Cowboys
& Lawyers: Part 4
Central
Florida Attorneys of the 19th Century
A
series inspired by Pine Castle Historical Society’s book,
Will
Wallace Harney: Orlando’s First Renaissance Man
By
Richard Lee Cronin
A
SINCERE THANK YOU to Seminole County’s Inns of Court, an organization of
dedicated Attorneys & Judges, for inviting me to talk at their
January 22, 2020 gathering. I truly enjoyed discussing the unique role legal
professionals have played in the 19th century development and
founding of central Florida’s 19th Century Citrus-Belt.
The Honorable James Gamble Speer of
#Oakland
For those familiar with modern day central Florida, it
is a challenge to imagine a journey of 25 miles on horseback - from Lake Monroe
south to Lake Conway – during which time you see not more than a half dozen
hardy cowboys and perhaps a log cabin or two. Such however was the first 1854 journey
made by Attorney and Judge, James Gamble Speer.
Honorable James
Gamble Speers (1820-1893)
Early
Settlers of Orange County by C. E. Howard (1915)
One could argue a village would have been established on
Lake Monroe’s south shore eventually anyway, but the first want-to-be town that
did take hold was Mellonville, birthplace of today’s Orlando to Tampa I-4
“corridor”. Present day county seats Sanford (a mile west of Mellonville); Orlando;
Kissimmee; and even Lakeland; are not where they are by accident. Each are there
because of an aggressive plan first hatched nearly 170 seventy years ago. And attorneys
and Judges, each traveling central Florida’s wilderness via horseback, aka “traveling
a circuit”, were among the visionaries of a string of settlements to link Lake
Monroe with the Gulf of Mexico.
More than handlers of legalities, a plethora of
pioneers holding law degrees actively engaged in attempting to transform 3,000
square miles of rugged cattle country into settlements. Literally dozens of
cowboy-lawyers were attracted to central Florida during the second half of the
1800s, and without question, the best-known of all was the Honorable James
Gamble Speer.
His long-life span earned Speer a headline in the history
of a developing central Florida. Twice a husband and eight times a father, the
legacy of James G. Speer lived on in central Florida thanks in large part to his
numerous descendants keeping alive the man’s role in developing the region.
James G. Speer was also the brother-in-law, through his
first marriage, of “Benjamin F. Caldwell of Talladega”, the land donor for
Orange County’s courthouse at “Orlando”.
Historians have long credited James G. Speer and
Benjamin F. Caldwell as founders of Orlando, although not much was ever known
of the latter. Legal records at the courthouse establish that Caldwell gave four
acres in 1857 for a courthouse location. But as my First Road to Orlando
established, there was an intriguing twist long-missing from the story of
Orlando’s founding. Attorney James G. Speer and Estate-Administrator Caldwell
were related through James Speer’s first wife, Isaphoenia C. (Ellington) Speer.
Isaphoenia C. (Ellington) Speer (1824-1867)
Photo courtesy Winter Garden Heritage Foundation
Isaphoenia was a lineal descendant of several
legendary men named Orlando, including Orlando Jones (1681-1719) of Colonial Williamsburg,
a prominent Attorney. Towns were seldom named using a person’s first name!
Orlando Jones (1681-1719) House at Historic Williamsburg, VA
Recreated from the architectural plan for the Jones house and law practice
The earliest years of the James Speer family at
central Florida are unclear. Unlike most pioneers of the 19th
century, Attorney James G. Speer never applied for a homestead. Private James
Speer enlisted at Fort Gatlin in Orange County’s 1856 militia, but there is no
record of land purchases until 1858, and even then, land acquisitions were
deeded to the wife, Isaphoenia C. Speer.
Isaphoena accumulated large parcels along the shore of
Lake Apopka - where Winter Garden and Oakland are today. James G. Speer and Mary
E. (Jackson), his second wife, founded the town of Oakland on this property three
(3) decades later, in 1886.
In 1854, the Speer’s arrived at the ghost town of
Mellonville. Their first Orange County steps were taken on private property.
Now part of Seminole County, the homestead upon Speer and family crossed had
been established as Mellonville in 1843 - and abandoned in 1850 after the Moses
E. Levy Spanish Land Grant was decreed “official” by the U. S. Supreme Court.
After the 1850 decree, amended surveys discovered the old Mellonville pier to
be part of the Levy Grant. Hence, the homestead entry was vided. But when Speer arrived in central Florida, Moses
Levy no longer owned the property. He had sold all 20,000 acres.
Attorney Joseph J. Finegan of Fernandina in Nassau county
was buyer, but Finegan had done nothing to develop the land during the 1850s.
Four years before Speer arrived at Mellonville, the Orange
County census of 1850 found only 250 residents south of Lake Monroe. Another
250 residents lived north of Mellonville, across Lake Monroe, land that became part
of a new Volusia county the same year James G. Speer and family arrived at
Mellonville. But change was very much in the air in 1854.
Volusia County was awakening in 1854. Enterprise of
Orange County became Enterprise of Volusia County, and new arriving settlers were
taking notice of that vast wilderness.
Ideas were also being hatched though for land south of
Lake Monroe. Two miles inland, at the village of Fort Reid, lived Attorney James
G. Speer’s cousin, Dr. Algernon S. Speer. Algernon was then married to his
second wife, Julia Hart, daughter of Isaiah David Hart, the founder of Jacksonville,
Florida’s gate city. Hart, father of two attorneys, both active in State
government, had big plans for Fort Reid.
Algernon Speer was himself a member in 1854 of
Florida’s State House of Representatives. And it seemed the perfect time to
appoint an official county seat for Orange County. Fort Reid, a mile east of
present-day Sanford, was considered the natural “contender” – and most even
considered it a done deal. Isaiah Hart had purchased a large chunk of land at
Fort Reid, and held all the cards necessary, so it seemed, to make Fort Reid
the hub of Orange County.
But by year end 1856, newcomer James G. Speer, a
resident Attorney of less than two years, had somehow pulled off the impossible.
Not even a town yet - Orlando, smack dab in the middle of nowhere, somehow won the
coveted title of Orange County seat.
James G. Speer had not performed his magic alone. How
he turned a cow pasture into the ‘Town of Orlando’ however is a story that must
wait until later in this series, for to appreciate the story of Orlando, there
are others, many of whom were Attorneys and Judges, who were “behind the scenes”
players.
Next Friday, Cowboys & Lawyers with introduce Attorney
Joseph J. Finegan.
For more on the Speer family of central Florida
CitrusLAND: Curse of Florida's Paradise
CitrusLAND: Ghost Towns & Phantom Trains
First Road to Orlando
COWBOYS & LAWYERS - INSPIRED BY:
Chapter 6: Cowboys &
Lawyers, Will Wallace Harney: Orlando’s First Renaissance Man, by
Richard Lee Cronin, and 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!”
And; 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 CroninBooks.COM
booth at Pine Castle Pioneer Days, February 22 & 23, 2019.
Also, CroninBooks will
have a booth at the Osceola Spring Festival February 29, 2020.
Books also available at
Winter Garden Heritage Foundation Museum and Amazon.com
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