John A. MacDonald: A Central Florida Legend

A Central Florida legend: John A. MacDonald

Imagine the year is 1867, and YOU happen to be one of those courageous 19^th 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 19^th 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 27^th day of January, 1917. His wife of 52 years, Mary A. (DYER) MacDonald, born in 1849, died in 1928.

CENTRAL FLORIDA: AMERICA’S 19^TH 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 19^th Century PARADISE.

For details, visit my website Home Page: www.croninbooks.com

West Orange County Florida

SPECIAL EDITION

WGHF Speaker Series: Author RICHARD LEE CRONIN

It's simply not possible to tell of the first days of a developing Central Florida without mention of towns WINTER GARDEN, OAKLAND & OCOEE, or of a forgotten neighboring city, today a West Orange Ghost Town! Fact is, from ORLANDO to SANFORD; MELLONVILLE to FORT GATLIN; or SEMINOLE to OSCEOLA County, America’s 19^th Century PARADISE has roots deeply entrenched in West Orange County. Join us Friday, November 13, 2015, here in historic Winter Garden, for a fresh new look at the origins of Central Florida. This event starts at 6:30 PM in WGHF’s beautiful new History Research & Education Center; Heller Hall; 21 East Plant Street, Winter Garden. And about that GHOST TOWN, Richard Lee Cronin plans to send you home with proof that it existed, all compliments of CitrusLAND! Cronin’s books are available at the WGHF History Center. 

Visit my Facebook event https://www.facebook.com/events/902116619880314/

Rick's NEXT Blog: Friday, October 23, 2015, featuring Central Florida's 19th Century legendary pioneer; JOHN A. MACDONALD.

The SAVAGE of CitrusLAND

The SAVAGE of CitrusLAND:

Rick’s BLOG: September 2015 Edition

Central Florida – America’s 19^th Century Paradise

By Richard Lee Cronin

After posting Part One of 12 Central Floridians this January, a Blog Series that began with the 19^th Century pioneer William A. Lovell, I was contacted by a gentleman who was a lineal descendant of my featured character. A life-long Orange County resident himself, this individual still lived on a portion of Lovell’s original 1870 homestead.

We later met at The Museum of Apopkans, where I was presented with a plethora of additional data on a remarkable Lovell/Wofford family of Orange County, Florida. I had featured two men in Part One, as Lovell had relocated to Central Florida just prior to the Civil War, bringing with him the family of his father-in-law, John T. Wofford.

Both men at first settled near Fort Reid, then moved further south to Orlando. By 1870, they relocated west to the Apopka region. Lovell served as Orange County's first ever School Superintendent in 1869, and this man’s great-grandson, in 2015, explained that he too had recently retired from a life-long career teaching in Orange County schools. Like grandfather, like grandson!

While sitting there in Apopka’s marvelous museum, I fully realized I was in the presence of CitrusLAND nobility, yet did not yet know the full extent. After our meeting, I was informed he would also be sending material about his paternal family. Several days later, I received an envelope from my Apopka history friend, and learned that he was also a great-grandson of a Mr. Frank W. Savage.

“Mr. Savage claims that Florida has saved his life.” These words were penned 133 years earlier, in 1882, by the legendary John A. MacDonald. A land agent and surveyor, John MacDonald was then trying to eke out a living in the wilds of Florida. MacDonald, while writing of land dealings with a Dr. Joseph Bishop of Sylvan Lake, mentioned that the doctor had been, “instrumental in bringing many others, amongst them our esteemed townsman, Frank W. Savage, who has one of the most beautiful properties on the peerless Crooked Lake at Eustis”.

Frank Savage had told his family of working alongside Dr. Bishop at Freeman’s Bank at Columbus, MS, when he first began communicating with John A. MacDonald of Florida. MacDonald had advertised that he could assist those interested in acquiring Florida land.

MacDonald wrote of arriving at old Fort Mellon (1 mile east of present day Sanford), in 1868, and of homesteading two miles inland, at Fort Reid. By 1873, his father James was Fort Reid’s Postmaster, but the MacDonald’s soon after became less interested in Fort Reid, and more interested in a quiet corner of Orange County known then as the ‘Great Lake Region.’ You know the region today as EUSTIS!

An early Central Florida pioneer, Frank W. Savage passed to his descendants a detailed account of his early impressions of the region when he first arrived in 1876. Much of what Savage said of 19^th Century CitrusLAND is not only verified by land records, but is easily supported as well by the 1882 writings of John A. MacDonald.

Today, history is often considered dull and lacking, causing many to become absorbed in the 'make-believe'. Some take delight in super-humans, heroic characters who achieve make-believe triumphs – often times in a faraway make-believe universe. But as for me, I fancy real-life individuals, brave men and women who truly achieved the unimaginable, and did so right here on this planet, and at times, in our very own backyard.

19^th Century Central Florida – America’s Paradise - had many true-life pioneers that fit just such a description as Super-Human. Frank W. Savage and John A. MacDonald were but two such individuals, super courageous pioneers who dared to venture into an untamed wilderness of Central Florida, and at a time when the only roads were dirt trails.

Achievements of men such as Savage and MacDonald should never be forgotten. Neither man should ever be thought of as dull or lacking, for their story is the fascinating history of 19^th Century Central Florida. It was pioneers such as these two who, borrowing a line from the make believe, boldly went where no man had gone before. 

Central Florida’s 19^th Century history is, in fact, chock full of fascinating individuals who somehow pulled off the most remarkable of feats. They are the individuals I like to write about. They are the individuals I want all Central Floridians to remember!

My October Edition of this Blog will visit the Great Lake Region of Orange County, a region most folks know today as part of Lake County, and I will reconnect with legendary John A. MacDonald. Because his story is one worth telling again and again!

October 15, 2015: The Legendary John A. MacDonald

A new edition of Rick’s 2015-2016 Blog will post here on the 15^th of every month. Feed burner, if you choose, will send automatic notifications of new Blogs by subscribing in the space provided above. Meanwhile, should you have a comment, question, or desire a bibliography for this Blog, I’d love to hear from you at: Rick@CroninBooks.com

BY THE WAY……

DID YOU KNOW a Florida Senator has gone missing? It is a fact that the Speaker of Florida’s Senate issues regularly a complete roster of Florida Lawmakers who served in the legislature since the very beginning of Florida as a Territory in 1822. At least one name however is missing. THE RUTLAND MULE MATTER is in fact a Novel, but it is based on amazing true-life facts. This is a factual story of one man who was obliterated from the pageS of history! Click on this MULE - IF, THAT IS, YOU DARE!

And also,

RESERVE THE DATE: Friday, November 13, 2015 – for a CitrusLAND Book Event, sponsored by my friends at Winter Garden Heritage Foundation. Attendees will receive an exclusive Orange County historic keepsake as a reminder of their visit to historic Winter Garden, Florida. This event begins at 6:30 PM. If you can make it, I’d love to hear from you at Rick@CroninBooks.com

ROBERT R. REID III - Part TWO

Robert R. REID III of Palatka - Part Two

AUGUST EDITION: 12 Central Floridians

Orlando’s Knight in Shining Armor

He arrived on the courthouse steps in time to submit a bid for the purchase of 113 acres of remote Orange County property. The date, January 7, 1867, the first Monday of that month, and on that day Robert R. Reid III acquired, for $900, the “estate of John R. Worthington.” An ‘L’ shaped parcel, it is now prime downtown Orlando real estate.

Florida was then a “military appendage”, a war-torn State subject to the indiscriminate whims of U. S. Provost Marshals and military rule. These post-War years were called the ‘Reconstruction Period’.

A decade earlier, Benjamin F. Caldwell had gifted 4 acres to Orange County for use as a courthouse. John R. Worthington was appointed Orlando’s First Postmaster on the 19^th of September, 1857, but then, three years later, Florida was preparing to secede, preparing to join a Confederacy of Southern States. In 1860, Caldwell’s tiny Village of Orlando was being abandoned. The Post Office closed, and the men rushed off to war.

Caldwell and Worthington died in the War, and so too did Orlando merchants Henry Roberson and George W. Terrell. Sheriff Jonathan C. Stewart died in Virginia. In all, 5,000 Florida soldiers are believed to have perished during the Civil War.

By War’s end Orlando was a Ghost Town, and remained so for more than a decade.

Duplicity triggers turmoil

One Orlando survivor was William A. Patrick, a son of one the area’s first pioneers. The Patrick family relocated to Orange County in the 1840’s, arriving from Georgia with Aaron and Isaac Jernigan. Another survivor was James P. Hughey, who served as Clerk of Court for many years after the War. The Hughey and Patrick homesteads were located south and west of the 4 acre Village of Orlando, although one family, John & Linney Patrick, built their residence adjacent to the village.

Two years prior to the War, John & Linney sold 119 acres to John R. Worthington., but their 1858 sale had an identical legal description as a homestead deed issued to one, “Benjamin F. Caldwell of Talladega”.

John R. Worthington and Benjamin F. Caldwell owned the exact same acreage. To acquire additional land adjacent to his land, Worthington then mortgaged, in 1859, his 119 acres, borrowing the funds from the Palatka firm, Teasdale & Reid. So, after the courthouse auction of 1867, Reid and Caldwell then owned the exact same acreage.

Attorney Robert W. Broome of Lake City arrived at Orlando in 1875, in town for one purpose, the incorporation of Orlando. Along with Broome came Jacob R. Cohen, a neighbor of Robert R. Reid III of Palatka. A merchant too, Cohen bought Village of Orlando lots 8 & 9, but did so after the meeting, closing on his purchase January 24, 1876.

Broome and Cohen both voted in favor of the town of Orlando being incorporated, yet neither man was a resident of the County, let alone the tiny village they were voting to incorporate in 1875. At that time, male landowners made up the electorate.

The two Orlando village lots 8 & 9 had also been sold in 1868. Merchants Doyle & Brantley of Mellonville bought the land that year from the “estate of George Hughey.”

Confused by all these names and lot sales, well then imagine how Orlando’s leaders felt in 1879? Consider this, Caldwell gifted all town lots to Orange County except Lot 10. Lots 1 thru 9, and lots 11 and 12, all belonged to Orange County – not individuals! 

So, why were individuals selling these lots? Why did William A. Patrick begin selling lots in the 1860’s?

A stranger from Alabama founded a tiny village out in the middle of nowhere in 1857. A Lake City Attorney incorporated that little village in 1875. But by 1879, that village was in desperate need of a Knight in shining armor, and so a Palatka merchant came to its rescue. 

Three (3) mysterious forefathers – and not a one was ever a resident of Orlando.

Negotiating a deal

And so we arrive at July 24, 1879, when, in the words of historian William Blackman: “Some question having arisen as to the legality of the existing charter, the Mayor issued a proclamation that the corporation of Orlando is dissolved by the majority vote of the citizens of Orlando.” The town's hero however was already at work. Three months prior to the Town council’s action, Reid III had dispatched Oakland resident and Attorney James G. Speer to Talladega, AL.

Speer had been the Attorney who originally handled the Caldwell gift of land in 1857, so he was the one man best able to resolve that portion of the conflict some 22 years later.

On 21 April, 1879; “Louise Caldwell, the Widow of Benjamin F. Caldwell, deceased,” and her three children, conveyed over to Robert R. Reid all rights the Caldwell family might have had in Orlando property. That conveyance was then recorded at Orange County July 29, 1879 – five (5) days after the Town of Orlando had been dissolved.

William F. Forward handled the next phase in Orlando’s rescue. A son-in-law of Robert R. Reid III, the Putnam County Clerk of Court also happened to be the son of William A. Forward, a former Circuit Judge, whose district back in 1857 included Orange County.

The husband of Reid’s eldest daughter Anna, William Forward negotiated a settlement with Orange County Commissioners. That document, signed May 17, 1879, was then recorded at with the County Clerk – James P. Hughey, on 5 September 1879.

Regarding the puzzling July 1879 dissolution of Orlando, Historian Blackman wrote: “Nevertheless, although the corporation, and with it the Town Council, were defunct, a meeting of the Council was held the following October.”

The simple fact of the matter is, Robert R. Reid III, of Palatka, Florida, had saved the Town of Orlando. But Reid still had one more deal to negotiate, and that was to convey one-third (1/3) of his 120 acres surrounding Orlando to W. A. Patrick. With that deal done, Reid could finally submit his 1880 Plat of Orlando, a plat that included the original 1857 Village of Orlando. The town plat was filed six (6) months before the arrival of the first train to the County Seat at Orlando

This concludes our summer-long celebration of ORLANDO. Rick’s Blog will return here, to this new blog address, September 15^th. You can now receive email notifications of each new Blog posting free of charge simply by subscribing. I invite you to visit my website, www.croninbooks.com, to view books and other fascinating short stories of Central Florida during the 19^th Century.

  CITRUSLAND, AMERICA’S PARADISE

Follow the FIRST ROAD TO ORLANDO on the original Fort Mellon to Fort Gatlin Road, the 28 mile military dirt trail that evolved into a Mellonville to Orlando dirt road. Visit www.croninbooks.com/FIRST-ROAD.html for details and reviews: “Your work was so needed and well done. You figured out questions that have lingered for years.”

Or, if mystery is more your style than history…

THE RUTLAND MULE MATTER is a Novel, a story so fascinating you might not notice at first that you are reading a true story. A son and daughter go in search of their father, a Florida Senator, a soldier who vanished during the Civil War. What the Senator’s kids find, changes everything! Visit www.croninbooks.com/MULE.html for details: “You uncovered about the most interesting story, better than Barber shooting the Sheriff.”

RICK’S BLOG RETURNS SEPTEMBER 15TH

ROBERT R. REID III - PART ONE

ROBERT R. REID III – Part One

A MYSTERY MAN, Really?

Orlando, Florida forefathers could relate to Comedian Rodney Dangerfield’s signature punch line, for much like the comedian, “they don’t get no respect!”

Simply stated, Orlando, the 158 year old county seat, would not exist today had it not been for the efforts of three special individuals: Benjamin F. Caldwell; Robert W. Broome; and Robert R. Reid III. Each man provided an essential role in not only establishing Orlando as a city, but preventing the village from becoming a Ghost Town as well.

The role each forefather played is evidenced by hundreds of Orange County recorded documents, hand written transactions providing us a plethora of information, yet the town of Orlando has yet to appropriately embrace either man as a city founder.

Of all three, Reid was the major contributor in terms of keeping one family’s dream of a place called Orlando alive. There are 130 official documents tracking Reid’s 33 years of involvement, an Orlando founding father relationship that began November 7, 1859, and then continued through to his final transaction, December 16, 1892.

Orange County documents authenticate Robert R. Reid’s identity, his place of residence throughout his entire Orlando relationship, and serves as evidence of the man’s rescue of this puzzling county seat of government. Still, to fully appreciate why the man was even interested in Orlando in the first place, genealogy must be added to the mix.

One must trace the family to discover the history, an intriguing true-life story that is focused on a man named REID, not REED! The distinction between the two spellings is crucial, for there was also an English REED family involved in the early Central Florida story.

His first envisioned city failed!

Historians have long known of Robert R. Reid, although the man’s interest in Orlando of Orange County never really made much sense. One fable, for example, claims residents had requested Mr. Reid, a total stranger, to resolve a land dispute. In return, as the fable goes, he was rewarded by receiving a portion of the land that had been in dispute.

There was indeed a complicated land dispute, and Robert R. Reid was in fact the man who resolved that dispute, but Reid was by no means a stranger to Orlando.

The ‘dispute’ reached a boiling point in July, 1879. On the 3^rd of that month, according to historian and Rollins Professor William F. Blackman, the Orlando Town Council voted to discontinue all existing streets with the exception of four located in the “original four acre Town of Orlando”. The action appeared, said Blackman, to delete every Orlando street with the exception of: Main, Central, Court and Oak Street.

Meeting again July 24, 1879, the Town Council then determined Orlando’s charter to be invalid. After the meeting, Mayor Charles H. Munger issued a proclamation stating the Town of Orlando had been “dissolved by a majority vote of its citizens”.

Minutes of the meeting did not say why the town was dissolved. Nor did Blackman give a reason for the Town Council’s action, only that by October of 1879, Orlando appears to have been reinstated, mysteriously rescued by a stranger from Palatka, a fellow by the name of Robert R. Reid III. (I have added the title III for clarification.)

A Putnam County merchant, Orlando had not been the man’s first attempt at founding a new town. 28 years earlier, in 1851, Robert R. Reid III had purchased, for $5,000, a site along St. John River, land upon which he planned to plat the city of Palatka. Reid however went bust, and later formed a partnership with his brother-in-law, a general merchandise firm known as Teasdale and Reid.

No stranger to CitrusLAND!

Robert R. Reid recorded a plat of Orlando in 1880, a town site 80 acres in size and surrounding the original village of Orlando, the 4 acre site donated to Orange County in 1857 by Benjamin F. Caldwell. Simultaneous to recording his 1880 plat, Reid also conveyed 40 acres to William A. Patrick, the son of John & Lenny Patrick.

Orlando’s ‘dispute’ was all about land ownership. A hand drawn sketch, attached to the 1880 agreement between Reid and Patrick, shows the Patrick family residence as being adjacent to the original 4 acre Village of Orlando. A second Patrick parcel is shown to be located on the north boundary of the original village.

1880 sketch from Reid Agreement with Patrick

Patrick’s residence today, according to the 1880 sketch, would occupy the southeast corner of Central and Orange Avenues, while the Orange County History Center now sits on Patrick’s second parcel. This land however was owned by Robert R. Reid, or so he thought, because land records showed a deed issued to Benjamin F. Caldwell.

Smack dab in the middle of this land ownership fiasco sat the tiny Village of Orlando, and a solution was desperately needed if the Orange County Seat was ever to survive! On August 14th, Robert R. Reid III – Part II will walk you through the man’s 1880 Rescue of Orlando.

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ABOUT TEASDALE & REID

“Our Company was divided into two detachments, one located to the right, up the river on a bluff, under the command of our Captain, J. J. Dickison. The other, in which I was, was under First Lieutenant Mc Cardle and located in a ditch down the river, back of Teasdale & Reid’s wharf and warehouse.” Source: Memoirs of James M. Dancy of his service during the Civil War. Genealogy note: James M. Dancy was the son of Francis L. & Florida F. (REID) Dancy. Florida F. Reid was the sister of Palatka’s Robert R. Reid III. Robert and Florida were children of Florida’s Territorial Governor, Robert R. Reid II.

About this Blog’s Author

FIRST ROAD TO ORLANDO details the history of the original Fort Mellon to Fort Gatlin, a 28 mile dirt trail that evolved into the Mellonville to Orlando Road, simply visit www.croninbooks.com/FIRST-ROAD.html for details, AND;

THE RUTLAND MULE MATTER is a Novel based upon true-life historical figures, the story of a son and daughter searching for their father, a Florida Senator, a soldier who vanished during the Civil War. What the man’s siblings find, changes everything! Visit www.croninbooks.com/MULE.html for details. 

WHY I WRITE ABOUT CENTRAL FLORIDA

My CitrusLAND

BY Richard Lee Cronin

WHY I WRITE ABOUT EARLY CENTRAL FLORIDA?

The short answer is searching for the WHY! My interest in uncovering the true story of Central Florida began with me traveling down an entirely different path. ADELAIDE, a quaint little lake outside my Altamonte Springs home of 1990, started things off. How, I wondered, did it get its name? Would how it was named make an interesting book? 

If anyone knew who Adelaide was, they certainly weren’t saying, but a chance search discovered the answer and much, much more. The lake’s name dated to the 19^th Century, to a railway depot located near this very spot, a railway station named SNOWVILLE. Why? No, it wasn’t for Snowbirds, but rather a Chicago couple, he an Ex-Union soldier of the Civil War, and she, his wife, Adelaide SNOW! 

Digging even further, I discovered my Altamonte hadn’t always ended with an ‘E’. Another Union Veteran, a doctor so it turns out, had named his Central Florida homestead ALTAMONT after walking to Central Florida from Ohio. I know, a double why, right?

Continuing my research, I was soon asking who named ORLANDO. An answer that had served for more than a hundred years was: “Benjamin F. Caldwell of Talladega, Alabama,” the man who donated land for a courthouse at Orlando. My immediate question however was, WHY? Why did he give land? Who was this Caldwell fellow? 

WHY so many unanswered questions arising from 19^th Century Central Florida. That's how I got into researching the fascinating story of Central Florida, an enchanting American Paradise that I lovingly refer to as CitrusLAND. You see, a promise of growing rich from planting Citrus trees encouraged pioneers to come to the wilderness of Central Florida, and the idea of establishing towns and adding to their wealth by selling LAND turned Central Florida into a dreamers paradise. 

The story of Central Florida makes all the sense in the world only after America’s amazing history, combined with in-depth genealogy research, collide. More than boring history – CitrusLAND is all about uncovering the MYSTERY!

The Naming of BITHLO, Florida

The NAMING of BITHLO, FLORIDA

Rick’s Blog first published August, 2014

By Richard Lee Cronin

The vision of BITHLO as a great East Orange County metropolis was likely not hers, but the town’s name – that definitely was the idea of, “the richest lady in the world!” She was most certainly the First Lady of BITHLO.

Had a town BITHLO existed prior to 1915, evidence of such has not been found. The first recorded plat of this city was 1919, although as mentioned in Part 3, the plat also suggests something resembling a town pre-dated that filing. William F. Blackman, in his 1927 History of Orange County, (1915) mentions the town’s beginning, writing that BITHLO’S origin coincided with the “opening of the railroad that year”. The first train however actually arrived before 1915!

Henry Flagler had announced plans for his ‘Okeechobee Branch’ in 1910, and began accumulating right-of-way agreements. By 1911, Flagler had obtained permission to cross land then owned by William Vom Scheidt, land that was to become the future site of BITHLO. Agreements required Flagler’s train to be running by January 1, 1914 to as far as Wewahotee, a town to be located south of BITHLO. Farther south still, we know the first train arrived at Lake Okeechobee, the final destination of that railroad branch line, on September 14, 1914.

The dates cited are significant because Henry Flagler died May 20, 1913, and he had been bedridden since March of that same year. A Sun Sentinel article of July 2, 1989 tells of the astonishing events that followed Henry’s death. His Widow, Mary Kenan Flagler, became owner of Florida East Coast Railroad, four million acres of land, eleven hotels and assets that included Florida Power & Light Company and the Miami Herald newspaper. Mary Kenan Flagler’s wealth was valued at $6 billion in today’s currency.

Widow Mary Flagler died a mysterious death in July, 1917, but between May, 1913 and 1917, that particular window of time during which a train began serving BITHLO, Mary was heralded as “the richest lady in the world.” Mary (Kenan) Flagler, first Lady of BITHLO, the richest Lady in the world, was in control of Florida East Coast Railroad the day her train first pulled into a new railway depot called BITHLO.

BITHLO, a City with a VISION! Leave it to an eye doctor to coin such a corny slogan.

Tracks first laid down by Flagler’s railroad have long since been removed, replaced with two-lanes, straight-as-an-arrow highway to nowhere, called “old State Road 13”. Aerial photo of BITHLO today shows that highway slicing through BITHLO’S remaining 26 east-west numbered Avenues.

The railroad is long gone, but Flagler’s train breathed life into an early 20^th Century community founded after the train arrived, by two partners, one an Optic’s Doctor and the other a Dentist.

BITHLO came into its own under a partnership of Stacy P. BAILEY and Elmer W. LOTT. Lott was an Orlando dentist, Bailey an eye doctor. A charter was issued in 1922 for Town of BITHLO, and on April 5^th of that same year BITHLO Post Office opened. Between the years 1921 and 1925, the Orlando based partners filed nine additional plat revisions, each an expansion of their BITHLO metropolis.

An April 2, 1925 full page advertisement for BITHLO tells of their accomplishments out in the barren wilderness of East Orange County. They had 6 ½ miles of paved streets, were in the process of building an 18 Hole golf course, and had sold town lots to “more than 3,000” people all across America. BITHLO’S advertisement proclaimed itself the City with a Vision, serviced by Florida East Coast Railroad and the new Cheney-Dixie Highway (now Highway 50), officially christened December 31, 1924.

A month after this BITHLO advertisement, in either the smartest or luckiest move ever for Bailey & Lott, the partners sold their land development company. A consortium of investors, led by Massachusetts Banker Lindsey Hooper, and unaware Florida’s Great Land Boom was already gasping its final breadths, became the last owner of a metropolis that simply was not meant to be.

A land sales slowdown that began in 1925 died in 1926. The final spike in Florida’s Great Land Boom coffin was the Great Hurricane of 1926. Having winds of 125 mph, killing 115 at Miami and destroying 13,000 homes, the horrendous storm then travelled inland, causing a tidal wave at Lake Okeechobee that drowned 300. Florida’s Land Bust and Hurricane of 1926 was then followed by the Market Crash of ’29, and adding insult to our nation’s injury, came the Great Depression of 1930’s.

Hopes and dreams of America’s Paradise crumbled again. A scribbled note at the top of a page of Orange County’s 1935 Census provides a brief but final epitaph for the East Orange County community, for it states, “Bithlo Charter Surrendered.”

FIRST ROAD TO ORLANDO, a 28 mile dirt trail, was rendered obsolete the very day South Florida Railroad (SFRR) departed Sanford, Florida, heading southbound toward the Orange County Seat at ORLANDO. This one trail had served American Indians, the US Military, government surveyors, and the earliest of settlers for nearly 40 years before the first train ever began running. A true story of THE FIRST ROAD TO ORLANDO, this book tells of the earliest towns along that dirt road: Mellonville, Fort Reid, Rutledge, Maitland, Orlando and Fort Gatlin, and tells too of how each town got its name – including the mysterious naming of ORLANDO! More than history, this is the captivating story of the first days of Central Florida. Visit my First Road website for more information and reviews. www.croninbooks.com/FIRST-ROAD.html