central player in founding both OAKLAND and ORLANDO, has long been overshadowed in history by her celebrated husband.

Isaphoenia was a half-sister of Benjamin F. Caldwell, the land donor of four acres that was the hub of an 1857 village of Orlando. She was the original owner of the 1870s Lake Pineloch homestead belonging to Francis EPPES, and the first owner of a 40 acre parcel at Fort Reid. Her 160 acres alongside Lake Ivanhoe, by 1860, meant Isaphoenia owned a total of 360 prime acres along the Fort Mellon to Fort Gatlin Road, aka, the First Road to Orlando. One amazing 19^th century frontierswoman, her death at the age of 42 jump started a process re-writing of Orange County history, creating a new script that totally eliminated any knowledge of an incomparable Lady Isaphoenia C. (Ellington) Speer, great-great granddaughter of Colonial Williamsburg’s ORLANDO Jones, a member of Virginia’s House of Burgesses. 

When visiting Virginia's Colonial Williamsburg, look for the replica law office and home (shown above) of the Honorable Orlando Jones.

Lady Isaphoenia will also be an integral part of a FREE presentation March 25^th at the downtown Orange County Library.

Plan to attend this FREE Presentation

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: “One of the most successful women in business.”

For more central Florida history, visit

www.CroninBooks.com

Elizabeth SAUNDERS of Palm Springs

Elizabeth SAUNDERS arrived at central Florida in 1887 a Widow, coming from Toronto, Canada with her two sons, John and Thomas. John’s health had been declining, and as Orange County was marketing itself a perfect location for “invalids,” 

Elizabeth brought her sick boy to live “amongst the fruits, health and wealth” of a #cflParadise. She bought 159 of a 160 acre existing homestead in north Orange (now Seminole) County. Elizabeth’s new property had already been platted as the town of HOOSIER SPRINGS, with only 1 acre set aside for use a Chapel. 

Under Elizabeth’s ownership, the struggling start-up town merged with nearby ALTAMONT (no E). In 1890, her town by then being served by two railroads, the place name changed to PALM SPRINGS. Widow Saunders sold one lot alongside Florida Midland RR’s track to William Massey, and within a year, Elizabeth married the lot owner. Within another year, Elizabeth was again a widow.

“There were a few women who braved the hard life incident to the up-building of the county,” said William F. Blackman, Rollins College President & Historian, “among these is Mrs. Saunders-Massey. But truth is, there were more than a “few women,” as this special March series will attest.

Hoosier Springs later became Sanlando Springs.

PALM SPRINGS, and a hundred towns like it, failed following back-to-back calamities of 1887 and 1895. Widow Elizabeth Saunders-Massey moved a bit further south, to Maitland, on land overlooking: “The Three Graces; Lakes: Faith, Hope & Charity.” 

Elizabeth, a 19^th century town builder, and her short-lived Palm Springs, are featured in: CitrusLAND: Ghost Towns & Phantom Trains.  A journey aboard the train save by #MrEdwardT stops at the Altamont-Palm Springs station.

Tomorrow: Lady Isaphoenia of #Oakland

Central Florida History by Richard Lee Cronin

www.CroninBooks.com 

Henrietta BARBAROUX, Orlando Educator

Henrietta BARBAROUX followed William Palmer and his young bride to Orlando. The year was 1884. The bride, Ida May BABBITT, orphaned as a young girl, had moved from Natchez to be raised by a family friend, Miss Henrietta Barbaroux, of Louisville, KY.

Henrietta was the founder of Louisville’s BARBAROUX School for Girls, but when Ida May married, Miss Henrietta came to Orlando with the Palmer’s, boarding at first at Jacob Summerlin’s Hotel. In 1887, Henrietta Barbaroux founded the Southern Home School for Girls, serving as Principal. Maria LINDSEY and Georgia MADDEN were two of the teachers at the school in 1887.

Like many central Florida settlers, Miss Barbaroux returned to Louisville, and yet her vision for a girl’s school lived on. “That was in the long ago,” wrote Historian Kena Fries in 1938, “when Miss Barbaroux saw the vision of the present Cathedral School for Girl’s on beautiful Lake Eola.”

Henrietta died in 1912, and the Miss Barbaroux obituary said the woman had dedicated her life to teaching young women: “St. Andrew’s Church, Louisville, has lost probably its oldest communicant in the death of Miss Henrietta Barbaroux who died at her home in Louisville at the age of 90. Earlier in life she had conducted a very successful private school.” 

1919: Orlando's Cathedral School for Girls

Henrietta Barbaroux had in fact conducted TWO successful private schools, one in her home town of Louisville, and another in the wilds of central Florida. She had also inspired a third, for the Cathedral School for Girls served its Orlando community well into the 20^th century. 

Tomorrow: Widow Saunders; Town builder.

Jennie A. CORNWALL, the Indian River Duchess

Jennie A. CORNWALL

A flamboyant Jennie A. CORNWALL, aka Duchess TAMAJO, played a vital role in saving the origins of central Florida’s orange culture history. In that process though, her identity was nearly lost. Jennie has been incorrectly identified as the daughter of beer mogul Anheuser Busch, but as she was born 1825, her New York birth preceded the arrival of the Busch family in America. 

Jennie survived two husbands, and made national headlines when, at age 70, already the ‘Duchess of Castelluccia’, she married a third time at an extravagant wedding at the Indian River Hotel in Rockledge. Jennie’s third groom, only 30 years old, was a self-described “promoter.” 

Her role in saving a vital part of central Florida history occurred in 1881, for newspapers across the U.S. wrote of Jennie and her Italian Duke acquiring the historic Dummett (Dummitt) Orange Grove in Florida. The press had become infatuated with an American Duchess, and their reporting told of how Florida’s first citrus grove had come to be. Jennie of #cflParadise is celebrated in an EBook, Florida’s Indian River Duchess, part of a Righting Florida History series.

From Jennie’s New York birth to her first wedding, the Ebook traces Jennie to Maine’s Dix Island, her first fortune, then on to Italy, a Paris wedding, and the duke & Duchess of Castelluccia rescuing the decaying Dummett Citrus Grove, all before her strangest of strange events, a third and final marriage in 1895 at the eloquent Indian River Hotel in Rockledge, Florida.

The origins of central Florida’s orange culture is known today in large part because of a very special lady, one who didn’t care for Florida’s frontier, yet managed to help save its fascinating history through an equally fascinating story.

Tomorrow: Miss Henrietta Barbaroux, Orlando Educator.

Central Florida History by Richard Lee Cronin

www.CroninBooks.com

Jane (MURRAY) Sheldon of New Smyrna, FL

JANE (MURRAY) SHELDON

Jane MURRAY and her mother were among the first female settlers in central Florida. In 1840 Mosquito County, they were two of three women and 70 men counted. Born 1812 at Philadelphia, Jane Murray relocated to Florida as a young girl after the death of her father. She was 17 then, and with her mom, they homesteaded a 600 acre Spanish Land Grant. 

One day in 1835, alone with her infant children, Indians attacked, and Jane escaped by raising a sunken boat along the river’s shore, caulking its holes with rags, and then hiding her family in nearby mangroves. She served too as an early New Smyrna Postmaster, while then still part of Orange County. 

On the 26^th of July, 1863, she watched helplessly as Union Gunboats appeared, and without warning, began firing on her residence. Once again Jane ushered her family, this time including grandchildren, to safety.

I can think of no finer representative than Jane (Murray) Sheldon, central Florida’s bravest of brave frontierswomen, to commence our month long celebration of Women’s History Month. Throughout March, CitrusLAND will be honoring 31 amazing central Floridians. 

Jane (Murray) Sheldon is also featured in CitrusLAND: Curse of Florida’s Paradise. #cflParadise

Tomorrow: Jennie A. Cornwall

Central Florida History by Richard Lee Cronin

www.CroninBooks.com