Central Florida History Challenge - Part 6

LADY LAKE Railway Depot, built circa 1883-84, was named for the city it served, a town named for a nearby body of water known in the 1880s as Lady Lake. But 'Lady' was not the lake’s original name. History lost track of the lake’s first name! Named in the 1840s for a specific woman, as years passed, her identity became blurred, and so the lake took on instead an unnamed “Lady”. 

Historic marker at Lady Lake Depot

A legend soon followed, a story suggesting the lake had been named for a woman “who drowned in the lake”. One 1850s map however suggests a different story, and serves as one piece in a compelling story supported by facts - a story about an amazing 19^th century lady – perhaps even two!

Long believed to be a town founded in August 1884 when the first train from Ocala arrived, a depot was in fact established at LADY LAKE because a popular lakeside resort was already existing there.

Enchanting LADY LAKE is also linked historically to TWO of the six central Florida bodies of water listed below. These ‘other’ two lakes help tell the story of that forgotten ‘Lady’. It would not be correct to say Lady Lake’s original namesake makes the lake a “sister lake”, but the amazing female namesake had in fact a close family bond with the two Orange County lakes.

Here then is our central Florida history challenge #6: What TWO lakes below are linked to the mysterious female namesake of the original LADY Lake?

Lake LILY of Maitland

Lake CONWAY of Pine Castle

Lake EOLA of Orlando

Lake BUTLER of Windemere

Lake JOANNA of Mount Dora

Lake MINNEOLA of Clermont    

Select two lakes you think have a historical family link to LADY LAKE, then click the link to my FREE Blog Page. There you will find the answer, as well as a brief of history of all six central Florida lakes listed above.

Now, our History Challenge #6 Answer 

Lakes CONWAY and BUTLER are the correct lakes, but before I explain why, allow me to say a word or two about the origins of the other four lakes:

Once known as John’s Hole according to central Florida pioneer Will Wallace Harney, for an 1870s pioneer who lost his Oxen, Chickens, and Wagon when his rig slid down the steep slope into the lake, John’s Hole is today Lake LILY, keeper of Maitland’s iconic fountain. Along the west side of Lake Lily one can walk a stretch of the historic 19^th century brick road that once guided early settlers south to Winter Park, Orlando and beyond. Named for Fort Maitland from the Seminole Indian War, the town of Maitland was settled in 1870. A Post Office opened here January 2, 1871. Maitland became one of the earliest snowbird colonies in central Florida, and if you’d like to know more about the first days of Maitland, check out my books, First Road to Orlando (2015), and Orlando Lakes: Homesteaders & Namesakes (2019), both available at Amazon.

Iconic Lake Eola, Orlando, Florida

Lake Eola is of course Orlando’s iconic lake, and it too dates to the 1870s and the arrival of cattleman Jake Summerlin. He acquired 225 acres surrounding the lake. Meant to be Eula, short for Eulalie, Surveyor James J. Davis mistakenly spelled it as Eola on the plat and the name stuck. Why Summerlin chose Eula aka Eola is covered in my Orlando Lakes: Homesteaders & Namesakes (2019).

Lake Joanna of Mount Dora, Eustis based on today’s city limits, is yet another body of water chock full of history. The largest of three lakes on the 1870s homestead of Alexander St. Clair-Abrams, this lake he named for his wife Joanna. Two smaller lakes west of Lake Joanna were named Irma and Alfred for his children. (Neither Irma nor Alfred are named on maps today, but you can reach Lake Joanna via Abrams Road to Irma Road as it circles around an unnamed lake). One of two founders of the 1882 town of Tavares, Alexander St. Clair-Abrams also named three Tavares streets Joanna, Irma, and Alfred. Irma Street was later changed to Main Street. This and much more is covered in greater detail in my latest book, Tavares, Darling of Orange County, Birthplace of Lake County (2020).

Lake Minneola of Clermont is shown named as such on the 1884 map of Clermont (page 278 of my Tavares book mentioned above). A Minneola post office was established on the lake in 1883, where a lakeside town of Minneola existed north of Clermont.

 

Now then, about Lakes Butler, Conway, and Lady Lake:

Surveyors began mapping the wilderness of central Florida at the end of the Seminole Indian War in 1842. Among the earliest to arrive in then Mosquito County were two different groups of surveyors, one consisting of a half dozen or so ‘traveling surveyors’, those who traveled together surveying one state after another as our nation expanded, and a second smaller band of Florida boys who worked exclusively inside their home state.

Each hired surveyor was assigned one township at a time, six miles by six miles, 36 square miles per township. Each sketched their work on paper, signed and dated it, and passed it along to a Florida Surveyor General, who also signed the survey after approving the work. The documents are today excellent sources for historians to determine the evolution of Florida settlements. A few surveyed lakes were named on those early surveys, but most were shown as an unnamed “Pond”.

Florida resident Benjamin F. Whitner, Jr. completed THE first Mosquito County survey in 1843. He signed off on his mapping of 36 squares miles, land that included Lake Conway, and then his boss, then Florida Surveyor General Valentine Y. Conway, also signed the survey. Lake Conway was named on that 1843 approved sketch.

Whitner stayed in the area, surveying 540 square miles of present day South Orange County and North Osceola County. In 1846, Whitner reached the area where Lake Butler is today, and signed off on his survey that was then approved by his new boss, Robert A. Butler. Lake Butler was also named on Whitner’s 1846 sketch of that township. 

Present-day Lady Lake, 1848 survey by Benjamin F. Whitner, Jr.

Surveyor Whitner then completed a survey in November of 1848 well outside of the area he had been previously working. Earlier surveyors had performed part of the mapping of Township 18S; 23E, but on November 13, 1848, Benjamin F. Whitner signed off on a survey of six one-square mile sections – that area shown above - land surrounding present day Lady Lake.

Palatka Daily News of July 24, 1884, only one year after the railroad entered then Sumter County, reported: “Lady Lake has long been famous with the old residents of Sumter County as a health resort; since the railroad came it has more than sustained its past record.” Lady Lake had long-been a health resort prior to the railroad". A Sumter County map of 1850 identified the very same body of water, as you can see below, as “Lake Sarah Jane”.

Lake Sarah Jane as shown on an 1850s Sumter County map

After the Civil War, Benjamin F. Whitner, by then a retired surveyor, relocated his family from Florida’s Panhandle to Orange County, where he and his wife became key players in the early development of present day Seminole and Orange County. In 1869, Sarah Jane (Church) Whitner, wife of Surveyor Benjamin F. Whitner, partnered with Mary (Pitts) Randolph to manage the first-ever free-standing Orange County hotel. Their Orange House Hotel was located at Fort Reid. 

Benjamin F. Whitner died near Sanford in 1881, two years before the first train ever arrived at faraway Lady Lake in Sumter County. As they laid Surveyor Whitner to rest at Sanford, two Orlando lawyers were at that time in the early stages of establishing Tavares, their Darling of Orange County, a lakeside community destined to become - the birthplace of Lake County.

Webb’s Historical of 1885 described Lady Lake as a town on “Florida Southern Railway, one mile from a lake of the same name. A stage-line runs from Brooksville and Tampa. November 1, 1883 - no population, December 1, 1883 – 1 store and 8 people. J. T. Biles, Postmaster.” According to Webb's, the town had been founded in December of 1883 upon the arrival of "8 people". But we know now that long before those eight folks arrived, the lake had been a popular health resort.

A story of triumph over tragedy; of homesteaders becoming town builders; of steamboats and railroads forging a new homeland; and of remarkable men and women (such as Sarah Jane [Church] Whitner), who made it all happen. And about that "other woman" first mentioned above. One of two daughters living with Surveyor General Robert A. Butler in 1850 was Sarah Jane Patton - but that story, and the real story behind Dora Ann Drawdy and the naming of Lake Dora, are best left for the readers of my new book: Tavares: Darling of Orange County, Birthplace of Lake County.

Click on Book cover to buy it at Amazon

And be sure to visit my website CroninBooks.com