Sanford & St. Petersburg
Railroad Engine #6 (left); Edward T. Stotesbury (right)
50 States
of central Florida, Part 1:
Builders of America’s 19th century Paradise in
Florida arrived from nearly every corner of the world. Amazing pioneers,
dreamers and doers, they selected land locations in a wide swath of a Citrus
Belt stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. A courageous
bunch of guys and gals, the pioneers came to Florida as well from parts of
every modern day State.
All 50 States played a role in founding central Florida, and
CitrusLAND will pay tribute to such remarkable individuals each Sunday
throughout the summer of 2018, doing so in the order States were admitted to
our Union of States. This week our spotlight shines on Delaware, our Nation’s first State,
admitted December 7, 1787; and Pennsylvania, admitted as State #2 on
December 12, 1787.
DELAWARE:
ORLANDO
CITIZENS BANK was insolvent by 1894, but reopened only months before Florida’s great freeze of 1895, reorganized under the guidance of
a DELAWARE native, ISAAC W. C. PARKER. He had first owned land at OVIEDO in East Orange County, then
moved to ORLANDO, where after
rescuing a bank, he served as Orange County Tax Collector.
Dr. Joseph F. TANTUM
was listed as afflicted with a disease in Delaware’s 1880 census, and mentioned
in WINTER PARK’S Loring CHASE scrapbook of 1883: “For medical testimony
as to the healthfulness of this region, ask J. R. Tantum, M. D. Of Wilmington,
Delaware.” Our Nation’s first State sent CitrusLAND a bank rescuer along
with a medical doctor who vouched for Orange County as being a healthy place to
live.
The contribution by Parker and Tantum may have helped alter a
view locals had long held about our Nation’s first State. Three decades earlier, when Orlando barely qualified
as a town, three local boys, two of whom were residents of the four acre
Village of Orlando, experienced a very inhospitable DELAWARE.
William B. HULL and
George TERRELL were Orlando
businessmen when both were called to the Civil War battlefields up north. They
were both captured at Gettysburg, and as neither were officers, they were
imprisoned at Fort DELAWARE, on an
island in Delaware Bay.
HULL lived to tell of his experience, TERRELL, the merchant
from Orlando’s Lot 1, did not. He
died a prisoner in October, 1863. William B. WATSON lived at ENTERPRISE,
on the north shore of Lake Monroe, and he too served in the War, as Captain of
WATSON’S Home Guard Unit. Watson was captured at Cook’s Ferry (on Lake Jesup),
and was also imprisoned at Fort DELAWARE.
PENNSYLVANIA:
A Russian immigrant opened up West Orange County for
settlements with the founding of the Orange Belt Railway, but it was a
Philadelphian who assisted the railway financially, including providing the
cash to extend the line to the Gulf of Mexico. Banker Edward T. STOTESBURY of Philadelphia continued on
in 1892 as President of OBRR after founder Peter Demens left the State.
Stotesbury is shown at right in the above post.
CitrusLAND: Ghost Towns &
Phantom Trains journeys
aboard the OBRR with Edward T. Stotesbury days after Florida’s Great
Freeze of 1894-95. This historic novel introduces true-life homesteaders and
towns each founded such as: Sylvan Lake, Island Lake, Glen Ethel, Palm Springs,
Forest City, Toronto, Lakeville, Clarcona, Crown Point, Winter Garden and
Oakland. Along the way you learn of a half-dozen other railroads the OBRR
encountered on its way to Oakland. Note the named President of Orange Belt
Railway in the schedule above, dated April, 1893.
Mary LAMBETH was
yet another remarkable frontierswoman! On 200 acres in what is today Seminole
County, Miss Mary, a native of PENNSYLVANIA, founded Town of ISLAND LAKE, designing her city amidst
an orange grove she herself farmed. The Orange Belt Railway crossed over her
land, making regular stops at Miss Lambeth’s depot. After Florida’s freeze of 1894-95,
she donated her land to the PITTSBURG Orphans Home, and departed Florida. Mary
Lambeth and her town are featured in CitrusLAND:
Ghost Towns & Phantom Trains book.
1887 Plat of Island Lake
Hamilton DISSTON of
Philadelphia paid off Florida’s staggering pre-Civil War debt. In 1881, he received four-million acres of
public lands, at $0.25 per acre, in exchange for $1,000,000. Disston’s saw
manufacturing business, a firm founded by his father and is today DISSTON TOOL
Company, had made the transaction possible.
Many Pennsylvania’s deserve mention, but as space is limited,
I’ll mention two others. Jane MURRAY
of NEW SMYRNA, one of only three
females in the 1840 central Florida
census, was one amazing frontierswoman, while Philadelphia Attorney James M. WILLCOX, first of MAITLAND and later of Orlando, are deserving of special
recognition.
For more
on CitrusLAND and 19th century central FLORIDA:
The Orange Belt Railway and Edward T. Stotesbury are featured
in: CitrusLAND: Ghost Towns & Phantom Trains. Learn more at my OBRR page at
www.CroninBooks.com or
#MrEdwardT on social media.
Next Sunday: Participants from
New Jersey, Georgia and Connecticut
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