Blog Series: Central Florida Would-be-Titans
PART One: CLEMENT R. TYNER (aka TINER)
He’s the reason Orange Avenue south of Oakridge
Road parallels the railroad tracks, and he also laid out what is today Lancaster Road, Anno Avenue, Fairlane Avenue
and yes, even Tiner Avenue, spelled
with an ‘I’. Not one of his 1880s streets are known by the names he first gave
to each, but that’s because all were renamed by Orange County in 1955. Despite the town’s name being
inspired by a house Will Wallace Harney
built, Pine Castle the town owes its
very existence to Clement R. TYNER,
a 19th century pioneer, and the first in our series; ‘Would-Be Central Florida Titans’.
Pine
Castle Depot, located at C. R. TINER’S Pine Castle
Twice the man served as first Postmaster of a newly
established CitrusLAND
frontier post office. In February 1884,
Clement became a town founder, recording the original 80 acre town
plat of Pine Castle. Sub-dividing
nearly 200 town lots, Tyner opened the first of at least two
mercantile establishments, one located in the town he founded.
A native of Florida’s untamed wilderness, Clement R. TYNER was born in 1846
at Marion County. His parents, Leonard
& Mary (BLITCH) TYNER, had
obtained a permit to homestead 160
acres there before surveyors had completed Marion County’s mapping. Leonard, selecting
land southwest of present day Belleview,
settled on land adjacent to his father, John
G. TYNER (1794-1883).
The TYNER family
next relocated to WELAKA, on the St.
Johns River north of Lake George in Putnam County. But next, and possibly due
to Union gunboats on the river all during both the Civil War and subsequent
Reconstruction Period, the town’s population suddenly dwindled. Most residents
moved on, including the TYNER’S. By 1869 the family had resettled again,
this time in Orange County,
selecting an isolated parcel far from the St. Johns River pier on Lake Monroe.
Age 23 when he
first arrived in the isolated region south of the County’s War torn Seat of
Government, Clement R. TYNER became
witness to early efforts, during 1870,
to build a railroad linking Orlando with Mellonville. That venture quickly
failed, but the locals desire to connect steamboats plying Lake Monroe with the
Port of Tampa far to the south of
TYNER”S homestead endured.
Arriving in south Orange County about the same time as Will Wallace HARNEY, builder of a Lake Conway residence Harney named Pine Castle, goals of Harney and Tyner
appear to have differed. Harney seemed to be a loner, whereas TYNER obviously
longed for success. The southernmost city at the time both arrived was Orlando, and travel anywhere in central
Florida had been, for decades past, via old sand rutted trails. When locals lost
hope for their 1870 train, would-be business titan, Clement TYNER, appears to have stepped up to the plate.
Topography today fails to show the eastern branch of Shingle Creek existing at the time Leonard B. TYNER homesteaded 80 acres west of present day Pine Castle. A detailed Orange County
map of 1890 however clearly reflects
just such a waterway.
Clement
R. TYNER possessed a means in 1870
to connect foot traffic on old Fort Mellon to Fort Gatlin with nearly 10 miles of waterway to reach Lake Tohopekaliga, where travelers
could then continue on toward Tampa. TYNER’S
homestead was also the eastern headwaters of Shingle Creek.
Orange
Map 1890. Homestead of Leonard B. TYNER (red rectangle)
[About the 1890 map:
Red STAR pinpoints trail’s end of
the old Forts Mellon to Gatlin Road (1838-1870).
Red/white rectangle pinpoints
location of L. B. TYNER’S 1869 Homestead.
One branch of the Shingle Creek headwaters
began at TYNER”S homestead, flowed southwest, as shown by the red arrow, and both branches merged in the
vicinity of present day Oak Ridge Road and John Young Parkway].
Clement
R. TYNER not only explored Shingle
Creek, he also acquired, August 30, 1873,
40 acres west of present day Kissimmee. Part of Orange County at
that time, Tyner established Shingle Creek Post Office on November
10, 1873, nine years prior to the
opening of a Kissimmee Post Office.
Clement found more than land at Shingle Creek, for here he met
and married his first of three wives. He married Mary Yates in 1873,
daughter of Needham Yates, the same Needham
Yates shot and killed during the notorious
1870 Barber-Mizell Feud.
Historian William F. Blackman wrote in 1924 of the ‘great
storm of 1871,’ a hurricane, during
which so much rain fell the “Wekiva River was a mile wide”. Will Wallace Harney
writings, published as ‘Dateline Pine
Castle’, (available at Pine Castle Woman’s Club), also tells of this storm.
Harney believed “the eye of the storm passed right over Lake Conway”. Harney also
told of droughts of 1872, 1875 and 1876, after which he “feared for settlements on Shingle Creek.” Then came yet another
Hurricane in 1876.
It’s plausible that torrential rainfalls, followed by droughts,
raised and lowered Shingle Creek,
making navigating uncertain, for Clement appears to have lost interest in this
waterway. Despite fathering three children prior to divorcing, Clement returned
to his parent’s home in 1879, alone,
and soon after opened a second post office.
Pine Castle
Post Office was established December 8, 1879, one year prior to the first
southbound train finally departing
Sanford, heading in the direction of
Orlando. He then focused attention
on his own 80 acre homestead
alongside Will Wallace Harney.
Marrying a second time February 27, 1881, Clement and his bride, Theodosia
E. GEIGER, watched while rails
were laid up to, and then diagonally across, their 80 acre homestead. The track
maximized rail siding exposure for their land.
A New York Times reporter, traveling with President Chester A.
Arthur in April of 1883, described
the journey, saying; “after Orlando,
there is nothing worthy of a town name until reaching Kissimmee City.” That was about to change though, as Clement R. & Theodosia E. Tyner deeded two (2)
lots to the railroad, land to be used for a railway depot, February 29, 1884. Both lots referenced: ‘C. R. TINER”S Town of Pine Castle.” In 1885,
Clement & Theodosia TYNER had a
store open alongside the Pine Castle
depot.
As 19th century central Florida developments had a
way of not working out as planned, Clement R. TYNER, after selling only a few town lots, opened C. R. TYNER & Co. even further
south, at Lakeland. Clement married
a third time at Lakeland, this, his final marriage, was to Elizabeth Gavin.
Try as he did, neither town platting nor rail side stores were
meant to be for this would-be central Florida Titan. Clement moved on again,
finally settling at Clearwater, where he and Elizabeth lived until his death,
at the age of 75, January 29, 1922.
The 1870 Pine Castle residence built by Will
Wallace Harney inspired the naming of a 1884 town first platted by Clement R. TYNER, the visionary who laid
out streets still in use today, even though by a different name.
Clement was not alone though in such endeavors, and when our
series continues April 19th, we’ll tell of Miss Frances E. Hewlett, another fascinating would-be central Florida
TITAN.
RESERVE
A COPY TODAY: SEND NO MONEY NOW!
BEYOND
GATLIN
Coming
fall 2017
Inspired
by my Pine Castle Woman’s Club presentation:
THE
HISTORY OF SOUTH ORANGE COUNTY, FLORIDA
Reserve your Signed and NUMBERED first print copy:
Gatlin;
Conway, Troy, Pine Castle, McKinnon,
Taft,
Prosper Colony, Oak Ridge & more!
I will personally
notify you by email when this book is available
Anticipated
availability: October, 2017
$16
plus tax with FREE shipping IF RESERVED NOW!
First
Road to Orlando; CitrusLAND Curse of Florida’s Paradise, The Rutland Mule Matter
and other central Florida books are already available at Amazon.com
NEXT
BLOG: APRIL 19, 2017
FRANCES
E. HEWLETT of WASHINGTON, DC
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