A
Central Florida legend: John A. MacDonald
Imagine the year is 1867,
and YOU happen to be one of those courageous 19th Century pioneers
who have decided to take up a Central Florida homestead. 160 acres, so YOU are told, will be yours for next to nothing, all
YOU need do is select the parcel.
You soon learn the public land to choose from is scattered across
3,000 square miles of rugged wilderness.
There are no trains to tour the region, nor scarcely a road. YOU will need to
trek along one of only a few dirt trails, so-called roads leading
inland to who knows where?
Enter John A. MacDonald, the one CitrusLAND businessman who, in 1867, knew where each of the trails
led. Known in Lake County history for jump starting EUSTIS, MacDonald had conceived of his creative Central Florida
land agency career while still living at MELLONVILLE.
A native of Canada, MacDonald began working as a Wisconsin woodsman up until the time of
the Civil War. After peace returned to the States, he then found his way south
to Florida, but discovered there were no jobs available. The self-taught land
surveyor then invented a career: assisting others in locating choice homesteads.
John A. MacDonald wrote that a New York Tribune article, written
by Horace Greeley, an editorial suggesting invalids go to Florida, brought him
to the land of sunshine. The Northern climate had become ‘disagreeable with his
health’. “
On
landing at old Fort MELLON, on the
south shore of the Lake Monroe, I came across the only sign of
civilization - the small store building", said MacDonald, of "DOYLE & BRANTLEY, A walk of less than two miles brought me to
the celebrated SPEER Orange grove,
then twenty-five years old.”
The Speer grove was located at Fort REID, on the old Fort Mellon to Fort GATLIN Road, a 28 mile dirt military trail that by the time of
MacDonald’s arrival had become known as the ‘Public Road to ORLANDO.’ This one
inland trail is the same trail I have dubbed, ‘The First Road to Orlando’.
“The public road runs
through the trees,” said MacDonald, “and
the trees were loaded with fruit and nearly all in bloom,” adding, the
sight “of an orange grove in all its
glory of golden fruit and snowy blossoms, filling the air with its delightful
aroma and delicate perfume, captivated me completely and shaped my plans
through life.”
The question then became how to get customers? MacDonald concocted
the idea of writing letters to editors, sending tantalizing missives to
Northern newspapers, writing of the merits of basking in the warm Orange County
Florida sunshine, while at the same time growing rich farming Florida oranges.
It wasn’t long before letters began arriving, inquiries from
shivering folks up north, each asking how they too could own a slice of
America’s 19th Century Paradise.
While awaiting customers, John A. MacDonald toured the
countryside, setting sights on good locations for homesteaders. Happy customers,
he thought, would bring referrals!
MacDonald assisted Henry
S. SANFORD during the earliest days of building the town of SANFORD; guided Dr. J. N. BISHOP of Mississippi toward SYLVAN LAKE, and then became instrumental in developing Orange
County’s ‘Great Lake’ Region, now
part of Lake County, including such towns as TAVARES, EUSTIS, SORRENTO and points between.
ORANGE
LAND,
an 1883 publication sanctioned by
Orange County Commissioners, included this of John A. Macdonald of EUSTIS,
Orange County, Florida. The man has “done
so much for the development of South Florida and Orange County in particular,
that a description of the county and no mention of him would be like the play
Hamlet with Hamlet left out. With a reputation National in its extent, for
honesty, ability and promptness, he finds the calls upon him for information
and services so vast and wide spread that he has been compelled to publish a
new book, "Plain talk about Florida,"
mailed free for 25 cents, together with his map of Eustis”. The 1882 MacDonald’s
pamphlet was referenced in the writing of this Blog.
Florida’s Great Freeze of 1894-95
was the culprit that sent many a Central Floridian packing, with MacDonald
being among them. By the year 1900, John
was working as a Civil Engineer at Dade County, participating in yet another
new town development, the City of Coconut
Grove.
Born May 10, 1841, John Angus MacDonald died at Dade
County, Florida on the 27th day of January, 1917. His wife of 52 years, Mary
A. (DYER) MacDonald, born in 1849,
died in 1928.
CENTRAL FLORIDA: AMERICA’S 19TH CENTURY PARADISE:
IT SIMPLY
IS NOT POSSIBLE to portray accurately the story of Central
Florida’s earliest days without telling of West
Orange County’s first days.
Founding families of OAKLAND, WINTER GARDEN and a forgotten neighboring
town - once planned as a major railroad hub, today nothing more than a
long-forgotten Ghost Town, will be
my focus of a very special CitrusLAND Event.
Join me Friday,
November 13, 2015, at the fabulous Winter
Garden History Research &
Education Center, Heller Hall, 21 East Plant Street, in historic
downtown Winter Garden for a CitrusLAND presentation of the enchanting story of
a time before the arrival of John A. MacDonald, that period of time that was
the birth of AMERICA’S 19th
Century PARADISE.
For details, visit my website Home Page: www.croninbooks.com
