Part Nine: The HULL
Family of Orlando
Most every key to
unlocking the intriguing mystery of Orlando’s origin is consistently found to
be a woman! It’s true! Like that of the obscure Caldwell family’s connection with
Lady Isaphoenia Speer, even the reasons for pioneers Thomas H. Harris, Jr.
(Part 8), and William Benjamin HULL, Jr. of this installment, first came to a
remote central Florida wilderness was because of a woman. So, in order to learn
why they founded the village of Orlando, we must delve into the genealogy of
each amazing frontierswoman who arrived in the 1850s as well.
William
Benjamin & Emily Harriett (Watson) Hull
William Benjamin HULL,
Jr. was 26 years old when he and his bride Emily came to central Florida with
his grandfather, arriving on Christmas Day 1855. A biography of William,
published in 1915, tells of their arriving in Orange County with a party of 34.
Migrating from Georgia’s Cobb County, the Hull’s settled first at Fort Reid, a
mile east of today’s Sanford, but then, in 1855, not much else existed in all
of Orange County than the tiny settlement of Fort Reid.
As stated in last week’s installment
of Families of the Village, Thomas H. HARRIS, Jr. also arrived in Orange County
during 1855. Harris had come to Florida from Cobb County in Georgia as well,
and their common arrival date was not coincidental!
12 Chapters, each beginning with a biography of an amazing
19th century central Florida frontierswoman: CroninBooks.com
CitrusLAND: Curse of Florida’s Paradise, Second Edition 2016
A Village of Orlando did
not yet exist on Christmas Day 1855, but Caldwell’s of Talladega had at that
time already made a lasting imprint on central Florida. William Harris &
Obedience Caldwell signed a June 13, 1855 deed at Talladega, Alabama, a
document recorded at Orange County, in which they named daughter, Isaphoenia C.
Speer, as a resident of Orange County. Between signing the deed and the Christmas
Day arrival of Harris and Hull, William H. Caldwell died at Talladega.
A family’s plan for
central Florida was already in motion though, only now, after the death of that
family’s Patriarch, other members of the family would take on the task of carrying
the plan through to fruition. The plan? Establish a county seat along a new
railroad route connecting Lake Monroe with Tampa Bay. Sound absurd?
The newly enacted Florida
Internal Improvement Fund, designed by Florida’s General Assembly to improve transportation
by building railroads and canals, took affect January 6, 1855. Governor James
E. Broome, neighbor, friend and relative of Benjamin F. Whitner, Sr., father of
the Surveyor Benjamin F. Whitner, Jr., became the first Chairman of the Fund’s
board. Arthur M. Randolph of Tallahassee, also a surveyor, was appointed the
Fund’s official surveyor. Benjamin Whitner Junior had recently completed 540
square miles of surveys in South Orange County and had purchased a considerable
amount of acreage surrounding today’s Lake Gatlin.
Awarded the 2017 Historian Award by Pine
Castle Historical Society
Beyond Gatlin: A History of South Orange
County
CroninBooks.com
Across Lake Monroe from
Mellonville, residents on the lake’s north shore were about to celebrate the
first anniversary of Volusia County as Harris and Hull arrived in 1855. Formed December
29, 1854, largely from Orange County, Volusia County had confiscated all of
Orange County’s prime oceanfront property – as well as half of the 1850
population of 500 courageous pioneers. Sanford wasn’t to be for another two
decades. Of seven Orange County post offices when Volusia County was formed,
only two were still located in Orange County after Volusia arrived on the
scene.
Newcomers to the south
shore of Lake Monroe, like Harris and Hull, had but a small pier awaiting at the
recently abandoned Orange County port of entry called Mellonville. A U. S.
Supreme Court 1850 decree in favor of Moses Levy’s Spanish Land Grant caused
the canceling in April 1850 of Henry A. Crane’s homestead, upon which was
located the old fort and pier.
“One must take a buggy and follow the picturesque old Fort
Mellon Road among the groves and gardens of a prior generation.” South Florida
Railroad, 1887
First Road to Orlando: The Mellonville to Orlando Road
CroninBooks.com (2015)
With the lakeside town of
Mellonville abandoned, a tiny village of Fort Reid awaited any pioneer brave
enough to venture inland nearly two miles. In 1855, Orange County’s Fort Reid
was it! There was of course Jernigan Post Office, established May 1850 in the
vicinity of today’s Orlando, but Jernigan served a widely scattered community
of only a hand full of families. Homes and stores were nonexistent in 1855 along
the lonely sand rutted trail south from Fort Reid to the abandoned Fort Gatlin
at trail’s end.
As desolate as Fort Gatlin was in 1855, within three days of
the Hull family arriving at Fort Reid, Thomas HULL, on December 28, 1855,
purchased 120 acres two miles east of Fort Gatlin – acreage fronting what is
today Lake George. Thomas Hull bypassed 28 miles of uninhabited wilderness, a
full day’s ride from Fort Reid, to settle on land in the middle of nowhere. And
Thomas HULL was 83 years old when he arrived at Orange County. After burying
Winifred (Evans) Hull at Cobb County in 1853, his wife of 55 years, Thomas Hull
joined 33 others in a land party heading south to central Florida. But why did
they come to Orange County?
Thomas & Winifred
(Evans) Hull lived at Georgia’s Cobb County during the 1850 census. Their neighbor
was James McDowell Watson, wife Nancy, and seven children. One of the seven
children was Emily H. Watson, age 14, the future bride of William Benjamin
Hull, Jr.
Nancy Watson however was
Emily Harriett Watson’s stepmother. James McDowell Watson’s first wife had died
in 1842, when Emily was but 5 years old. The biological mother of Emily
Harriett (Watson) Hull was Anne Harris, daughter of Thomas & Martha (Moffett)
Harris (1808-1842). Remember John Moffett Harris, son of Thomas H. Harris, Jr.
of last week? Anne Harris was a sister of Thomas H. HARRIS, Jr.
Isaphoenia C. (Ellington)
Speer and her stepbrother Benjamin F. Caldwell were born at Abbeville, South
Carolina. So too were Anne (Harris) Watson and her brother, Thomas H. Harris, a
niece and nephew of William Harris Caldwell, father/stepfather of Benjamin and
Isaphoenia. One big happy family, it appears, was gathering in the wilderness
of Orange County, Florida.
AND THE WINNER IS...
An election was called
for October 16, 1856 in which all 73 registered Orange County voters were asked
to vote on where Orange County’s Courthouse should be located. The winning
location, wrote historian and UCF Professor Paul W. Wehr in his book ‘From
Mosquito to Orange County’ (2016), published by the Pine Castle Historical
Society, was not a town, but rather: “Section
26, Township 22 Range 29, south and east.”
Survey Section 26, Township 22 South;
Range 29 East
Fort Mellon to Fort Gatlin Road inside
red rectangle
Rather than selecting a town,
31 votes, a majority, chose a “surveyed region” over “Orangeburg, [27 votes],
Fort Reed (sic) [13 votes], Centre [1 vote] and Lake Monroe [1 vote].”
The one square mile
Section 26, Township 22 South; Range 29 East is today bordered by Colonial
Drive (SR Hwy 50) on the north; Westmoreland Drive on the west; South Street on
the South; and Palmetto (near Rosalind Avenue) on the east. A landmass 640
acres, the only notable land feature in 1856 was a short stretch of the Fort
Mellon to Fort Gatlin Road crossing the “southeast quarter.”
Voters cast ballots in
October 1856. The Orlando Post Office was established September 19, 1857.
Benjamin F. Caldwell’s deed, giving four acres for a courthouse site, was signed
October 5, 1857, the exact same day of Governor James E. Broome’s final day in
office. Fort Mellon to Fort Gatlin Road took on a new name, “Mellonville Road,”
although for that brief portion passing through the new town of Orlando it
became known as “Main Street,” or Magnolia Avenue as it is known today.
William & Emily Hull had
relocated from Fort Reid to Orlando, but when the Civil War began, William enlisted
with Captain Joshua Mizell’s regiment. Emily remained at Orlando running their boarding
house for the occasional traveler in need of rest. Injured twice, William
Benjamin Hull was captured at Gettysburg and imprisoned at Fort Delaware until
War’s end. (George Terrell, an Orlando neighbor, was also taken prisoner at
Gettysburg, sent to Fort Delaware, but he died there. Twelve thousand prisoners,
said Prison Dr. Mitchell, were held on an island capable of perhaps holding
four thousand. Dr. Mitchell wrote of “an
astronomical number of deaths daily).”
William B. Hull however
had been among the fortunate. At War’s end he was released, transported as far
south as Palatka, where he walked home to his Emily. He and Emily then sold their
Orlando town lots, to William A. Lovell, and settled instead on the outskirts
of Orange County’s seat.
Orlando was not able to establish
itself during its brief history prior to the Civil War. There was no time build
a courthouse, no time to construct a railroad. Four years of War followed by a
long military Reconstruction Period meant town building had to wait.
“U.
S. Provost Marshal, Mellonville, FL July 24, 1865: “On behalf of Mrs. Isaac N. Rutland,
I make request that a certain mule, the property of her husband, which is now
in possession of the United States, be returned to her, Respectfully, Deputy
Naval Officer, C. D. Lincoln.”
The Rutland Mule Matter, by Richard Lee
Cronin
CroninBooks.com (2015)
The “Abbeville Consortium,” did in fact accomplish their primary goal:
Orlando became Orange County’s seat of government. But would their town survive
the test of time? Fact is, Orlando would likely have become a Ghost Town had it
not been for a “Palatka Consortium,”
a fascinating bunch of guys who – for very special reasons – kept a family’s
dream alive.
Next
Friday, June 7, 2019: The “Abbeville Consortium” Reunion
Friday,
June 14: The Reid / Reed / Read family of the “Palatka Consortium”
IS THIS A FUN SUMMER OR WHAT?
“First
Road to Orlando” is a history of the old Fort Mellon to Fort Gatlin Road and of
how a tiny village in the middle of a remote wilderness became the Orange
County seat of government.
My
Orlando Founding Families Series delves deeper into the courageous people who
found their way down a lonely dusty forts trail – and became the first families
to settle Orlando.
Central Florida History by Richard Lee Cronin
Visit my Amazon author page by clicking on the link below
FOR MORE ON CENTRAL FLORIDA HISTORY
First Road to Orlando: The Fort Mellon to Fort Gatlin Road
And beyond TRAIL’S
END;
Beyond Gatlin: A History of South Orange County
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