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 19th 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 15th.
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 19th 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
No comments:
Post a Comment