Cowboys & Lawyers - Part 12

Cowboys & Lawyers: Part 12

Attorneys of 19^th Century Central Florida

A series inspired by Pine Castle Historical Society’s

Will Wallace Harney: Orlando’s First Renaissance Man

By Richard Lee Cronin

A Kittery, Maine Attorney,

A Pine Castle, Florida Lawyer,

Two central Florida Law Partners,

And a second train for Orlando, Florida

This Blog is dedicated to the Kittery, Maine Cronin Clan

Upon arriving at Orlando in Spring of 1885, a visiting lawyer from Maine likely traveled around the city on a handsome surrey, complete with a fringe on top. Horse-drawn carriages by this time had become John G. Sinclair’s way of welcoming newcomers to central Florida. Sinclair Real Estate agents transported potential buyers in style to view potential parcels for acquiring.

Service had made the Sinclair agency at Orlando the county’s largest land sales agency, and the New Hampshire transplant and real estate office founder was already preparing to open a second office in the outer fringes of West Orange County.

John G. Sinclair Real Estate Office, 1884 Orlando, Florida

Attorney John M. Goodwin, life-long resident of Kittery, Maine, would have been no exception to the receiving carriage tour, especially since he came to Orlando in March of 1885 in search of land - not to settle on, but to develop. Attorney John Goodwin, a non-Florida resident, planned to enlarge Orange County’s Seat of Government. The property Goodwin acquired in 1885 is still known today as “Goodwin’s Addition to Orlando”.

Followers of this Cowboys & Lawyers series now know the fascination Attorneys and Judges had, since central Florida’s earliest days, in being developers as well of Florida’s Citrus Belt. Legal professionals accumulated thousands of wilderness acres in the 19^th century, investment property in a sparsely inhabited area (fewer than one person per one-square mile in 1850), land that became the blueprint for how central Florida evolved. For example: Maitland, Orlando, Sanford, and even the outer fringes of West Orange County, Tavares of today’s Lake County, exist in the form they are today because of 19^th century legal professionals.

John Munroe Goodwin, born 1822 in Maine, is memorialized in his native State as a ‘Goodwin of Kittery, Maine’ family. John and Harriett Proctor (Herrick) married in Maine in 1850, raised their family at Biddeford in York County, Maine. Attorney Goodwin founded his legal practice at his hometown, a practice that spanned more than 40 years. He died at Biddeford in 1905. Harriet Goodwin departed this life three years after the death of her husband of 55 years.

Goodwin family memoirs tell us much about the Biddeford, Maine family, but fails to mention the Attorney’s 1885 involvement in expanding the town of Orlando - in faraway central Florida.

John M. Goodwin’s Addition to Orlando, Florida

Officially recorded in 1887, the most historically significant find in reviewing John Goodwin’s “Add to Orlando” is not necessarily what one sees on his land. Sketched by surveyor Abbot, the Goodwin property is shown as bordering the south side of West Robinson Street, west of and adjacent to track belonging to South Florida Railroad (SFRR). Even more interesting though historically is another railroad track shown as bordering the north side of West Robinson, across the street from Goodwin’s property. That second track is identified as (T O & A R R). Having an east-west alignment, this was track laid down by “Tavares, Orlando & Atlantic Railroad”, the second train to service Orlando.

Departing from Tavares, 32 miles of track later delivered passengers and freight to track’s end – at the junction of the north-south track of South Florida Railroad. The first TO&A train arrived at Orlando on July 2, 1885, three months after Attorney John M. Goodwin bought his property.

Take another look at the plat above – specifically to where the two railroad tracks meet, and note an “L” shaded structure. Goodwin’s 1885 Plat provides historical evidence of the planned depot for the Tavares, Orlando & Atlantic Railroad at its junction with South Florida Railroad.

Directly south of the terminal (below above), Attorney John M. Goodwin sold lots 1 thru 5 of Block A to John G. Sinclair, formerly of New Hampshire – at that time of Orlando’s Sinclair Real Estate agency. Thirty-two miles northwest, at the Tavares end of this same track, a few blocks off Sinclair Avenue in that up and coming ‘Darling Settlement of Orange County’, was located John G. Sinclair’s second sales office.

  

Unlike John Goodwin, Isaac Browne decided to swap the frigid New Hampshire winters he had been accustomed to and instead enjoy year-around tropical temperatures in downtown Orlando, Florida. He came to Orange County in 1882, attracted to the area because, quoting fellow New Englander John G. Sinclair, “he wanted to live where the residents of Orange County are free from those sudden climatic changes which are so severe a tax upon the vital energies of residents of the Northern States”. An 1886 directory listed Isaac as an orange grower, living in downtown Orlando on Gertrude Street, north of the Tavares, Orlando & Atlantic Railroad”. (See directory below)   

1886 Webb’s Directory of Orlando, Florida
Orange Grower Isaac A Brown(e) and Attorney William R. Anno

A reporter for the Burlington, Iowa Hawk-Eye interviewed a few Orlando residents in late 1882, and upon returning home, his newspaper published a full page article promoting central Florida. One individual interviewed was identified as “Colonel W. R. Anno, President of the Tavares, Orlando, and Atlantic Railroad”. Four years later, an advertisement for “W. R. Anno, Attorney At Law” appeared on the very page (above) as a resident listing of Orlando orange grower Isaac A. Brown(e), a native of Exeter, New Hampshire.

William R. Anno came to central Florida from Kentucky in the 1870s. Little proof of his one-time existence here remains, although the most obvious landmark is Anno Avenue in historic Pine Castle. Originally West Avenue, Anno and the next two streets to the west were part of an 1884 Addition to Pine Castle by Attorney William R. Anno, President in 1882 of the Tavares, Orlando & Atlantic Railroad.

The other two Pine Castle streets, Maud and Blanche, were named in 1884 by Attorney Anno, but then renamed by the county in 1955. Maud and Blanche were daughters of Pine Castle homesteaders, William R. & Sarah (Nute) Anno.

Attorney W. R. Anno owned another city lot off Maude Street, but this parcel was not part of either Pine Castle or Orlando. Nor had the street been named for Attorney Anno’s daughter.

William R. Anno was deeded, in 1882, a town lot in the newly established city of Tavares. The third lot north of Maud Street on St. Clair-Abrams Avenue, this property was part of a new city which had captured the imagination of most every Orange County resident – and many a New Englander as well.

Maud Street was named for a daughter of Attorney Robert L. Summerlin, Orlando’s Mayor in 1880, whereas St. Clair-Abrams Avenue was named for Attorney Alexander St. Clair-Abrams. Partners in an 1878 Orlando Law firm, the two also became, for a brief 14 months, partners in the 1881 formation of the town of Tavares.

While one can drive St. Clair-Abrams Avenue and Maud Street today, it is no longer possible to drive Summerlin Avenue of 1882. After dissolving their partnership, Summerlin was renamed – twice – the second time to Rockingham Avenue, in “compliment to Hon. Frank Jones, of New Hampshire.” This Tavares artery is still known as Rockingham Avenue today.

A politician, astute businessman, and Capitalist, Frank Jones of Portland, Rockingham County, New Hampshire, not only invested in property at Tavares, he owned as well several town lots at John M. Goodwin’s Addition to Orlando. At one time, the Frank Jones Brewery of Portland was considered the largest brewery in the nation. The success of Frank Jones enabled him to invest in hotels, railroads and even – with regard to central Florida – a new town.

Frank Jones came to the rescue of Tavares in its time of need – which turned out to be more than once! One was his payment of $13,000 to construct the Lake County courthouse at Tavares.

Legal professionals changed the face of a central Florida wilderness into an American Paradise, and nowhere in Florida’s Citrus Belt was this fact more prevalent than in a tiny sliver of land in West Orange County separating Lakes Dora and Eustis. First known as “Hull Place”, and later, Tavares, the origins of more than 40 Lake County towns and place names evolves from here, a place where Cowboys & Lawyers of Orange County imagined a magical place named for “a descendant of The Hermit – Tavares!”
  

This September: The extraordinary story of 

TAVARES

Darling of Orange County

Birthplace of Lake County

By Richard Lee Cronin

Certainly not every pioneer who came to Florida was an Attorney. Nor was every Capitalist who helped turn a wilderness into America’s 19^th century Paradise a lawyer. Still, as I hope this series has demonstrated, the legal professionals of the 1800s sure had a fondness for Florida’s amazing Citrus Belt.

TAVARES: Darling of Orange County, Birthplace of Lake County, will be available at Amazon this September.

For more on William R. Anno and the Pine Castle region, check out my 2017 Award Winning: Beyond Gatlin: A History of South Orange County 

I invite you to also visit my website, www.CroninCooks.com - the central Florida online history store, or you can contact me at Rick@Croninbooks.com