The Pine Castle - residence of Will Wallace Harney
A complimentary sneak peek of BEYOND GATLIN, due out November, 2017
Chapter
10: Perils of Pine Castle
One might assume development
south of Fort Gatlin began in the
town of Pine Castle, home to Will Wallace Harney, son-in-law of the
Honorable, William M. Randolph. Although
such an assumption seems logical, it wasn’t so.
Arriving in late 1869, Harney built a lakefront home on Lake Conway, personally naming his residence Pine Castle. Over time, a city did eventually grow around his
homestead, and even adopted the homestead’s signature name, but personal perils
got in the way of Harney himself reaping rewards as a town developer. The
actual town of Pine Castle was
platted in 1884, and not
by Will Wallace Harney.
Arriving at Orange County in late
1869, Will Harney had been one of a
family that had endured a long arduous journey south. His 25 year young wife, Mary St.
Mayer (Randolph) Harney, eldest daughter of William & Mary E. (Pitts)
Randolph, made the challenging move to Florida’s wilderness carrying an infant
son, William Randolph Harney, born June 24, 1869, the same year of the family’s
relocation to Florida.
After debarking at a ‘raggedy’ Mellonville pier, they still had a
rugged trail to trek, 28 miles in
all. They saw not the first house nor store for the first 22 miles of that trail. Orlando
welcomed them at Mile 22, all four
acres of this remote County Seat then still containing the charred ruins of the
courthouse, burned to the ground a year earlier. Orange County records were
destroyed by an arson’s torch, believed set by those involved in a cattle
wrestling case awaiting trial, a trial that was awaiting the next circuit judge
to arrive from the port at Mellonville.
Across on the east side of the
old forts trail was one of only two stores in Orlando’s tiny village, the last
place they could buy goods before journeying south the next six miles. And these
next six miles would be even more remote than the 22 already traveled.
A newspaperman, Harney had
departed Louisville, Kentucky, a
town of 100,000 in 1870, and relocated to Fort Gatlin, deep in the wilderness of
Orange County, Florida, at a time when the entire county Orange, all 3,000
square miles, had fewer than 2,200
residents.
Arriving during the final days of
1869, Will Harney’s wife Mary died
January 8, 1870. Mary (Randolph)
Harney was laid to rest beside the old ruins of Fort Gatlin, on part of the land where William M. Randolph made his
homestead. Within months of arriving in a land intended to improve his wife’s
health, Will Wallace Harney had become a Widower.
Six weeks after Harney’s wife
died, Sheriff David W. Mizell, Jr.,
on February 21, 1870, was shot and
killed in an ambush in south Orange County. The Sheriff’s parents lived across the
lake from Will Harney, while one of the accused murderers, John J. Barber, lived south of Harney on Lake Conway. The lifeless body of yet another of the accused, Moses E. Barber, was found in Lake
Conway, not far from Harney’s Pine
Castle residence. Some said Moses Barber had drowned. Others said no, he
had been murdered.
As Harney’s infant son was
turning one in June of 1870, Will
learned of his father-in-law’s failed attempt at constructing Orange County’s
first railroad. The long tiring journey from Mellonville to Harney’s homestead
on Lake Conway was to remain long and tiring, hardly a prime location for founding
a new town.
One could even make the argument
that 1870 Orange County didn’t have
a town. Orlando was still a four (4)
acre village, occupying land donated to the county in 1857. Would be towns of Apopka,
Fort Reid, and Mellonville were places where one could buy goods. Not one of these
places had yet filed a town plat. And so for Will Wallace Harney there was no incentive
to consider establishing a city, not during his early years as a resident of Orange
County.
The hurricane of 1871 brought an entirely new set of
problems for the locals, Harney included. Repairing extensive property damage
meant little or no time to deal with such frivolous matters as town building. The
storm (Chapter 8: Harney’s Hurricane) left behind dead cattle, giant trees
uprooted, and many of the crops destroyed.
Throughout the decade of the 1870s
settlers had little reason to imagine being town developers. Putting food on
the family table continued to be their full time job.
But agents of change were
gathering at Orange County, and it’s easy to understand why locals may not have
at first noticed. Settlers began to find their way south to Orange County.
Veterans of the Civil War came for grants of land, given to retired warriors in
lieu of wages. Confederate Veterans came first, followed soon after by a number
of Union Veterans.
RESERVE
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First
Road to Orlando, Second Edition 2015 ended at Fort Gatlin
NOW THE JOURNEY CONTINUES
November, 2017
