Cowboys & Lawyers: Part 1 - D. R. Mitchell

Cowboys & Lawyers: Part 1

Central Florida Attorneys of the 19^th Century

A CroninBooks.com 2020 Blog Series adapted from

Will Wallace Harney: Orlando’s First Renaissance Man

The Honorable Daniel Randolph Mitchell of #Tuskawilla

He established, in 1874, the town of Tuskawilla - on Lake Jesup’s southwest shore. Part of Orange County then, Seminole County now, many locals know his planned sprawling community as Mitchell Hammock. At times referred to as the Mitchell Grant, Attorney Daniel Randolph Mitchell, a resident of Rome, Georgia, acquired 8,133 acres of the original Moses Levy Spanish Land Grant at a time when fewer than 1,200 inhabitants called Orange, Osceola and Seminole counties home. Attorney Mitchell bought the land from Attorney Joseph J. Finegan of Fernandina, closing on the massive land acquisition on the 7^th of October 1859.

Daniel Randolph Mitchell, (1803-1876)

Courtesy Kay Stafford at Find-A-Grave

Orange County was little more than pastureland in 1859, and horseback was the only means of personal transportation for those few who dared to live in central Florida's wilderness. News-Tribune of Rome, Georgia featured their own 19^th century founding Mitchell family in an article dated December 5, 1971, saying of D. R. Mitchell’s Lake Jesup acquisition: “it was the most extensive venture of his life.” (At the time, it was one of the most extensive ventures in Orange County's life as well). The news article went on to say that Mitchell enjoyed the Florida climate and believed in the "county’s future.” But 18 months after closing on the Lake Jesup property, Civil War erupted.

The Mitchell family spent much of the War's duration, said The News-Tribune, in Florida. Federal troops had taken possession of their Georgia home, and used it as a hospital for convalescing Union troops. And even after the War, Daniel and his family lived part of the year at “Tuskawilla”, a post-War town Mitchell founded on Lake Jesup.

Plat of Tuskawilla, Orange County, Florida (1874)

Red Arrows show the Fort Mellon to Fort Gatlin Road, aka,

First Road to Orlando, Red Square is Town of Tuskawilla

Daniel R. Mitchell died at his Orange County home in 1876 at age 73. Two years before his death however, he witnessed his Tuskawilla property being subdivided into “lots ranging in size from five to 125 acres”. James W. Hicks, Mitchell’s son-in-law, surveyed the town in 1874. Planning for the town of Sanford, north of Mitchell’s property, was still in its infancy when Tuskawilla was filed at the Orange County seat in Orlando. Still a tiny village of only four acres, a year later, during the summer of 1875, Orlando would finally be incorporated as a city.

Tuskawilla of 1874 was 8,133 acres in size. Orlando was still only 4 acres, but would grow to be one square mile the following year.

Will Wallace Harney first arrived at Orange County in 1869. On his first journey from Lake Monroe to Orlando – 22 miles on the First Road to Orlando – he wrote of not seeing the first house or store after leaving Lake Monroe. Harney wrote in March of 1871 of a young Kentuckian, Michael McCardle, who died in an accidental shooting at Lake Jesup, while hunting “on the property of Mr. Mitchell".

The pen of Harney wrote again of Mitchell’s Lake Jesup land in February of 1873, recording for history that a young visionary, George C. Brantley, opened “Jessup (sic) Wharf. He gets a dozen miles closer to Orlando,” wrote Harney, “and his improvement there will give the Lake Conway region a port within a day’s travel.” Two years later, Harney wrote of George Brantley’s plan to build a railroad from Lake Jesup’s Tuskawilla to Orlando, a railroad that would then continue on toward the Gulf of Mexico.

Intersection today of Orange Avenue and Tuskawilla Road near Lake Jesup

Following the death of Daniel R. Mitchell in 1876, son in laws James W. Hicks and Dr. John H. Harris tried to continue development at Tuskawilla, but a re-alignment of the road to Orlando so as not to cross over Mitchell land, a Yellow Fever epidemic of 1887, and Florida’s Great Freeze of 1894-95, combined to be too much for even the best of developers. Hicks and Harris however became instrumental in developing Orlando and Sanford.    

    

Daniel R. Mitchell (1803-1876) was but one of dozens of 19^th century Attorneys who took a special interest in establishing Florida’s emerging Citrus Belt. Lawyers on horseback – and "Circuit" Judges - were central Florida cowboys of the 1870s and 1880s. These Cowboys and Lawyers affected the lives of each of us who live, work and play in central Florida today.

Abandoned Tuskawilla Road to Lake Jesup Wharf

In the case of Daniel R. Mitchell, thousands who today travel Tuskawilla Road and or Mitchell Hammock Road, journey pathways first traveled via horseback - in 1859 - by a Georgia Attorney who believed in the future of central Florida. He truly was a visionary.

Part Two of ‘Cowboys and Lawyers’ will feature the Honorable Joseph McRoberts Baker of Jacksonville – a mystery Attorney of Orange and Sumter County - and a Gatlin Hill homesteader.

COWBOYS & LAWYERS WAS INSPIRED BY:

Chapter 6: Cowboys & Lawyers, Will Wallace Harney: Orlando’s First Renaissance Man, by Richard Lee Cronin, published by Pine Castle Historical Society: “Author Cronin sets the stage for his Harney biography with little known facts about pioneer Florida, where he corrects history and then expands it 100 fold!” Pine Castle's Pioneer Days, February 22 & 23 of 2020, will be celebrating the arrival - 150 years ago this year - of Will Wallace Harney. Pick up your author's signed copy of this book at Pioneer Days (Admission to Pioneer Days will be FREE this year.) 

And, this series was also inspired by the Central Florida research of Richard Lee Cronin and his books: First Road to Orlando; Beyond Gatlin, A History of South Orange County; CitrusLAND: Curse of Florida’s Paradise; Orlando Lakes: Homesteaders & Namesakes; The Rutland Mule Matter; CitrusLAND: Ghost Towns & Phantom Trains.

VISIT the CroninBooks.COM booth at Pine Castle Pioneer Days, February 22 & 23, 2019.