Frontierswomen
of Central Florida
A
Women’s History Month Tribute
By
Richard Lee Cronin, CroninBooks.com
2
March 2022
Day 2:
CitrusLAND is observing Women’s History Month by
honoring extraordinary Central Florida frontierswomen. And as we celebrate
Women’s History Month throughout March, we are also promoting each day a local
History Museum, listing their days and hours of operation.
Our
Featured History Museum is at the end of this Blog
Miss Henrietta #Barbaroux,
a Louisville, Kentucky schoolteacher, Henrietta came to Orlando with newlyweds Ida
M. (Babbit) and William Palmer. Ida Babbit, a student of Henrietta’s back at
Louisville, had also been raised by Miss Barbaroux after Ida became an orphan of
the Civil War. After arriving in Orlando, Miss Barbaroux and the Palmer’s stayed
at Jacob Summerlin’s hotel, where Henrietta worked for a brief time as manager
before founding the Southern Home School for Girls in 1887, the
forerunner to Orlando’s Cathedral School for Girls. Ida Mae Babbit, of
Natchez Under-the-Hill, Mississippi, married William Palmer at Louisville on 19
November 1884, the very year the newlyweds sold lakeside property along the west
shore of a lake east of downtown Orlando – a lake known today as Lake
Underhill.
[Further reading: Orlando Lakes:
Homesteaders
& Namesakes, Lake Underhill].
Southern
Home School for Girls Advertisement, 1887 Orange Gazetteer
Leora #Bettison Robinson,
also a former Louisville schoolteacher like Miss Barbaroux, became a well-known
author as well. American Women Biographies (1897) said of Mrs. (Leora):
“It is conceded, that by her contributions to the press and a pamphlet, ‘Living
in Florida’, she has done more to make immigration to the state than any
other has accomplished.”
Leora married Norman Robinson at Louisville, KY, where
together they founded the Holyoke Academy prior to moving to Orlando in
1881. Following the death of her husband, Leora platted an Orlando subdivision
on Lake Leora (now Park Lake off East Colonial Drive). Cathcart Street was one
of roads in Leora’s subdivision, named for her mother’s maiden name.
Leora Bettison Robinson had two other books published
in the late 1800s, Patsy: A Story for Girls was first released in 1878.
A later book, seemingly the book that earned Leora the most acclaim, was, The
House with Spectacles, re-released in 2018 by Forgotten Books, Inc.
[Further
reading: Orlando Lakes: Homesteaders & Namesakes, Lake
Leora].
Mrs.
Norman Robinson’s Add to Orlando
Mary #Blitch Tiner
(1830-1911) (aka Tyner for those who prefer the “Y” version), was among the
earliest frontierswomen to settle south of Orlando in post-Civil War Pine
Castle. Mary and husband Leonard selected the north shore of present-day Lake
Bumby for their homestead, a deed for which was issued in 1874, placing the
Tiner’s on their land circa 1869 (allowing for the five-years residency
requirement).
Lake Bumby was the head of Shingle Creek then, a
primary river route for those traveling south to Lake Tohopekaliga. Webb’s
Historical Magazine of 1885 describes “Mrs. Mary Tinn (sic)” of Pine Castle
as one of four (4) owners of “noted orange groves.” Mary, in 1879, had acquired
eight (8) acres of the historic Will Wallace Harney homestead, and there is reason
to believe Mary, along with son Clement R. Tiner (who filed the first town plat
of Pine Castle), and pioneer Will Wallace Harney, were close friends in
addition to being long-time neighbors.
Mary (Blitch) Tiner followed two of her sons south into
Polk County in the 1890s, where she remarried and lived out the remainder of
her life as Mary Lanier.
[Further
reading: Will Wallace Harney: Orlando’s First Renaissance Man (2019) available
through Pine Castle Historical Society, written for the Historical Society by
Richard Lee Cronin].
Miss Emma #Boone
acquired Mount Dora’s Lakeside Inn on 20 October 1892 from the partners who
originally built the hotel in 1882. A native of New York, Emma had run a
boarding house in the Big Apple prior to acquiring the popular winter resort
hotel for snowbirds in Mount Dora. Miss Emma Boone operated the Lakeside Inn by
herself for an entire decade, eventually adding a partner through her marriage.
Emma, on 14 May 1903, married George D. Thayer.
Emma Boone kept the historic Mount Dora hotel open
through the Great Freeze of 1894-95, a significant achievement considering the
high rate of business failures - and central Florida town failures – that resulted
from that tragic event. Lakeside Inn today boasts of being the longest
continuous operating hotel in the State of Florida, a claim that can be made in
large part to the business success of Miss Emma (Boone) Thayer.
[Further
reading: Mount Dora: The Lure. The Founding. The Founders. By Richard Lee
Cronin (2021)].
Lakeside
Inn, circa 1910, Photo courtesy of Florida Memory Project
Our History Museum of the Day:
Mount
Dora History Museum
Museum
is located in the historic 1922 Fire House and Jail
450
Royellou Lane (alley), Mount Dora
Thursday
to Sunday 1 PM to 4 PM
(Call
to verify hours: 352-383-0006)
A
Special History Presentation
TAVARES TRAINS
Tavares History Museum, downtown Tavares
10
AM to 2 PM
Railroad
history presentations at 10:00; 11:30 and 1 PM
By
Author & Historian, Richard Lee Cronin
Books
by Cronin will be available to purchase at this event
Questions
and Inquiries to Rick@CroninBooks.com
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