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America’s Paradise
Isaphoenia C. (Ellington) Speer
1824-1867
Any history discussion of Fort Gatlin and nearby Pine
Castle without inclusion of Lady Isaphoenia, arguably the most remarkable central Florida frontierswoman of all-time, would be
nothing less than an injustice to the remarkable history of this area. Lady
Isaphoenia was first introduced by this author in the first
sentence, of the first paragraph, of my first book.
Here is that exact 2013 introduction:
“Prologue: The Lost
Kingdom of Central Florida
Lady Isaphoenia
arrived in central Florida a wife and mother to five, the youngest not yet then
a year old. Within 3 years, and after giving birth to a sixth child, Isaphoenia
began accumulating land, lots of land! This intriguing lady’s true story is
fascinating, especially when considering the pivotal, albeit long overlooked, role
she played in Central Florida’s earliest stages of settlement.”
CitrusLAND:
Curse of Florida’s Paradise, (2013); Second Edition (2016)
Isaphoenia came to central Florida in 1854, arriving with husband James G. Speer the same year Orange County’s coastal beaches, and all land east of the St. Johns River, was removed from Orange and made apart of a new Volusia County. Half of the nearly 500 Orange County citizens residing here in 1850 became residents of Volusia County as of 1854, leaving 250 or so settlers to populate 3,000 square miles of Orange County’s smaller wilderness.
That was Orange County of 1854 – no town and only two
stores in a land of 3,000 square miles of free-ranging cows, a few log cabins, lots of palmetto brush - and far too many sandspurs.
(New Smyrna of 1845 was Orange County's Second Post Office)
Seventeen years after Isaphoenia came
ashore in central Florida, another pioneer told of his difficult journey from Lake Monroe
to Orlando, and of seeing only one house and store between Fort Reid and Orlando
- at Maitland. Neither the house nor store house however had existed when Isaphoenia made that same difficult trek in 1854.
Orange County of 1854 was a treacherous place for a
man to live, but an even tougher place for a woman to survive. Many a
frontierswoman perished their first year in Orange County's wilderness, often during or soon after
childbirth.
Isaphoenia C, (Ellington) Speer and husband James Gamble Speer are most often associated historically with Orlando and West Orange County’s Oakland, history ignoring their intriguing and mysterious association with land further south at Lake Pineloch (#5 on map). At 160 acres square, this property served, literally, as a gateway to the origins of settlements at Fort Gatlin and Pine Castle. The old Fort Mellon to Fort Gatlin trail, the main road to Fort Gatlin up until the mid-1870s, crossed the acreage Lady Isaphoenia acquired in 1860.
Even today, travel
south on Orange Avenue toward Pine Castle crosses over land once deeded solely
in the name of Isaphoenia C. Speer.
The mystery and intrigue of these 160 acres extends
beyond her ownership to include the next owners, Francis W.
Eppes (80 acres) and Nicholas P. Trist (80). Eppes is well-known to local
history as the grandson of President Thomas Jefferson. Trist, not as
well known in this area, was the husband of a Jefferson granddaughter, and the ex-President’s Private Secretary.
In 1868, William Mayer Randolph arrived in central Florida with his family, purchased 200 acres adjacent to the front door of old fortress Gatlin – directly south on the trail of the 160 acres Lady Isaphoenia had owned prior to her death a year earlier. Widower James Speer had tried to sell his deceased wife’s land in 1868 – even going as far to sign a contract – but Randolph arranged for that sale to be voided, acquired the property himself, and then conveyed half each to Eppes and Trist. Thousands of vacant acres surrounded Lady Isaphoenia’s land in 1868, so what was so special about the 160 acres along the west shore of Lake Pineloch?
The simple answer - family!
Was it a coincidence that Lady Isaphoenia had lineage
ties to the Eppes family? Was it purely coincidental that Lady Isaphoenia
descended as well from a Virginia Jones family, a family who had a proud
heritage of men named Orlando? Was it a coincidence William M. Randolph, in
1876, returned to Virginia to live out his final days on earth at the residence of William
Strother Jones?
Coincidences - No! Fort Gatlin had originated in 1838 as
a military fortress, but the earliest of settlers to follow had big plans for
this remote region. Lady Isaphoenia played a role in that grand plan, and for
that reason, any history discussion of Fort Gatlin and nearby Pine Castle, in
South Orange County, must include Lady Isaphoenia, the most
remarkable frontierswoman of central Florida, first introduced by this author in the first sentence, of the first paragraph, of his first book.
Her legacy, as well as that of her family’s connection
to the development of Orlando and South Orange County, unfold on the pages of
three of my central Florida history books, a trio that is a perfect holiday
gift set for every history lover in your family.
CitrusLAND:
Curse of Florida’s Paradise
First
Road to Orlando
Beyond
Gatlin: A History of South Orange County
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