Cowboys
& Lawyers: Part 8
Attorneys
of 19th Century Central Florida
A
series inspired by Pine Castle Historical Society’s
Will
Wallace Harney: Orlando’s First Renaissance Man
By
Richard Lee Cronin
The Honorable William Wallace Harney of
Lake Conway
Special Pine Castle Pioneer Days 2020 Edition
Will Wallace Harney
Saturday, February 22 & Sunday, February 23
Cypress Grove Park, 290 W. Holden, Orlando
Saturday 9 AM to 5 PM; Sunday 10 AM to 4 PM
Attorney Archer Phillips of 1869, said Will Wallace
Harney, “was a graduate of law, he could put up his shingle,” meaning an
‘Attorney-at-Law’ sign, “but for some time business would seek more
experienced advisers.” A member of Kentucky’s State Bar, Archer Phillips had
relocated to central Florida at a time when only 1,170 residents lived in all of
Orange County. How many lawyers, one might logically ask, could earn a living
in a county with fewer than 1,200 potential clients?
Will
Wallace Harney Novelette (Second line from bottom)
Phillips apparently realized early on that legal
professionals, in large numbers, had taken interest in Harney’s new homeland. Having
left the love of his life back in the Blue Grass State, Attorney Archer
Phillips had traveled to Florida alone. “It was part of his imaginative character
that he selected Florida. It is the only State,” Harney wrote, “which its
origin and history has the air of romance. It lies on our western Mediterranean.
Stern Spanish bigots, heroic statesmen and soldiers, rough naval adventurers,
cruel speculators, have alike pictured it as the El Dorado.”
Archer planned to have Judith join him in Florida
later – after he had settled in and built a home for her. Perhaps, while
writing about Attorney Archer, author Will Wallace Harney had wished he had
done the same. A graduate of law school as well, Harney had buried the love of
his life – Mary St. Mayer (Randolph) Harney – within weeks of their arrival at
Orange County.
Attorneys Archer Phillips and William Wallace Harney clearly
had a lot in common. In fact, the biggest difference between the two was reality.
You see, Harney was a real “character”, whereas Attorney Archer Phillips was a figment
of Will Harney’s imagination.
Published by Southern Bivouac Magazine in 1886, Archer
Phillips, much like Will Harney, had departed Kentucky for the wilds of Florida
in 1869. Was Archer only a fictitious character? “If this experiment of
giving up all the advantages of education and training was a mistake, it was
terrible one!” Archer Phillips questioned the wisdom of moving to Florida.
Or had Will Harney himself questioned the wisdom of his move south?
Harney's Historic Pine Castle
Harney’s Lake Conway homestead was established 150
years ago this month. Arriving at Fort Reid during the last days of
1869, he then buried his true love days after the dawn of the new decade. The
year 1870 was the start of a central Florida Renaissance, the year Harney settled
on the banks of Lake Conway, and the year he began clearing and grubbing his homestead.
Archer Phillips, wrote Harney, also began clearing his land in 1870. “All
about him were the marks of his labor. He had been at it all morning and had
cleared a space about the size of a family dining table.”
William Wallace Harney had practiced law at Louisville,
Kentucky prior to joining his family’s newspaper business in that same city. His
legal expertise - combined with editorial skills – then made it possible to both
identify and write about Florida’s rampant land fraud. Harney wrote of such fraud
soon after arriving in Florida. He continued to expose the “robbery and
extortion practiced by Federal and carpet-bag officials upon the people of the Southern
States.”
Another Attorney Will Harney wrote about was Colonel
Alton, a self-described old-fashioned lawyer and politician. In February 1869, Attorney
Alton, wrote Harney, met a Southern Belle in Tallahassee who needed a lawyer having
political clout. Alton was happy to assist. “She is here on business. She
has some claims that may require legislative action.”
City Building in the South, penned
by Will Wallace Harney, introduced yet another client of Mr. Alton’s. And yes, Alton
is also a fictitious character, as is the other client, Mr. Basil Rankin.
In a four-part series, Harney tells of a railroad, the
Lopez Land Grant, and a voyage in search of land belonging rightfully to a ‘Southern
Belle’. “The scenery on the St. Johns; the linked lakes, like a string of
beads, the innumerable shades of green,” and a landing, “Melonville, or
Millionville, as it was called, seemed to be the general entry point.”
Two Novelettes written by Harney speak of Attorneys
busy at work developing central Florida’s vast wilderness. Novels? Perhaps to
an extent, but the very last paragraph of Will Harney’s 1887 City Building
in the South concludes with this statement: “So, under the veil of
fiction, has been told the story of the founding of one American city and
county.”
Eight installments of this series have thus far introduced
a plethora of legal professionals, lawyers and judges who, in the 19th
century, had been intent on transforming a wilderness into major new
settlements. This weekend, Pine Castle Pioneer Days provides a perfect setting
in which we can celebrate the eventual success of those amazing legal
professionals.
COME
CELEBRATE AT CYPRESS GROVE PARK!
Next Friday, on the eve of Women’s History Month,
you will meet an Attorney who arrived in central Florida on a specific mission.
He did not come as a settler. He did homestead. His reason for coming to Orange
County was to rescue its county seat. This lawyer from Lake City came to save
the settlement of Orlando from extinction. That’s next Friday, and then,
a week later, in a special Women’s History Month blog, you will meet his
little-known sister – a long-overlooked central Florida frontierswoman I call - Sarah
of Lake Conway – quite likely the most convincing key to finally solving the long-standing mystery of Orlando’s origin!
IF
YOU LIKE HISTORY, YOU WILL LOVE PIONEER DAYS!
AND
ADMISSION IS FREE THIS YEAR!
This year, Pine Castle Pioneer Days is celebrating the
150th Anniversary of the arrival of Will Wallace Harney and William
M. Randolph to central Florida. Cronin Books is once again having a booth – our
third year. Look too for my article in the Pioneer Days Magazine, you can picka
copy at the front gate – and its free also.
Will Wallace
Harney: Orlando’s First Renaissance Man
By Richard Lee Cronin
Commissioned by
Pine Castle Historical Society
More than a
biography of one pioneer – this is a biography of Orange County
I invite you as well to stop at the Pine Castle
Historical Society ‘History Tent’, where every hour on the hour, from 10 AM to
3 PM Saturday and Sunday, guest speakers will present on a variety of
fascinating topics.
1
PM Saturday & Sunday
Richard Lee Cronin
A
Tribute to 150 years of Orange County Educators
Be sure to stop by my CroninBooks.com booth and say
hello. I’d love to talk central Florida history with you.
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