Righting Florida History: Mr. Isaac N. RUTLAND:
“He
(Rutland) never served as a state senator.”
Florida’s Clerk of the House of Representatives, the person responsible for Florida’s
biennial publication; People of Lawmaking in Florida, answered my January 6, 2016 inquiry as to why Isaac N. Rutland of Orange County was missing
from the state’s official roster of lawmakers by stating Rutland never served
as a state senator. “Isaac was elected,”
the clerk reported, “as a delegate from the 19th
Senatorial District for the Florida Convention of the People, Ordinance of
Secession.”
I appreciated the reply, but could not accept the reasoning as
to why twenty-eight (28) of sixty-nine (69) Secession Convention delegates had
been excluded from Florida’s historic roster of lawmakers. Rutland was one of the 28! In a second letter,
I pointed out that while Dr. James D.
Starke was indeed Florida’s Senator
from the 19th District in 1860-61, he was among those Senators who also abdicated
their duty as Senators by assigning to the Delegates; “the interest of the State without a suggestion as to the course
proper to be pursued.”
In other words, Florida’s State Senate in 1861 passed the buck! Rather
than determining their State’s future, the duly elected officials instead handed that authority to the delegates, who in turn repealed
existing Florida law that established the role of the State Senators. The
delegates then wrote a new Constitution. The Secession
Delegates, I argued, became Florida lawmakers according to the very definition of
a State ‘Constitution’.
Florida’s Clerk of the House wrote again February 23, 2016, stating: “Upon receipt of your second letter and an additional review, we have
decided to include all persons who served on any constitutional convention.”
Isaac N. Rutland was then included
in the next People of Lawmaking in Florida, from 1822 thru 2017.
The State however had not been alone in leaving Rutland out of Florida history. Early
Orange County histories said little to nothing of their early county resident.
Isaac came to Orange County during the 1850s. He replaced Aaron Jernigan as the Captain of Orange County’s 1856 Militia. Rutland was not only a merchant, he also operated Rutland’s Ferry on the Wekiva River. In January of 1861, Isaac was one of two delegates to
the Secession Convention from Orange County. Both delegates voted NO!
A father of four children in 1860, Isaac N. Rutland
vanished in 1864. Isaac’s wife
Margaret was listed as a widow in 1867.
The four Rutland children were orphans in 1870,
living with their grandmother in Georgia. Two of the four children returned to
Orange County in 1880. Son Othman Rutland settled along the west
shore of Lake Apopka. Across Lake Apopka lived his sister, Sarah Katherine (Rutland) Vick.
Righting Orange
County history required finding Isaac N.
Rutland, even though his trail, dating back to 1864, had long gone cold. All there was to go on was one true-life
clue, a few hand-scribble notes found in an 1865 government file folder titled, The Rutland Mule Matter.
One note, written in late 1864 from
Mellonville, Florida, by a man named Lincoln,
requested that a mule be returned to Mrs.
Isaac N. Rutland.
Not much to go on, but enough to unravel the mystery of
a vanishing, Isaac N. Rutland.
“Just finished the Rutland Mule Matter book last night. OMG! Your
research is so meticulous and your storytelling so captivating; I felt that I’d
gone back to another time, because I knew many of the characters and settings
of which you wrote.” Apopka 2015.
Two of Isaac’s children go in search of their father in a
Novel based upon true-life facts. Othman
finally learns the truth of The Rutland
Mule Matter, and you will too!
THE
RUTLAND MULE MATTER, by Richard Lee Cronin
The Novel that assisted in RIGHTING FLORIDA HISTORY
Copyright April 20, 2015: TX8-104-400
Buy it at AMAZON
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