Women's History Month - Day 25

Frontierswomen of Central Florida

Maitland Park Lake Hotel

A Women’s History Month Tribute

By Richard Lee Cronin, CroninBooks.com

25 March 2022

 

Day 25

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 featuring each day a History Museum, listing their days and hours of operation.

See also our featured History Museum in this Post

 

Maria #St-Cyr Harney of Rutledge & Orlando

The young lady from St. Louis, Missouri was 19 years old when she arrived in Orange County to purchase twenty (20) wilderness acres, on November 16, 1888, in the town of Rutledge. The land however was not exactly for her use. Instead, the young lady, Marie St. Cyr, acquired the acreage for her mother and stepfather. Marie’s stepfather had traveled this way before, but that was 50 years earlier, during the Seminole Indian War, when a Lake Harney, not far from Rutledge, had been named in his honor.

The Orlando Sentinel of 12 September 1917 reported her death: “Orlando as a town is bereft, for few of its residents could work more zealously for civic advancement, and to few is due the gratitude which Orlando owes for improvements along various lines, accomplished through Mrs. Beeman’s personal thought and labor.”

Identified only as “Mrs. Harry Leland Beeman,” the newspaper writeup identified her as a native of “St. Louis, Missouri, born in 1869, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Paschal St. Cyr of that city,” and having moved “to Orlando in early girlhood with her mother, and in 1891 became the bride of Harry L. Beeman.” Although all is true, here is the rest of Marie’s untold story.

Another published obituary, appearing in various newspapers nationwide in 1889, was that of General William S. Harney, an uncle of Pine Castle’s Will Wallace Harney. “Some 3 years ago,” said the General’s obituary, “he married his housekeeper. His marriage was strenuously opposed by his children, and they attempted to have it set aside and a guardian appointed for him. In this they failed.” A long-time St. Louis resident, General Harney died at Orlando, Florida on 9 May 1889. The aging general had in fact married his housekeeper, and the general’s estate had indeed been contested by children of his first marriage.

Mary Cromwell was born 24 January 1826 at Frederick County, MD. She relocated to St. Louis with her widowed mother and siblings, and in 1866, at age 40, she married Paschal St. Cyr, a widower and father of eight. By 1880, Mary (Cromwell) St. Cyr had become a Widow, living on her own with one child, Marie, 11 years old. Having no means of supporting herself, the mother turned to housekeeping, - hired by General Harney’s family to care for their aging father.

Mary and her daughter moved into the general’s home in 1880, residing both at the main home in St. Louis and the historic “Harney Mansion” at Sullivan, Missouri (Now a Historical Museum).

On the 12 November 1884, General William S. Harney, 84 years old, married his 58 years old “housekeeper.” His family had fit, and it’s entirely possible that the infighting led to a decision to relocate, which in turn led to a young lady the general considered his stepdaughter arriving in Orange County to acquire the new residence.

1888 General William S. Harney parcel, Rutledge (South of Sanford), Florida

 

In 1888, a half century after first stepping upon the wilds of Mosquito County, a retired General William S. Harney returned to Orange County, living briefly in the town of Rutledge, a ghost town today, founded by Florida’s General Joseph Finegan. Rutledge was 20 miles west of Lake Harney, the lake named during the Seminole Indian War for William S. Harney.

One year after arriving in Florida, General Harney died, and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Marie (St. Cyr) Beeman, the general’s stepdaughter, married Harry L. Beeman, of Orlando’s San Juan Hotel fame. Orlando historian E. H. Gore said Mrs. Beeman built a bandstand on a vacant lot near the hotel, and historian C. E. Howard, author of Early Settlers of Orange County, wrote that Gotha’s Horticulturalist Henry Nehrling named one of his exceptional hybrid Caladium’s, “Mrs. H. L. Beeman,” in honor of a local resident who never tired of involving herself in charity work.

“Mrs. Beeman was one of the few women who recognized the urgent need that charity work in Orlando be united in one organization, and was a prime mover in this, serving as Treasurer of the Charities throughout its first year and later on its board of governors.

 

Catherine #Sharples Willcox of Maitland (not Wilcox)

“Mrs. Catharine Willcox,” was a headline of a brief obituary in the Philadelphia Inquirer of May 12, 1915, which went on to state: “Mrs. Katharine Willcox, widow of the late James M. Willcox, a former paper manufacturer at Glenn Mills, died yesterday in her apartment at the Gladstone, she was 70 years of age.” Finding variations in spelling of Catherine are not uncommon when researching yesteryear, but the same holds true of this Central Florida frontierswoman’s married name. Willcox, the proper spellings, often appears as Wilcox.

Katherine Helen (Sharples) Willcox was the second wife of James M. Willcox, a manufacturer of paper for making money, and in the 1880s, a large central Florida landowner in Maitland, Mount Dora, and Orlando. The Willcox Addition to Orlando at Lake Ivanhoe was developed by James & Katherine, and James was not alone in buying property. Katherine purchased an entire square mile (640 acres) to the east of present-day Eatonville in 1881.

Orange County legal documents show her name as Catherine and Katherine, but the lake named for her is and always has been, Lake Catherine. On their Maitland property, James & Catherine Willcox built Park Lake Hotel, and named Park Lake, Lake Eulalie, and Lake Catherine.  

 

1890 Maitland map showing Hotel plus Lakes Park and Catherine

James & Catherine Willcox had named Lake Eulalie for a daughter born in 1858 to James’ first wife. That daughter became sister Eulalia Amelia of the Holy child of Jesus Society. In 1881, James & Catherine conveyed a parcel of land on Lake Eulalia to the Roman Catholic Church.

James M. Willcox died in 1895, and Catherine remained a widow until her death in 1915.

[Further reading: Orlando Lakes: Homesteaders & Namesakes, plus First Road to Orlando, each by Richard Lee Cronin].

 

Lena #Short Lovell of Orlando

Born December 1880 in Kansas, Lena SHORT and her family moved to Orange County about the time she turned five. At the young age of 15, Lena was given a contract to teach in Orange County Schools for a seven (7) month period. Her teaching assignment was in a remote corner of South Orange County, so out of a $25 monthly salary, she had to pay room and board of $8 per month to live in the home of a family of six, four of whom were the young teacher’s students.

To begin her teaching career, Lena left her Orlando home in October 1895 aboard a horse drawn wagon. Her first teaching assignment was seven (7) miles south of Pine Castle. Lena personally described her teaching assignment and living quarters, and we are indebted to a descendant who passed her memoirs along to this historian, so that we can all appreciate this very special Central Florida frontierswoman:

“I was shown my room. It was what is known as a ‘shed room’. That is, one end of a porch had been boarded up. It had a stationary, one pane glass window with a nice scrap of lace curtain over it, a homemade bed with native moss mattress and a pillow, and a small table once known as a washstand with a towel bar at each end. The floor, of course, was far from water or airtight – being a porch – and the cracks between the boards were wide enough to run a lead pencil through. If I dropped any small article woe to me – for that was the last of it. I was soon fast asleep – how long I do not know – for I was awakened by bumping and scraping under the low floor and squeals and grunts of a mother hog coming home to her lair to feed her babies in the bed she made for them and herself under my room. These hogs are infested with ‘hog fleas’ which are very large and can leap incredible distances and heights. Many a time I was obliged to get up in the dead of night that winter and shake the fleas out of my bed so that I, a tired and weary fifteen (15) year old, could sleep. It was some time before there was a rain. When it came it was in the middle of the night, and I was awakened by splashes in my face. I was obliged to get my huge umbrella and open and sit under it while the rest of the bed got a soaking.”

As an adult, Myra “Lena” Short married Frederick Charles Lovell, son of central Florida pioneer and Orange County’s first school Superintendent, William A. Lovell. Education, it seems, ran in Lovell’s family bloodlines, for the excerpt above is from a memoir submitted to me by another of the long line of Lovell schoolteachers, a retired teacher of 50 years himself.

 

Follow Author & Historian Richard Lee Cronin

https://www.amazon.com/author/richardcronin

 

Josephine #Short of Mount Dora

Josephine Short (1862-1926) was the daughter of Dr. Susan (Downer) Short of Eustis and Mount Dora (see Post of March 6, 2022). A published author, Josephine lived at Eustis and Mount Dora with her mother during winter months, then returned to New York City for the summer went not traveling. One of her well-reviewed books was Chosen Days in Scotland, published in 1911 by Thomas Crowell Company.

 

Chosen Days in Scotland by Josephine H. Short

“It is a well-made book. She has compressed into so small a space so much wild and romantic scenery, so much stormy history, and such fascinating romance.”

[Further reading: Mount Dora: The Lure. The Founding, The Founders by Richard Lee Cronin. Chosen Days in Scotland by Josephine H. Short can be found online as a rare book.]

 

History Museum of the Day

 

Davenport Historical Society

Named for Fort Davenport, the 1880s railroad town of Davenport grew up along the South Florida Railroad route from Kissimmee to Tampa. This historical society works to preserve the history of this historic town. “Fort Davenport Lateral” is also Chapter 9 in this author’s book, Beyond Gatlin: A History of South Orange County. The town of Davenport is today in Polk County.

  

1838 Fort Davenport Trail from Beyond Gatlin

 

Questions? Comments? Rick@CroninBooks.com