LAVINIA of Central Florida's Fairgrounds

FORGOTTEN NO LONGER:

Lady Lavinia of Orange County’s Fairgrounds:

Lake Lawne at Orange County’s Fairground is the 20^th century name of a 19^th century body of water first known as Lake Lavinia. Barnett Park enjoys the use of the lake too, but the lake had already been renamed when Gordon Barnett Park opened in the 1950s. A 19^th century Orange County map, as well as a 1910 recorded deed (shown above and on page 173 of Orlando Lakes: Homesteaders & Namesakes), are evidence of the original 1880s named lake, an early lake name which had gone missing from the incredible story of central Florida.

Mary Lavinia (Hendricks) Peek (1843-1897) however is no longer lost to Orange County history. And despite the lake honoring the wife of a New York sawmill operator not surviving down through the ages, a smaller lake, named for the man’s only daughter, is still known today by the name Eben Peek gave it in the 1880s.

The mother and daughter namesakes never made it onto pages of any ‘Who’s Who’ of yesteryear, but both were equally important to the telling of the region’s 19^th century story. Homesteaders played a huge role in laying out the central Florida we know and love today, but absentee landowners likewise played big roles in shaping the area. Eben B. Peek – one such absentee landowner, named Lake Lavinia for his wife nearly 135 years ago, and also Lake Lotta, west of Lavinia several miles, for his only daughter.

Mary Lavinia Hendrick, born 1843, married Eben Peek in New York State around the start of America’s Civil War. He then went off to war with his Union comrades, while his young pregnant bride remained home, giving birth August 24, 1862 to their first child, Eben Augustus Peek.

By War’s end, the reunited Peek’s were living in New York City, where Eben B. Peek listed his occupation in 1870 and 1880 as a “Sawmill Proprietor”. His 28 year old bride in 1870 gave her name as “Lavinia,” raising three children, the youngest being 10 year old, “Lotta L. Peek.” (A later document identifies Peek’s only daughter as “Lotta Lavinia Peek”.)

By 1884, the New York City sawmill proprietor was partnering with a New York City dealer in “Yellow Pine” lumber. During the early 1880s, pine dealer Robert Sherwood and Eben Peek began buying up a considerable amount of land in central Florida (Lake Sherwood straddles Colonial Drive east of Lake Lotta). Orange County’s official 1890 map shows all three named lakes (below). Lakes Sherwood and Lotta are still known by their original names today.

Tree farming was obviously the reason for the two partners buying Orange County land. Peek acquired 300 plus acres surrounding present day Lake Lawne in March 1884, and then, with partner Robert Sherwood, acquired acreage further west later the same year.

The Peek’s likely became snowbirds as well, and their first born son, Eben Augustus Peek, was in 1887 operating an Orlando nursery on Central Avenue. Mary Lavinia (Hendricks) Peek died at New York City December 4, 1894, only days before the first of two wintry blasts reached Florida and wiped out central Florida’s citrus industry.

Lotta L. Peek married a few years after her mother’s death, and in February of 1913, she and husband Henry Palmer King, both New York City residents, signed an Orange County deed as heirs of “Eben & Mary Lavinia Peek”. The document not only assists in learning about several Orange County lakes, it attests as well to previously unknown Peek family history by stating dates of death. After stating the death of Mary L. Peek as December 4, 1894, the deed further states: “whereas Mary L. Peek died during the life time of her husband and the said Eben Peek died intestate on the 1^st day of December, 1912.”

Lakes Lavinia, Lotta and Sherwood not only serve as important links to the story of a developing 19^th century central Florida region, these lakes assist in filling in missing family history as well. A Canadian native, Robert Sherwood lived in New York City as well, and died there in 1912, the same year as Eben B. Peek.

Florida’s Great Freeze wiped out many a landowner, those living in central Florida as well as absentee landowners such as the Peek and Sherwood families. By the census of 1900, the population of Orange County, Florida had actually decreased from that of a decade earlier, part of the devastation caused by Florida’s Great Freeze. Thousands of acres of abandoned land were sold years later to anyone willing to pay the unpaid taxes, which brought about a new round of land speculators willing to take a chance.

Willis Munger of Missouri was just such a land speculator, purchasing hundreds of vacant homesteads throughout Orange County. One such parcel included Section 20 in West Orange County, land including Lake Lavinia. But then came the land bust and Great Depression, and years later, much of the land around the long abandoned lake was sold again, to a couple in South Florida. The land was deeded to their business that was based out of Fort Lauderdale, Lawne Lake Corporation.

Mary Lavinia (Hendricks) Peek is featured in Lake Lavinia on page 172-173 of my book, Orlando Lakes: Homesteaders & Namesakes. Lake Lotta is profiled on page 183, and Lake Sherwood on pages 269-270.

FAMILIES of the VILLAGE

The founders of ORLANDO

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ORLANDO LAKES: Homesteaders & Namesakes, is an encyclopedia of central Florida lakes, profiling the origins of 303 historic lakes from Eustis and Sanford in the north to Kissimmee in the south. In the 19^th century, all roads led to Orlando!

Now available at Winter Garden Heritage Foundation as well as Amazon.com. I invite you to check out ORLANDO LAKES: Homesteaders & Namesakes. You can do so simply by clicking on the convenient link below:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=orlando+lakes+homesteaders+%26+namesakes&crid=20A2UMNWOH7VM&sprefix=Orlando+Lakes+%2Caps%2C181&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_14

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