Frontierswomen
of Central Florida
Miss Fannie Rosseel
A
Women’s History Month Tribute
By
Richard Lee Cronin, CroninBooks.com
24
March 2022
Day 24
CitrusLAND is observing Women’s History Month by
honoring extraordinary Central Florida frontierswomen. And as we celebrate
Women’s History Month throughout March, we are also featuring each day a
History Museum, listing their days and hours of operation.
See also our featured History Museum in this Post
Fannie #Rosseel
of Mount Dora
Mount Dora’s Rosseel Street of 1918 began as a one-block
street and continually shortened until it was more a driveway than a roadway. Making
matters worse for the road however was that the name was often misspelled, so
much so that in 1946 a newspaper reporter asked, “Why is Rosseel always spelled
Rossell? Although the first spelling is correct, the latter probably appears
more correct to most.
Charles and Fannie Rosseel were brother and sister
Mount Dora snowbirds, Charles a Director for the Bordentown Banking Company of Bordentown,
New Jersey, died while wintering in Mount Dora and is buried at Pine Forest
Cemetery in Mount Dora. Fannie Rosseel was an active ‘social leader’ wrote Mount
Dora Topic, a woman who busied herself each winter season with arranging civic
activities and social gatherings.
One such Fannie Rosseel fundraising event was to
finance the education of a local Mount Dora child at the acclaimed “Berry School”
in Georgia. Still educating children today, Berry School, founded in 1902 by
Martha Berry, continues to annually celebrate their founder during Women’s History
Month.
Charles and Fannie Rosseel built their winter home
overlooking Lake Dora west of Helen Street, although after her brother’s death
in 1918, Fannie began spending her winters at the historic Villa Dora Hotel
(March 28th Post).
Fannie Rosseel (photo at beginning of this post) never
married. She died at age 74 in December of 1929 at Bordentown, New Jersey.
Mary Frances #Russell Burleigh
Orlando’s “Lake Ivanhoe” was mentioned by name in a
deed dated March 1, 1882. Although the earliest settlers had been trekking past
this impressive body of water for nearly 40 years prior to John G. Sinclair
selling a lakeside parcel to Edward Burleigh, no name for the lake ever seems
to have taken hold until 1882.
Central Florida pioneer Edward S. Burleigh is today
associated more with Tavares than Orlando, especially considering US 441 bypassing
downtown Tavares is also called Burleigh Boulevard. For a moment in the story
of Orlando settlers however, Edward Burleigh was also an important pioneer. When
he came to Florida from New Hampshire in the 1880s, he first selected a site on
Lake Ivanhoe for a residence. And during that moment, Burleigh named the lake,
a name that survived the ages.
1890 Lake Ivanhoe north of Orlando
Lake Ivanhoe’s are few and far between in America, although
there is at least one other Lake Ivanhoe, one which happens to be located at Wakefield,
New Hampshire, the homeplace of Edward’s mother, Mary Frances Russell. Today, Lake
Ivanhoe Beach is still a popular hangout for locals, and the same was surely true
when Dr. Richard Russell settled his family there.
John G. Sinclair, himself of New Hampshire, came to Central
Florida in the late 1870s, acquired Orlando property on Lakes Concord and
Ivanhoe, and immediately began attracting buyers from New England. By 1882, as
Orlando Attorney Alexander St. Clair-Abrams began developing the town of
Tavares, Sinclair, by then considered one of the largest and most successful land
agents in the area, opened a branch office at Tavares. Edward S. Burleigh then migrated
west from Orlando to downtown Tavares.
Edward Burleigh traveled to Tallahassee with Alexander
St. Clair-Abrams in May 1887 to assist in convincing legislators to approve the
formation of Lake County, but back at Orlando, Edward left a memorial to the
memory of his mother, Mary Frances Russell. Countless new arrivals to central
Florida today enter Orlando, the county seat of Orange County, via Lake Ivanhoe,
and Tavares, the county seat of Lake County, via Burleigh Boulevard.
[Further
Reference: Orlando Lakes: Homesteads & Namesakes, Tavares: Darling of
Orange County, Birthplace of Lake County, both by Richard Lee Cronin.]
Sarah K. #Rutland Vick
of Oakland
Sarah Katherine Rutland, born in 1862 at Rutland’s
Ferry on the Wekiva River, was the youngest of five siblings. An orphan and residing
with grandparents in Georgia by 1870, Sarah returned to Orange County by 1880 as
one of only two surviving family members, or so it was generally believed at
the time. Sarah and brother Othman Rutland signed several deeds in the early
1880s as the “sole heirs of Isaac N. Rutland,” their father, one of two Orange
County 1861 delegates to Florida’s Secession Convention. Sarah’s is anything
but the typical story of a Civil War baby.
Isaac N. Rutland (center), 1 of 2
Orange County 1861 Secession Convention delegates
Sarah married Ezekiel C. Vick in 1880 and settled
first at Apopka. Her brother Othman Rutland settled at West Apopka, on the west
side of Lake Apopka, partnering with Miles Stewart, his cousin from Apopka, to establish
a lakeside farming community that years later became known as Ferndale.
The freeze of 1894-95 wiped out many a local grower,
including the Vick family and Othman Rutland, so as each family was financially
bankrupt, they relocated together to Sanibel Island, site today of the Othman
Rutland House in the Sanibel Historical Museum village. By the year 1900, Sarah
Katherine (Rutland) Vick was the only surviving member of the Rutland’s Ferry
family of Orange County.
Sarah, husband Ezekiel, and five Vick children
returned to Orange County, settled at Oakland, where they once again started
over. The Vick’s became prominent citizens of Oakland, where on Christmas Eve
of 1950, Sarah K. (Rutland) Vick died at age 88.
The life Sarah Rutland led was immersed in mystery.
Her father’s disappearance during the Civil War was only the beginning of a
tragic family story stretching all the way to the year 1911, when Sarah’s
oldest brother – Cassius M. Rutland, long believed to be dead – was buried in
the family plot at Oakland.
The story of Sarah and her brother Othman became the
main characters in this author’s history Novel, The Rutland Mule Matter,
a story of two siblings in the late 1880s search of their father, who had
vanished in the 1860s during the Civil War. A story of true-life Orange County
pioneers reliving a factual Central Florida coverup, one 5 Star reviewer said of
The Rutland Mule Matter that it was a great book for young readers and that it
should be available in middle schools.
Follow Author & Historian Richard Lee Cronin
https://www.amazon.com/author/richardcronin
History Museum of the Day
Above: Richard Cronin presenting at Orlando Remembered in 2019
Orlando Remembered
Preserving the History
of Orlando
Orlando Remembered began from the
remains of the once grand San Juan Hotel in Orlando, Florida in 1979. The sight
of the demolished inn sent interior designer Dan Acito and insurance executive
Andy Serros into the more than two-decade mission of keeping the fires of
memory burning for old Orlando.
As always, questions and comments: Rick@Croninbooks.com
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