Thursday, March 10, 2022

Women's History Month - Day 10

 

Frontierswomen of Central Florida


Nancy #Galloway Woodruff - Beck (1841-1909)

A Women’s History Month Tribute

By Richard Lee Cronin, CroninBooks.com

10 March 2022



Day 10

CitrusLAND is celebrating Women’s History Month by honoring extraordinary Central Florida frontierswomen. And as we celebrate Women’s History Month throughout March, we are also promoting each day a History Museum, listing its days and hours of operations.

See HISTORY MUSEUM of the day in this Post

 

Nancy #Galloway Woodruff - Beck was born 1841 in North Carolina, then came to central Florida as a teenager with her father, Francis Galloway, a Widower. Galloway homesteaded on the Wekiva River, near where SR 46 now crosses west of Sanford, only back in 1860, this was a desolate river crossing called Rutland’s Ferry. At that time this was Orange County, but the west shore became Lake County in 1887, while the east shore became Seminole County in 1913.

 

At age 19 in 1860, Nancy married William W. Woodruff of Fort Reid (now part of Sanford), and as Mrs. Woodruff, settled at Woodruff Place, a cottage on the historic Woodruff Grove. A year before her marriage to Woodruff, William had gone to Tallahassee with Isaac N. Rutland, of Rutland’s Ferry, where both served as Orange County delegates at Florida’s Secession Convention. After convention delegates finalized a new State Constitution in April of 1861, both men enlisted with the Home Guard at the start of the Civil War.

 

Nancy watched over Woodruff Place, home to one of the earliest central Florida citrus groves, planted in 1843 by Elias Woodruff, William’s father. Caring for the Woodruff home and grove “depended largely upon his wife,” says a biography of William woodruff, because when not at Tallahassee, “he was serving in the Civil War as a Home Guard”. William died in 1872, leaving Nancy to raise two sons while tending to the Woodruff Grove.

 


Nancy ‘Nannie’ #Galloway Woodruff Beck

 

It was said that no one ever felt a “stranger in a strange land” at the Woodruff home, and of the lady of that cottage, one historian wrote: “Being well educated and gifted with unusual personal ability, she gathered the remnants of property left and so planned, worked and lived to enjoy the income of one of the finest orange groves in Orange County.”

Nancy married a second time in 1877, to Charles H. Beck, a Florida native, and together they continued as citrus growers until the freeze of 1894-95, when most every Sanford grove was lost.

Determined to solve his financial crisis, Charles H. Beck departed Florida for the gold mines of Alaska, where he perished during the historic Easter avalanche of 4 April 1898.

Nannie (Galloway) Woodruff – Beck died June 11, 1909, “in the home she had made, where her last days were spent in the quiet enjoyment of her children.”

[Further reading: Nannie, husbands William and Charles, together with Isaac N. Rutland, are all featured as true-life characters and a real-life Civil-War coverup history Novel, The Rutland Mule Matter, by Richard Lee Cronin].

 

Christiania #Ginn Speer of Sanford’s historic River Grove has yet to receive proper credit as being one of the most amazing central Florida Frontierswoman ever. So, let’s set the record straight here and now!

Whereas Christiania has simultaneously purchased from the said parties of the second part the STEAMER Sarah Spaulding,” is the precise wording found in an 1854 recorded deed describing a November 27, 1852, mortgage secured by 200 head of cattle owned by Christiania Speer. The content of this deed is so important is deserves clarification. A woman, in 1854, used her 200 head of cattle as collateral to purchase a steamboat!

The 1852 mortgage on Christiania (Ginn) Speer’s boat was being settled in the 1854 deed above, debt being resolved by her spouse, Dr. Algernon S. Speer of Mellonville, Florida, and her father, Arthur Ginn. (Records of the Florida House of Representatives mentions the steamer “Sarah Spalding as docking at Fort Mellon on March 27, 1852).

Dr. Speer and Arthur Ginn had paid off Christiania’s mortgage in 1854 because she had died.

 


The River Grove on St. Johns River (1846), East of present day Sanford

Born at Culloden, Georgia, Christiania was the daughter of Irish immigrants Arthur & Mary Ginn. After marrying Dr. Speer, Christiania came to Lake Valdez in then Mosquito County, a body of water soon to be renamed Lake Monroe, and a county soon to be renamed Orange. As best as can be determined, Algernon and Christiana arrived in 1843.

The first actual evidence of Christiania in Orange County is found in 1847, when she purchased, at auction for $32.11, a “mule, ox wagon and cattle” from Sheriff John Simpson. Later, at 31 years of age in 1852, then a mother of five, she used 200 head of cattle as collateral to acquire a used steamboat, “Sarah Spaulding,” a tattered paddleboat fitted with overnight cabins to sleep eight. (Historians would later record that the boat belonged to her husband and father, which it did, after the two purchased the vessel following her death, at age 32).

Christiania (Ginn) Speer is said to have died while giving birth to her sixth child, 2 June 1853.

 

Jane #Green Hendricks legacy is Jane Green Creek in Osceola and Brevard Counties, Jane Green Swamp in Brevard County, and the claim by some that Jane Green caused the infamous Barber–Mizell Feud of 1870.

Born in Georgia as Jane Green circa 1834, she died Jane Green, according to her grave marker, in 1918 (Her tombstone gives a controversial year of birth as 1819). In the book Florida’s Frontier, The Way Hit Wuz by Mary Ida Bass Barber Shearhart, the author describes Jane Green as “one of his (Mose Barber) infamous lady friends who would get him and little Mose into a peck of trouble.” That peck of trouble being the “feud”.

Jane was not exactly your average central Florida frontierswoman, so it stands to reason any information regarding this infamous lady of the wilderness would not be exact either. Although born Jane Green, she married, and in 1860 and 1870 her name was Hendricks (aka Hendrix). Jane, a colorful central Florida pioneer of the 19th century, is easily traced today by following her and her children throughout the years.

Jane Hendrix (age 25) and daughters Emily (age 3) and Roxanne (age 7/12) appear at Fort Reid (now Sanford) in the 1860 Orange County census, living with the Peterson family. Jane next appears in 1870 as Jane Hendricks (age 35), with Emily (age 13), Roxanne (age 11), and Sarah Ann (age 9). In 1880, Jane (age 45) is listed with Emily (age 20), Roxanna (age 18), and Sarah Ann (age 16).


Jane Green, courtesy Find-A-Grave Memorial 13254063

Jane Green, likely born in circa 1834-35 since her age remained consistent in 1860, 1870, 1880, and again in the year 1900. In the latter, Jane was age 66, residing with Emma Tiner, her married daughter.

Also, as the Barber-Mizell feud erupted in 1870, an “infamous lady” visiting cow-boy camps at night in the 1870s would more likely be in her 30s rather than 50s.

[Further reading: Florida's Frontier, The Way Hit Wuz, by Mary Ida Bass Barber Shearhart, available at Amazon.com]

 

Our History Museum of the Day 


Osceola County Welcome Center & Historical Society

4155 W. Vine Street, Kissimmee

407-396-8644

Rated 4.5 out of 5 Stars by Tripadvisor, Osceola Welcome Center features exhibits showcasing the historical and natural environment of the region.

  

 

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