A CitrusLAND Happy New Year Blog

 

Mr. Brittain Goes to Washington

1910 Tavares & Gulf Railroad photo above courtesy Florida Memory

A CitrusLAND 2022 Happy New Year Blog

By Richard Lee Cronin

 

Happy New Year!

My New Year’s Resolution for 2022 is to continue writing about intriguing Central Floridians, and so, I might as well get started now by telling of Walter M. Brittain of Washington, DC, a gentleman having connections with Orlando, Lake County, and the Tavares & Gulf Railroad.

Fans of local history and railroad history, I believe, will find Walter Brittain quite fascinating, for he is characteristic of many of this region’s earliest forerunners. An Orlando land developer and Clermont railroad executive, Brittain came south to Florida in the early 1900s with all the right intentions. But like many who came before and after him, Walter Myron Brittain soon vanished. Brittain’s first central Florida job title was Vice President & General Manager of Tavares & Gulf Railroad, but like that of his T&G predecessor, he lived in downtown Orlando – 30 miles east of Clermont, the railroad’s base of operations at that time.

Before detailing Walter’s local involvement, I should first mention why I chose him to headline this ‘Happy New Year’ blog. Walter Brittain and I, it turns out, happen to share a job title. I am honored to begin serving today as Vice President of Education & Public Relations for Central Florida Railroad Historical Society, parent organization of central Florida’s premier museum, the Central Florida Railroad Museum at Winter Garden.

My new position with the museum fits perfectly with what I enjoy doing most – researching and writing about how the earliest days of central Florida’s history corresponds with America’s remarkable history.

One case in point? Walter M. Brittain!

 

I have been researching and preparing for a presentation on January 31^st to the Central Florida Council for Florida House. Long fascinated by the little-known roles District of Columbians had played in the 1870s and 1880s in developing Florida’s Citrus Belt, I decided my talk would be about many of those noteworthy individuals. By the way, were you aware that our State of Florida is the only State to have an Embassy at Washington, DC?

The invite to speak to this outstanding organization, I decided, was a perfect opportunity to talk, for the first time ever, about CitrusLAND, DC. 

 

 Having completed my CitrusLAND, DC presentation, I returned to researching the history of the Tavares & Gulf Railroad. Central Florida History Museum historian Phil Cross had provided me his extensive research on the railroad, notes which included mention of an Order issued to the T&G by the Florida Railroad Commission (FRC). The Order, dated October 17, 1908, reported the following: “W. M. Brittain, vice president and general manager, had appeared before the Commission on behalf of the Tavares & Gulf Railroad. Thereupon, after due consideration, it is declared and adjudged that the physical condition of the line of the railway of the Tavares & Gulf Railroad is not reasonably safe for the passage of trains over it at a reasonable rate of speed, and it is necessary for the safety of persons and property conveyed over the said railroad that the company at once proceed to improve its physical condition”.

Become a member of the CFRR! Email me for details!

 

Now then, back to that FRC Order. The T&G Railroad failed to meet conditions as set out by the 1908 order, but the reason for not complying was likely not due to insubordination by Brittain. The unstable financial situation of the railroad was more likely the cause. Walter M. Brittain was still the Vice President & General Manager in 1910, but by 1912, he and the railroad had parted ways. Brittain, as did most every central Floridian of that time, tried his luck as a land developer.

Charles A. Carpenter, also a resident of Orlando, assumed management of the T&G in 1912.

Walter Myron Brittain, born May 23,1878 at Washington DC, died 12 December 1944 at DC. A graduate of Georgetown University, Walter Brittain first worked for a DC steam railroad, but by 1903 was working at Richmond, VA, employed with the Seaboard Air Line Railroad. That same year, the head of the T&G Railroad at Orlando, Florida died, so W. M. Brittain came south to central Florida to fill that vacancy.

While living at Orlando, Walter M. Brittain, in addition to managing the T&G, partnered with well-known Orlandoan Samuel Y. Way. The two developed residential lots at Lake Leora, the body of water described in my book, Orlando Lakes: Homesteaders & Namesakes, as Park Lake today, off East Colonial Drive.

Brittain & Way Real Estate Company was located, in 1912, at 13 S. Orange Avenue. Walter, and wife, Ethel Florence (Thompson), lived at the Brittain & Way development, but their specific parcel has since made way for widening of Colonial Drive.

 

Walter left Central Florida to accept a position with the Pennsylvania Railroad at Pittsburgh, PA. He eventually returned to Washington, DC, where in 1944, while working as an employee of the Federal Housing Administration, Walter Myron Brittain died at the age of 66.

Brittain’s story as it pertains to central Florida history is not at all unusual. Many a venturesome sole migrated from the North hoping to make a difference, only to find challenges which seemed insurmountable – encounters which then sent them packing.

 

As early as 1873, correspondent Will Wallace Harney of Pine Castle told of the one ingredient each and every newcomer to Central Florida needed most: “Without pluck and courage,” Harney wrote shortly after his own arrival at Orange County, “he cannot live in Florida”. I would argue though that it took more than mere courage for those who came to this land during the first hundred years after Statehood.

One had to be resolute that, no matter how often fate knocked them down, as it did so often, our central Floridian forefathers and foremothers needed the endurance to get back up on their feet and prepare to face the next insurmountable challenge head on.

 Visit my website at www.croninbooks.com for Central Florida history.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

1845: The Speer family & the St. Johns River

 

Holiday Post - Part 3:

 

The Speer family & the St. Johns River of 1845

Algernon Speer and father-in-law Arthur Ginn are well-known to fans of central Florida history. They are remembered as the earliest settlers of Mellonville - Fort Reid, along the south shore of Lake Monroe, or Sanford as most know it today. But what about Algernon’s brother, Alexander Speer, of Culloden, GA?

A February 1845 letter to the editor of 1845 sheds new light on a third Speer family member in the origins of central Florida. Published March 13, 1845, in the Southern Reporter, Alexander, it turns out, was also well acquainted with a newly christened Orange County. Florida Territory became the 27^th State in 1845. A Second Indian War had ended three years prior, and surveyors were busy at work that year mapping Florida south of Lake George. Surveys were needed so homestead applications could commence.

Mosquito County became Orange County as of 1845, and Orange still had oceanfront property that year. Volusia County was not formed until 1854. But few individuals knew about Orange County, and only a handful of settlers, as we learn from Alexander Speer, had dared to call the wilderness south of Lake Monroe their home.

Having explored the land below Lake Monroe by early 1845, Alexander Speer provided an eye-witness account of his travels into central Florida. His analysis below is unedited except for an occasional (sic) to indicate a different spelling than is used today.

Augusta, Ga., 1^st Feb. 1845,

South Florida

“Messrs. Editors: In reply to numerous inquiries from various parts of the State, permit me to trouble you with one more letter on South Florida. The inquiries are so numerous, that I hardly know how to reply without being tedious. However, I will condense what I have to say as much as possible.

“First. There are two routes to Florida, one by railroad to Savannah, and thence by weekly steamboats to Lake Monroe, 225 miles up the St. Johns. This route, from Macon, going and returning, will cost about 50 dollars.

“From Savannah to Lake Monroe, will take about four days; and the traveler would do well to lay in his stores at Savannah, on which to subsist while exploring the country. In going this route, the voyager will see a most magnificent river in the St. Johns. It varies from 1 to 3 miles wide up to Lake George, a distance of 140 miles. Lake George is 12 miles wide and 20 long, and beautiful as the vision of fancy. Here the tide stops, and the river from this place is from 200 to 400 yards wide, and very deep; and from this lake up is called the “Upper St. Johns.”

“The lakes are in the following order, as you ascend: Little Lake George, Lake George, Spring Garden Lake, Lake Berisford (sic), Lake Monroe, Lake Jessup (sic), Lake Pointsett (sic), Lake Hainey (sic), Lake Winder (sic), and Lake Washington; and beyond this, the river is unexplored.

“Lake Washington is very large and is perhaps about 100 miles higher than Lake Monroe. Lake Jessup (sic) was the ne plus ultra of my peregrinating and is about 250 miles by water from the mouth of the river.

“During the war, large steamboats ascended the river about 46 miles beyond Lake Monroe, and it is unknown how much farther they can go. The objections to the traveler taking this route, are, that it is expensive, and he will hardly be able to get horses to explore the country when he gets there.

“A public house is kept by Major Taylor at Enterprise, on the east (sic) side of Lake Monroe. From this lake to Smyrna on the Atlantic coast, is 18 miles, and to Tampa, on the Gulf, is about 70 miles; the Lake lying nearly between them. Further up the river, say 70 to 80 miles, it approaches so near the Atlantic, that, from the river you can hear the roaring of the surf as the waves roll in on the shore – and here the river is said to be 60 or 80 feet higher than the sea; and it is asserted that a canal of six miles long would connect that part of the river with the sea, and this is already contemplated by the settlers of Indian River.

“The better plan to explore the country is to go by land. Any one can look at a map and see the course. From where I reside, the way would be through Lowndes County and thence to Fort King. Here the settlements cease, and for about 80 miles you have the wilderness, to Lake Monroe. There are roads, however, or trails, and no difficulty to get on by taking some stores with you. On this route you may see Orange Lake, then Lake Eustace (sic), and Lake Opopka (sic), then Fort Gatlin, where three families reside, then turn east (sic) 25 miles to Lake Monroe and Lake Jessup (sic), where several families reside.

“I am asked if the country is healthy? How about musketoes (sic)? And what about the water?

“1^st. As to health, I would be very willing to live there. I think is healthy. My reasons are these; the great mass of the country is poor sand pine land, or sandy oak scrubs. The branches, creeks, rivers and lakes, have sandy shores and sandy bottoms, and there is very little wet land, notwithstanding the authority of Murray’s Encyclopedia of Geography, which asserts that it is all swamp, and produces forty bushels of frogs to the acre.

“2. The climate is mild and delightful – ne extreme cold or heat – a slight frost indicates the greatest cold, and heat scarcely ever reaches 90 degrees. Here in Georgia, we have it up to 95, and in the upper valley of the Mississippi, according to the notes of an officer of the army, it ranges from 105 to 115. In Cuba 84 is the greatest heat.  The reason is, these warmer regions are continually fanned by sea breezes, moderating the heat of the sun, producing a bracing and exhilarating effect on the feelings, and preventing that lassitude which is so often the precursor of fever.

“3. The settlers after trying the country for several years, say it is healthy; and I, from the face of the country, see no reason to doubt their word. But let man judge for himself and act accordingly.

Next in order come the musketoes (sic). The editor of the Democrat, in Columbus, manifests some alarm on this subject. I was amused at his fears. What? A man living in Columbus afraid of musketoes! (sic) It is too bad. This insect is not a stranger in Georgia. Hot weather and standing water will bring them forth anywhere. They swarm on the lakes of Canada; they filled the woods in the settling of Kentucky. Go near the rivers and you will find them – go back into the pine lands and there are none. As it is here, so it is in Florida. I saw none when there, but no doubt about the rivers, there are a plenty in summer. I was told there were none in the pine lands off from the river.

As to water, I think it about such as we get in the pine lands of Georgia. Some better and some worse. Neither the river nor lakes are good, though those who are accustomed to them think differently. The small creeks and branches tasted very pleasantly. So also the wells and springs, as far as I saw. What is called sand hill water is as good there as in Georgia. It is true, however, that there is no such water to be found in Florida as is seen gushing from rocks and mountains, and an up-country man would no doubt for a time complain of the water, but this passes away in a few weeks, and he feels it no more.

From Culloden, I think it about 400 miles to Lake Monroe by land; and by water, via Savannah, it is about 800. I beg leave to remark, that I am persuading no one to go to Florida. I have no interest involved, and no motive to make a misstatement, and have not done so knowingly. I intended an act of kindness when I published my letter, and nothing more. Let all judge and act for themselves. I selected a spot on Lake Jessup (sic) to which I desire to move, but whether I shall ever get there is another question; time will determine.

ALEXANDER SPEER.”

End of Speer's letter to the Editor.

Happy Holidays from

Richard Lee Cronin, Author & Historian

CroninBooks.com

GIFT HISTORY THIS HOLIDAY SEASON! 

First Steamboat on Lake Monroe

 Holiday Post Part 2 

‘Essayons’ Lakes Monroe

Cruger & DePeyster Sugar Mill Ruins, courtesy Florida Memory Project

A year following steamboat Florida entering Lake George in May 1834 (Part 1), the December 1835 Dade Massacre, during which 108 soldiers were killed, combined with a total of 16 plantations burned on Christmas Day of 1835, resulted in a buildup of troops to defend the Florida Territory. Burning of the plantations at New Smyrna and Spring Garden, including the Cruger & DePeyster Sugar Mill as the ruins of which is shown above, brought troops up the St. Johns River. A United States territory then, it was to be another decade before Florida was to become a State.

Chapter One of my CitrusLAND: Curse of Florida’s Paradise quotes from the personal memoirs of frontierswoman Jane Murray of New Smyrna. Jane describes her home being attacked and burned by Indians, and of how, alone with her small children, she managed to escape as her home burned to the ground. Georgia newspapers of January 1836 reported accounts of an attack on nearby Spring Garden too, and of troops boarding the streamer John Stoney in route to the St. Johns River.

Central Florida history by Richard Lee Cronin

www.CroninBooks.com

As troops began positioning, General Winfield Scott arrived at Volusia landing, south of Lake George on the St. Johns River. “Finding there the United States steamer Essayons, I embarked in her and with a guard of only seventeen men determined to penetrate, by the St. Johns, the southern part of the peninsular as far as practicable.” General Scott stated the reason for the expedition was to chart the course and depth of the river, and said that he found, “no difficulty in passing up to the head of Lake Monroe and might have carried that at point a draft of eight or nine feet of water.”

1840s survey of Lake Monroe and St. Johns River east of todays Sanford

Dates stated above are especially noteworthy in putting the legend of Orlando Reeves to the test. Supposedly killed by Indians near Lake Eola in September 1835. Reeves, according to a tablet attached to a rock at Lake Eola, was on night duty when attacked. Orlando and much of Orange County however was at that time Indian territory. According to General Scott’s published report of May 1836, the Army had not yet commenced land exploratory missions prior to May 1836, nor did such a campaign commence until after Fort Monroe had been established in December 1836.

The Orlando Reeves fable lives on because of a rock at Lake Eola

First Road to Orlando, by Richard Lee Cronin, exposes the truth!

 

General Scott had determined that they had sailed 200 miles south via river from Volusia landing, commenting that he thought they could have gone another fifty or sixty miles south towards Cape Florida had they been able to cross the bar. The “bar” mentioned by Scott was likely where the river flowed from Lake Jesup, just beyond present day Sanford. The General added, “such point, we found about eight miles below Lake Monroe, on the east bank. A leading trail passes through it”. The “trail” was likely the trailhead where Camp Monroe would soon to established, this trail being the north end of what in 1838 became the Fort Mellon to Fort Gatlin Trail, aka, by 1856, The First Road to Orlando.

185 years ago this month, in December 1836, Army troops established Camp Monroe on Lake Monroe. A pier was built extending out into Lake Monroe for offloading soldiers and supplies, and soldiers spent Christmas of 1836 guarding a lonely wilderness outpost far from home. Two months later, in February 1837, their fortress was attacked by Indians and, as a battle ensued, Captain Charles Mellon was killed.

President James Monroe, father of the Monroe Doctrine, a proclamation to European Powers that there would be no further colonization of Latin America, had died July 4, 1831. Lake Valdez as the “Second Lake” on the St. Johns River had been named prior to the United States taking possession of the Florida Territory, was changed to Lake Monroe in honor of the 5^th President – the third to have died on the Anniversary of our Nation’s Independence. Camp Monroe, in 1837, was renamed Fort Mellon in honor of Captain Charles Mellon. Troops then began preparations for an exploratory journey of 28 miles due south – deep into an unknown wilderness.

As troops marched south in the direction of Lake Tohopekaliga, they paused to established a supply post after about a day's journey - naming that post Fort Maitland. The post was named in honor of William Seton Maitland, a fellow soldier who had died of injuries at the Battle of Wahoo Swamp.

The march continued south until they reached a position to establish yet another fortress, naming that post Fort Gatlin in honor of Dr. Gatlin, a casualty of the 1835 Dade Massacre. Both fortresses were established in 1838 - and yet neither was named for Orlando Reeves - primarily because there was no such soldier.     

Our holiday series blog will continue.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM

RICHARD LEE CRONIN, and

CRONINBOOKS.COM

 

First Steamboat on Lake George

 

A Special 2021 Holiday Series, Part #1:

The First Steamboat on Lake George

Arrival Friday, May 30, 1834

Savannah Georgian, April 29, 1834

The small steam vessel Florida was certainly not the first boat to cruise St. Johns River south of Palatka, but the Florida was, according to the Macon Georgia Messenger of June 5, 1834, the first steam powered craft to travel as far south on the River as Lake George.

Spanish explorers had sailed the river long before steamboats, and in 1774, Explorer William Bartram reportedly sailed the river to Lake George. Nature painter John James Audubon traveled the St. Johns River in January 1832 searching for rare birds, writing in his diary, as I mentioned in Chapter 16 of my First Road to Orlando (2015), that he visited “Spring Garden Plantation, the home of Colonel Orlando Savage Rees”. Audubon even sketched a map of his expedition into tropical Florida two years before the steamboat Florida journeyed up the St. Johns River.

“It was announced to the public about three weeks ago,” reported the Macon Messenger of June 5, 1834, “that the Florida Steam Packet, under Captain Richard A. Hill, would leave Savannah for Picolata (Palatka) and Lake George for the purpose of giving those who wished to enjoy a trip to the latter place and of viewing the various objects of interest there and along the St. Johns an opportunity of doing so. On Thursday last the Florida arrived at Picolata according to arrangement, and on Friday morning she departed thence for the Lake at 4:40 AM and passed into Lake George at 11:40 AM.”

1834 Survey of north entrance to Lake George at Drayton’s Island

(1) Drayton Island (1,781 acres); (2) Lake George (3) Florence McLean Isle; Wm. Gardner 

The steamboat Florida was reportedly the first vessel to enter Lake George under steam power. Picolata, or Palatka as we now know it, was at that time the southernmost St. Johns River town. But while no actual town existed south of Palatka as of 1834, there were homesteaders who were occupying old Spanish Land Grants.

“Drayton Island”, (#1 on the map above) said the Messenger, “at the entrance of the lake was also visited. This is 6 or 7 miles long and from two to three wide, and the proprietor, Z Kingsley, Esq. has selected it as a most favorable position for the growth of the China Orange.” Zephaniah Kingsley (1765-1843), a Bristol, England native, settled at Fort George Island near Jacksonville, but by 1834 also owned the 1,700 acres Drayton Island.

Welaka on St. Johns River north of Lake George

“The party on board the boat was small but interesting and appeared desirous to add each other’s enjoyment during the 3 days trip. Lake George was found to be about 15 miles long and 7 broad and its average depth of water about 10 feet. The party went on shore at several places on the east side of the Lake, visited the head of it, and also afforded the gratification of viewing the Silver Spring. This is a body of water of great magnitude which bursts out a large basin of unascertained depth, running off and emptying itself into the Lake about ¾ of a mile from its source. The water is so pure that its bottom can be seen but not felt.”

The Silver Spring visited by those aboard the Florida in 1834 was not Silver Springs as we know today, but possibly a “sulphur-spring” identified by Webb’s Historical of 1885 as one- mile from the famous archeological site, Mount Royal. Webb’s said Mount Royal was “on the east bank of the St. Johns River on a bluff overlooking Little Lake George”, stating too that “one mile back of the settlement is a famous sulphur-spring, the water from which issues from a subterranean passage in a volume sufficient to run a mill. Many invalids visit the spring to drink of its healing waters.”

William Bartram, in 1791, wrote of an earlier visit to Mount Royal: "At fifty yards from the landing place, stands a magnificent Indian Mount. About fifteen years ago I visited this place, at which time there were no settlements of white people, but all appeared wild and savage; yet in that uncultivated state, it possessed an almost inexpressible extent of old fields, round about the Mount; there was also a large Orange Grove, together with Palms and Live Oaks extending from near the mount, along the banks, downwards all of which has since been cleared away to make room for planting ground. But what greatly contributed towards completing the magnificence of the scene was a noble Indian highway, which led from the great Mount on a straight line, three quarters of a mile, first through a point or wing of the Orange Grove and continuing thence through an awful forest of Live Oaks, it was terminated by Palms and Laurel Magnolias, on the verge of an oblong artificial lake, which was on the edge of an extensive green level savanna. This grand highway was about fifty yards wide, sank a little below the common level, and the earth thrown up on each side, making a bank of about two feet high." (Source: Mount Royal Archaeological Site)

Mount Royal Post Office was established June 29, 1875, and an 1880 Putnam County map shows Mount Royal north of Lake George. But a decade later, the South Florida Railroad said Mount Royal was “at the southern extremity of Lake George” but also transformed the magical place into a one-time home of “Olata, King of the Akuera, in 1564”. And the railroad brochure of 1887 had even more to say about Mount Royal: “It is now the golden gate to the famous Garden of Hesperides in Orange County.” The railroad was not alone in promoting Orange County of the 1880s as the mythical Greek Garden.

“What, on St. John stream may be seen

The Hesperides – let it be stated –

Amid its groves, the way worn guest

Is with good boarding houses blest,

And having come o’er land and seas

To find the famed Hesperides,

Here may he, having found the goal,

Rest easy in body, mind and soul.”

The Song of Manitoba (1888)

By Frank Siller, 1880s Gotha, Florida Snowbird

GIFT HISTORY THIS HOLIDAY

Visit www.CroninBooks.com for the best holiday gift selection

This CroninBooks Holiday Series

(To be continued)

MOUNT DORA: The First Mount Dorans - Finale

 

The First Mount Dorans: Season Finale

GOULD’S LAKESHORE: The Conclusion

Lake Dora, Mount Dora, Florida

What if the naming of Lake Dora had been a love story? Seriously! A legend of Dora Ann Drawdy tells us the lake was named by Dora: “My grandmother gave them meals and did their laundry,” and because of Dora’s kindness, says her family’s legend, “the government surveyors named Lake Dora in her honor.”

But what if historians have merely been repeating something said in error long, long ago? Is it not a historian’s role to do the research so as to determine if a legend is real or not?

 

The legend of Lake Dora’s namesake:

If you have followed my series since Part One on 22 March, you know the subject has been a leisure stroll along Mount Dora’s Fashionable 5^th Avenue. Our westbound walk began at what might at first seem an unlikely starting point. But to fully appreciate the town’s true origin, and to attempt to prove or disprove a legend, the 1,538-foot walk toward Lake Dora’s shore needed to begin at the crossroads of 5^th Avenue and Hawley Street, an intersection better known today as 5^th Avenue and Tremain Street.

Each of nine previous blogs in this series took us closer to the lakeshore. And although we are walking along a modern-day street of downtown Mount Dora, we are in fact tracing the historic footsteps first taken in 1848 by a government surveyor named James M. Gould.

 

Sketch drawn in 1883 of Mount Dora's Fifth Avenue

The sketch above is part of an 1883 exhibit to a deed issued by the founders of Mount Dora. In the upper right corner are the words “Section Corner”. The line left of that section corner, a line running west to the lake’s edge and beneath the words “Section Line”, is today the centerline of Fifth Avenue.

“I began at the northeast corner of Section 31.” That was the exact description penned 173 years ago by Surveyor James M. Gould. While I have no intention of making a land surveyor of you, it is important that you understand Gould’s 1848 note. The very spot Surveyor James Gould stated in 1848 is today the intersection of 5^th Avenue & Tremain Street.

Surveyor James Gould stated in 1848 that after starting at the northeast corner of Section 31, he then began walking “23.30 chains,” the equivalent of 1,537.8 feet, “due west to Lake Dora”. We have been making this identical walk in this series and have now arrived at the shoreline of Lake Dora. I can state the lake’s name because it is an existing name. James Gould wrote the name as well, seemingly as if the name was existing then too.

Historian Walter Sime (1921-2003) made just such a comment long before me! In January 1995, after Walter Sime read the actual notes made in 1848 by James Gould, stated that When Gould arrived at the shore of another lake, Gould noted: “Let’s call it Lake Ellen Hawkins.” Gould did not make any such reference to naming Lake Dora, and concluded, “it may be that Lake Dora had already been named by C. C. Tracy when he surveyed the Township boundaries in 1846.”

James Gould was unaware that Lake Ellen Hawkins had already been named because the lake’s name did not appear on the survey boundaries he had been given. His finished survey maps, the same used later by pioneers seeking homesteads, shows the name Lake Ellen Hawkins crossed out and Lake Eustis penciled above it. Lake Eustis and Griffin were the only two lakes named on the 1830s War Map drawn up by the Army.

Historian Walter Sime expressed uncertainty about the legend of Dora Ann Drawdy. He stated too that the earliest historian to write about the legend was William T. Kennedy (1858-1930). Kennedy wrote his history in 1929, but the earliest recorded discussion of the legend of Dora Ann Drawdy that I found was in 1922 – a history of Mount Dora as written by John P. Donnelly.

The “father of Mount Dora,” Donnelly’s history was read to members of Mount Dora Yacht Club at a “Smoker” in February 1922. The written history was then republished in 1926 and several other times by the Mount Dora Topic newspaper. A nearly identical version appears in “Memories of Mount Dora and Lake County” by David Edgerton, son of Charles Edgerton, a member of the Yacht Club in the 1920s.

David Edgerton’s version however starts out as “my grandparents, Jim and Dora Ann Drawdy.” The only known grandchild to live in Mount Dora was Lewis J. Drawdy. He moved to Mount Dora from Seneca in 1920 and appears the most likely descendant for the source of Edgerton’s version of the legend.

 

Mount Dora was in existence at the time of Dora Ann Drawdy’s death at Umatilla. By the time of Dora’s death, three prominent Lake Dora area pioneers: William P. Henry, Dudley W. Adams, and Annie (McDonald) Stone-Donnelly, all of whom were homesteaders in the 1870s, had died.

Lewis J. Drawdy, born at Seneca, Florida in 1890, was buried in 1942 at Mount Dora’s Pine Forest Cemetery. His obituary read: “Mr. Lewis Jackson Drawdy, 52, member of a pioneer family of this section, was taken by death suddenly. Mr. Drawdy was born in Seneca in 1890, son of Mr. & Mrs. James Albert Drawdy. He was the grandson of Mrs. Dora Ann Drawdy, at whose home the United States engineers stayed while surveying this section of the state, and for whom Lake Dora was named by these engineers. About 21 years ago Lewis moved to Mount Dora. First employed as a local carpenter, he they went into business for himself as a contractor and builder.”

Dora Ann Drawdy died five years before the birth of her grandson Lewis J. Drawdy. As a young boy however, Lewis did get to know his mother’s mother, grandmother Anna (Milton) Turner. Although his grandfather had died in 1867, Lewis likely met his grandfather’s sister, Mrs. Ellen (Turner) Hawkins. His Aunt Ellen Hawkins lived in the Umatilla area until her death in 1925.

Although not the namesake of Lake Ellen Hawkins, the coincidence alone requires a historian to dig deeper before repeating a legend already known to have a timing problem. Dora Ann Drawdy was giving birth to her third child in Georgia, burying her first husband, and marrying a second, while James Gould was surveying central Florida’s Great Lake Region.

What if Lake Dora had already been named when James Gould reached the lakeshore at the west end of Mount Dora’s Fifth Avenue? What if the naming of Lake Dora instead involved a love story?

Finding Dora is Part 2in my latest central Florida history, Mount Dora: The Lure. The Founding. The Founders. Available now at Amazon.com

 

  MOUNT DORA

The Lure. The Founding. The Founders.

BUY IT NOW AT AMAZON

Click on Book Cover above to buy at Amazon, or

Buy a signed copy November 1, 2021, at my Official Book Launch.

OR: buy it now and bring your book for signing on November 1^st.

The Green Room, Mount Dora Community Center

A Historic location for the launch of historic book!

November 1, 2021, 5:30 to 7:30 PM

Baker Street in historic downtown Mount Dora

 

MOUNT DORA: Season 2 - The First Mount Dorans - Part 4

 

Part 4: The Thompson House

The Thompson House, Mount Dora

John Philip Donnelly, the individual I refer to as the ‘Second Mount Doran’, wrote in 1922 of several early Mount Dora pioneers, mentioning each by name in an address to fellow members of Mount Dora’s Yacht Club. “Wrote” is appropriate, for Donnelly declined the invitation to speak to the members and instead offered to write a speech for someone else to read. The presentation was then reprinted in the local newspaper at various times in later years.

The topic of John Donnelly’s ‘paper’ was the history of Mount Dora, but the speech, it was reported, drew numerous laughs when read at the Yacht Club Smoker of February 1922. These many years later, therefore, the challenge for a historian is to separate fact from fiction.  

Mount Dora: The Lure. The Founding. The Founders.

Donnelly began his version of the town’s founding by naming a few early pioneers important to the first days of Mount Dora, individuals such as John A. MacDonald and Alexander St. Clair-Abrams, prior to adding, “and a stumpy, corpulent old gentleman from East Liverpool, Ohio.”

Likely meant to draw a chuckle or two, Donnelly did not name the stumpy old gentleman from East Liverpool, Ohio. So, was he merely poking fun at an old friend in the audience, a Yacht club member perhaps, such as Commodore Thompson? His comment could have been directed at Sandie Porter, the East Liverpool merchant who, in 1881, had purchased the very first Mount Dora town parcel. Porter bought before Mount Dora had even been officially christened Mount Dora.

Perhaps though Donnelly was poking fun at William Gardner, the realtor from East Liverpool who had purchased the long-abandoned Willcox property, the land adjacent to Annie Stone’s historic citrus grove. Gardiner was developing the land near Coliseum Way, where the heirs of Annie Donnelly were likewise attempting to develop homesites. Donnelly may have meant the brother-in-law of William Gardner though, the East Liverpool, Ohio snowbird who assisted in building that magnificent Gardner lakeside home, the stately home that to this day continues to stand guard over Lake Dora.

So many Buckeyes from East Liverpool, Ohio to consider!

The C. C. Thompson Pottery Company, East Liverpool, Ohio

Commodore Thompson, a member during the 1920s of Mount Dora Yacht Club, tops the list of likely candidates in my view. I think Donnelly was poking at a friend, George C. Thompson, an annual Mount Dora winter resident who built the Thompson House on 5^th Avenue. President of an East Liverpool, Ohio company at the time, George Thompson had become the chief operating officer after the death of his father, Cassius C. Thompson, founder of C. C. Thompson Pottery Company. (The significance of pottery in the early 20^th century is easily lost today, but back then, as our Nation was developing, nearly every home in America had pottery dinnerware).

Pottery was a huge industry at the dawn of the 20^th century. C. C. Thompson Pottery Company of East Liverpool, Ohio was a major player in that industry.

Looking east on Simpson's Fashionable 5th Avenue from McDonald Street

Strolling west along Mount Dora’s Fashionable 5^th Avenue, Thompson House, as it is most often called today, is the impressive white residence trimmed in tropical palm green, hiding behind the white concrete block wall having tropical palm green gates. The Thompson House, bult in 1929, is indeed historical, but it was in fact the second home built in Block #58 of Mount Dora.

Another residence, still standing in 1929 when George Cassius Thompson built his home, had at one time occupied that entire city block plus the entire city block to the west.

Lyman Todd of Chicago bought Block 58 at the same time he acquired Block 57. He also bought an additional slice of shoreline of Lake Dora. Lyman Todd built a hilltop home overlooking Lake Dora, complete with its own free-standing bowling alley. Built during the first days of the 1890s, the Lyman Todd home was afforded an unobstructed view of Lake Dora.

One could write an entire chapter about the history of Blocks 57 and 58. And in fact, Chapter 28 of Mount Dora. The Lure. The Founding. The Founders., hot off the presses, does just that!

 

George C. Thompson purchased one-fourth of Block 58 from Miss Easter Armstrong, a Mount Doran who contributed greatly to developing the cultural aspect of the city. Active in the Mount Dora Woman’s Club, Miss Armstrong performed the first play reading by members of the club. Easter Armstrong helped found the Art League, Reading Circle, Book Club, and Garden Club.

The home of Lyman Todd passed to his sister, Mary (Todd) Armstrong, and then to the daughter of Mary Armstrong, Miss Easter Armstrong.

 

The Museum of Ceramics at East Liverpool, Ohio, occupies today the historic 5^th Street home of Cassius C. Thompson. This 5^th Street home was also the birthplace of George C. Thompson, or Commodore Thompson as known to those friends who visited him at his 5^th Avenue residence during each winter in downtown Mount Dora.

 Contents Page of my New Mount Dora Book

MOUNT DORA

The Lure. The Founding. The Founders.

Available NOW at AMAZON

"The new railroad intersects Mrs. Donnelly's grove, running close to the dwelling."

Click on Book Cover above to buy at Amazon, or

Buy a signed copy November 1, 2021, at the Official Book Launch.

OR: buy it now, then bring your book for signing on November 1^st.

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The Green Room, Mount Dora Community Center

November 1, 2021, 5:30 to 7:30 PM

Baker Street in historic downtown Mount Dora

MountDora@CroninBooks.com