Custodians of Orlando, Florida History - Part 3

 Part Three: Orlandoans Remembered 

Towering nineteen stories above the skyline in 1971, the new Continental National American Insurance building on Orange Avenue became a harbinger for the next generation of buildings in downtown Orlando. Known by locals as the CNA Building, the impressive skyscraper set an example of excellence for other downtown high-rises to follow, launching a transformation from a small southern city into a World-Class Metropolis. Today, one must look closely to view the CNA amidst the busy Orlando skyline. One word often used to describe this evolution: “Progress.”

As the impressive new CNA building neared completion, an Orlando landmark several blocks to the north was preparing to refurbish its aging lobby. Commercial Interior Designer Dan Acito was hired to oversee the refurbishing of San Juan Hotel’s lobby. A Cincinnati transplant, (not yours truly), Dan was new to the Central Florida area, having relocated his established Ohio based business to Winter Park in 1968.

The original San Juan Hotel Circa 1885

Nearly a decade after his San Juan Hotel remodeling project, “progress” led to the historic hotel falling victim to the wrecking ball. Acito was at that time quoted as saying, “we decided if we can’t save the building physically, we’ll save it visually.” The "we" for whom Dan Acito was speaking was the Orlando Remembered group, an organization he and a dozen others had organized in the aftermath of the destruction of the San Juan Hotel.

Organized as a Committee of the Orange County Historical Society, the mission of the Orlando Remembered group included the placement of displays in downtown lobbies to memorialize the historic structures that once graced Orlando’s downtown district. One of the early displays was of the San Juan Hotel, but in June 1985, “250 people helped unveil the Orlando Remembered memorabilia display of the Bass Hotel – Spanish Restaurant Block.”

The historic Bass Hotel, operated by Walter C. Bass, an Orlandoan proclaimed in 1973 to be a “City Father,” was the proprietor of the hotel which once stood alongside the historic Wilmott Building, on the east side of South Orange Avenue, where today stands the CNA Building. The Bass Hotel, prior to Walter acquiring the hostelry, had originally been known as the Astor Hotel.

 1915 Orlando Directory for the Astor Hotel

Orlando’s Astor Hotel of 1914 occupied the upper two floors of the newly completed Giles-Hovey Building. Constructed by Orlandoans James L. Giles and C. A. Hovey, their three-story building stood beside the Wilmott Building, completed around 1914 by the legendary Captain Wilmott.

Historic structures are not merely architecturally pleasing, they remind us too of the remarkable individuals, men and women, who transformed a free-range cow pasture into a vibrant Orlando we know and love today. Remembering their buildings are but one reason for preserving the magnificent structures of yesteryear. They are also memorials to the Orlandoans who built them. 

Still, for Orlando anyway, it seems to have been a challenge – albeit labor of love – for those who have struggled over the years to preserve the visions of yesteryear. They did so under various Society names, but they all had one thing in common - saving the past.

We may not have an Orlando Historical Society anymore, but we do have individuals still trying to preserve the past. And Orlando Remembered, for nearly 44 years now, has been one such organization doing just that.

This is your invitation to an extra-special Orlando event. 

If Central Florida history is of interest to you, we at Orlando Remembered invite you to attend our meeting on 18 October 2023. Free and open to the public, this meeting is held on the 2nd floor of the downtown library, where at 10:15 AM on that date, we will present, “Remembering Orlandoans,” an exclusive visual history of some of the remarkable men and women who have participated in the founding and development of Orlando.

Worth repeating is this, our 10:15 AM event is free and open to the public.

Custodians of Orlando, Florida History - Part 2

 Custodians of Central Florida Hisotry

Part Two: This Dog has History

“This dog has a history,” a catchy 9 November 1956 headline for an Orlando Sentinel article in which a piece of tree bark, in the shape of a dog, was described as one of the items on display at the Orange County Museum. The museum was located then “in the old red brick courthouse.”

Described as a piece from the historic Council Oak tree near Pineloch Lake, a photo of the tree bark artifact (shown with this post) had also been an exhibit in ‘Orlando in the Long, Long Ago’ (1938), by author Kena Fries. Miss Fries, daughter of Orange County surveyor John O. Fries, wrote of visiting the old Council Oak in September of 1904, and of her picking up the tree bark, “a chip with the most peculiar markings and shape, resembling a watch dog.” Kena Fries also wrote that she had been visiting the residence of J. M. Alden on the day she collected the tree bark, a casual mention that is itself a statement chock full of intriguing Orange County history.

Known as the ‘Yankee Artist of the Pacific Coast,’ James M. Alden retired in 1891 after 57 years in the Navy. He had been a participant in the Navy’s West Coast Expedition and his paintings of that journey are today valuable collector items. In his later years with the Navy, Alden served in Washington, DC as Secretary to Rear-Admiral David Dixon Porter. Upon retiring he and wife Frances (Hewlett) Porter purchased an existing home on the west shore of Lake Pineloch, a home that had originally been the residence of Francis W. Eppes, the grandson of President Thomas Jefferson. Francis Eppes began building his home in 1871, and although remodeled a time or two over the past 150 years, his historic residence continues to stand guard over Lake Pineloch.

We do not know if Kena Fries was aware of the history of the Alden residence, or of the artistic talent of James M. Alden, who would later paint the dead and decaying Council Oak. In 1915, Clarence E. Howard, in his book ‘Early Settlers of Orange County,’ included a black and white photo of Alden’s ‘Council Oak’ painting. Along with the painting was a brief history of Orange County authored by Annie (Caldwell) Whitner in which she wrote: “At Fort Gatlin, stands the bleached trunk and bare widespread branches of an immense dead Live-Oak. The red men and white men met here to hold a council.”

 

Melrose Room, Second Floor downtown, Orlando Library

10:15 AM October 18, 2023

If Central Florida history is of interest to you, I invite you to attend our Orlando Remembered meeting on 18 October 2023. Free and open to the public, our meeting is held in the Melrose Room on the 2nd floor of the downtown library, where at 10:15 AM on that date, my special presentation, “Remembering Orlandoans,” will feature a visual history of the remarkable men and women who participated in the founding and development of Orlando. Worth repeating is this, our 10:15 AM event is free and open to the public.

Now, as for the historic Council Oak and the Custodians of Orlando History, this series will continue. Stay tuned!

Custodians of Orlando, Florida History

 Custodians of Orlando History

An Orlando Remembered Group Series 

By Author & Historian Richard Lee Cronin

 Part One:

Have you attended an Orlando Historical Society meeting lately? Neither have I, which is why I became curious of late as to why no such organization exists today. A Society by this name did in fact exist once upon a time but has since become part of Orlando’s rich history its members had set out to preserve.

The Orlando Historical Society was not the first such organization organized to be the custodians of Orlando’s fascinating history. As early as 1912, prior to Seminole County being carved out in 1913, Annie Louise (Caldwell) Whitner of Sanford, as Chairperson of an Orange County Historical Society formed to preserve Central Florida history, authored a brief history of the county – and included the legend of Fort Gatlin’s infamous Council Oak, a notable tree dead yet still standing near the homestead of yet another member of the early Society (more on the tree later in this series).

Historians, including yours truly, have authored numerous books about the origins of our Orange County seat of government, and in most every case, we authors relied heavily on the invaluable information passed along to us by volunteers who had taken on the role of custodians of relics and data relating to our past.

One organization the custodians of the past operated under was known as the Orlando Historical Society. Another such organization was the Orange County Historical Commission, who in 1964, opened an exhibit on the 8th floor of what was then the new Courthouse Annex (since demolished), a building which replaced the historic 1892 red brick courthouse shown with this post. One item on exhibit at that time was the bell (Insert of photo above) retrieved from the red brick courthouse just prior to its demolition.

Plan to attend this exclusive presentation

Free and Open to the public

10:15 AM October 18, 2023

Orlando Remembered Meeting

 Orlando Library Downtown

Orlando native Donald Alexander Cheney, son of Orlando pioneer Judge John M. Cheney, served as Chairman of the Orange County Historical Commission from its founding until his death in 1983; was credited as well for establishing a historical museum in Loch Haven Park; and assisted in the 1971 formation of the Orange County Historical Society, serving as its first President. Donald A. Cheney (1889-1983), said his obituary, “Virtually was the history of Orange County.”

So then, who better for us to feature in kicking off this special Orlando Remembered series?

If historic Orlandoans are of interest to you, plan to attend the October 18, 2023 Orlando Remembered meeting, in the Melrose Room on the 2nd floor of the downtown library, for a special presentation of “Remembering Orlandoans”. This free event starts at 10:15 AM and is open to the public.

Meanwhile, this Custodians of Orlando History series will be continued. Stay tuned!

Sarasota Month: Emeline Dykes

 Sarasota Month: Emeline Dykes Foster

The "Phillippi House" on Sarasota Bay (1847)

Sarasota Month here at Rick’s Blog began by celebrating the amazing life of Bertha Honore, an accomplished Floridian who is better known throughout South Florida as Mrs. Potter Palmer (see also my Blog of March 7, 2023). Many of the bravest of the brave frontierswomen however are rarely mentioned in history books, despite their ability to survive the most difficult of times. These all too often forgotten Florida pioneers are the women I challenge myself to learn of, so I can in turn share these extra-special individuals with my history fans.

SARASOTA MONTH at RICK'S BLOG

Of particular interest to Sarasota’s History Day in the Park celebration should be Miss Emeline Dykes, a Florida native born 27 February 1842 in Citrus County. The fact that Emeline counts among the young female survivors of the 1840s is of itself qualification for special mention, but her place in Sarasota history – or I should say Florida history – deserves more than a sentence or two about her being among those young women who conquered the difficulties of surviving to adulthood in Florida’s wilderness.

Emeline is equally fascinating to me as a Central Florida historian because of her ties to pioneers of my homeplace. Her mother was Frances Blitch, a name that traces as well to the earliest days of Florida’s Fort Gatlin and Pine Castle area south of downtown Orlando. The Blitch family of the pre-Statehood Homosassa region spread throughout Central and South Florida.

Emeline Dykes, as best as we can determine, had married three times. Her second husband was Ephriam Rollin Foster, who she married 10 March 1875. Emeline and Ephriam then had a daughter, born 28 October 1879, at Manatee County. As Sarasota County did not yet exist, genealogy records for Emeline’s daughter have been adjusted by family records to show her place of birth as “Sarasota, Sarasota County.” That adjustment is not disputed in the least.

One month following the marriage of Emeline and Ephriam in 1875, the General Land Office issued a homestead deed to Ephriam R. Foster for 38 acres that is identified as “Lot 1, Section 31, Township 36 South, Range 18 East.” This very parcel appears on the 1847 survey above as Lot 1, the sliver of land fronting Sarasota Bay just above the red arrow added by me.

BOOK LAUNCH AT PHILLIPPI'S ESTATE

To Sarasota, With Love, Orlando

Our Shared Heritage

By Richard Lee Cronin

My red arrow points to a noteworthy structure of early Sarasota history. Surveyors of the 1840s rarely sketched “places of interest” because their work preceded most every homesteader. But in 1847, Deputy Surveyor A. H. Jones noted the existence of the “Phillippi House” on Sarasota Bay. Its location in Lot 2 places the Phillippi House as adjacent to the property deeded to Ephriam and Emeline (Dykes) Foster. (Surveyor Jones identified the Phillippi house of 1847 as being about one-half mile north of Siesta Drive of today.)

Following the death of Ephriam in 1882, Emeline remarried. One of the earliest of pioneer women ever to reside in what is now the town of Sarasota, and after giving birth to seven known Florida pioneers in the 1860s and 1870s, she died in 1913 at the age of 71.

Sarasota Frontierswoman Emeline Dykes was a neighbor to one of the areas first known structures, the Phillippi House. On March 25, 2023, at the Phillippi Estate in Sarasota, History Day in the Park will celebrate this town's history. And I am extremely proud to be part of this splendid celebration. (Note: Phillippi Estate Park is located along the Phillippi Creek and not at the location pinpointed in 1847 by the government surveyors.)

I hope you will stop by my booth and say hello. I invite you to also attend one or more of my 15-minute after each hour presentations at my booth. Here's my schedule for each brief presentation:

Snippets of Florida History

Rick Cronin’s History Booth

Sarasota’s History Day in the Park

Saturday, March 25, 2023

 

Snippets Schedule (Each Talk 10 minutes or less)

A Women’s Month Tribute to Rose (10:15 AM)

Mrs. Joseph H. Lord’s Orlando Ghost (11:15 AM)

Orlando and the Sanibel Lighthouse (12:15 PM)

Would YOU have been as Honorable? (1:15 PM)

What’s with Lake Wailes of Lake Wales? (2:15 PM)

A Women’s Month Tribute to Bertha (3:15 PM)

From Sarasota’s Indian Beach to Orlando (4:15 PM)  

Naming Lakes Sue & Virginia

 

Naming Lakes Sue & Virginia

 

1890 Orange County map of Lakes Sue and Virginia

 

During my ‘Naming the Winter Park Lakes’ presentation recently at the Winter Park Historical Association, I was asked about the accuracy of my version of how Lake Sue and Lake Virginia were named. It was a legitimate question since another written history had assigned credit for the naming differently: “Much, if not all the timber came from a sawmill of George W, Moyers,” says an alternate version about where the wood came from to build early Winter Park structures, “whose operation was located on a portion of Lake Virginia’s shore now occupied by Rollins College.” Mr. Moyers, concludes that alternate version, “named Lake Virginia after his state of origin, Lake Sue for his wife, the former Miss Henkel.” I believe this alternate version is wrong!

I stand by the documented account as stated in my book ‘Orlando Lakes: Homesteaders and Namesakes.’ As is so often the case in early Central Florida histories, oral histories are mistaken as facts to draw incorrect conclusions. There was indeed a pioneer named George W. Moyers, who did in fact have a sawmill and was indeed married to Susan Henkel. But Lake Sue was not named for Susan (Henkel) Moyers.

Lake Sue is known to have been named as of mid-1882 because it is mentioned in a deed dated the 3^rd of July of that year. George W. Moyers never owned land on or near Lake Sue as of that date, whereas William F and Susan P. Russell were homesteaders on 160 acres when they sold forty of those acres to a Mr. Joseph H. Bruce, issuing a deed to the man which contained the following wording: “about eleven and one-half acres being land, and the remainder of said tract being in Lake Sue.” Russell’s deed correctly gives the location of Lake Sue as Section 18, Township 22 South, Range 30 East (Note the 18 printed on Lake Sue in the map above). “Mrs. Susan Russell,” after the death of her husband, also placed an ad in the Orlando Evening Star of 29 February 1884, attempting to sell her remaining 100 acres, land which, according to her ad, was said to be located on “Lake Sue.”

 

3 July 1882 Lake Sue deed by William F. & Susan P. Russell [OCID#18839022136]

 

George W. Moyers had relocated his family from Virginia by 1880 and was a resident of Orange County in the census of that year, but his original homestead was not at Winter Park. The Moyers homestead of 1880 was in Township 21 South (not Township 22 South), six miles north of Lake Sue. West of Altamonte Springs, Moyers property was near today’s intersection of Montgomery Road and Highway 436. When Moyers arrived in 1880, Altamonte Springs was at the time in its early development, and Winter Park had yet to establish itself.

 

1890 Orange County map of G. W. Moyers west of Lake Orienta, Altamonte Springs

 

The 1880 Orange County census lists the youngest Moyers child as 2 years old, born in Virginia. Moyers family records reflect that a son Kagen was born at Altamonte Springs, Florida, on “16 February 1881.” In February 1882, George W. Moyers purchased land at Winter Park, receiving a deed which described his property as located on the shore of Lake Osceola in Section 5, Township 22 South, 30 East. An 1884 map of Winter Park (see below) shows the Moyer property as located on the shore of Lake Osceola.

 

1884 Winter Park map showing G. W. Moyers parcel on Lake Osceola

 

Lake Virginia was already named when George W. Moyers relocated from Altamonte Springs to Winter Park. In fact, Lake Virginia was already named when Moyers arrived in Florida. We can establish this fact from another recorded deed dated May 29, 1878. The Moyers family was still at Virginia when Bolling R. & Helena Swoope signed a deed which included this description of the parcel being sold: “to a point in Lake Virginia.”

The Swoope’s had purchased 40 acres on Lake Virginia on October 13, 1876, acquiring the land from a friend and fellow Virginian, Anzi Arthur. Swoope and Arthur were residents of Augusta County, Virginia.

 

Lake Sue was indeed named for the wife of a pioneer who had homesteaded on the lake, but the last name of the pioneer was Russell, not Moyers. And Lake Virginia was in fact named for the state of Virginia by a resident who had relocated from that state to the Winter Park area, but the name of that pioneer was, I firmly believe based upon extensive research, Swoope not Moyers.

References for my research of each of the 303 lakes included in Orlando Lakes: Homesteaders & Namesakes can be found verified for I list them at the end of each lake.

Early Central Florida written history does indeed contain inaccurate information, but this is so, I believe, because of the tragic times our pioneers endured while attempting to tame a wilderness that was anything but kind to these newcomers. Survival topped the to-do list of every day life, and the recording of an accurate history was far down on that same list. But we have today an opportunity to peruse the many dated documents of yesteryear – and right their story. 

Orlando Lakes: Homesteaders & Namesakes

By Richard Lee Cronin

Sarasota Month: Bertha Honore Palmer

Sarasota Month: 

Woman's History Month: Bertha Honorȇ Palmer

Bertha Honorȇ Palmer (1849 – 1918)

Sarasota’s growth and development benefited immensely from its association with Bertha (Honorȇ) Palmer, widow of Chicago millionaire Potter Palmer. In 1910, newspaper headlines informed the world that Mrs. Potter Palmer had acquired 75,000 plus acres in the vicinity of Sarasota and Venice, along Florida’s famed Gulf of Mexico. By the time of her death in 1918, Bertha had, in eight years, nearly doubled the value of the estate that had been left to her by her husband. But even before her husband’s death, Bertha had herself become an accomplished individual. She was by no means simply a wealthy Widow.

A Triumphant World’s Fair:

The Inter Ocean, Chicago, Illinois 1 November 1893

“In the organization of the board,” reported an extensive review of the management of Chicago’s 1893 World Exposition, “it was generally conceded that the election of Bertha Honorȇ Palmer as President of the Board of Lady Managers was the wisest choice that could be made.” The independent review spoke highly of the achievements of the Board that had been formed in 1890, and went on to say, “she came to her position with very thorough social training, with tact and self-mastery that have been invaluable.”

“She is of Southern extraction,” said the World’s Fair review of Bertha Honorȇ Palmer, “being born in the city of Louisville. She was educated in a convent at Georgetown, D. C., and is still remembered there as a student of brilliant promise. She is a fine linguist and a pleasing conversationalist, two accomplishments that have been of the greatest advantage.”

In her role as President of the Board of Lady Managers, Bertha Honorȇ Palmer traveled to Europe to promote involvement by other countries in the Exposition. “At the time of the opening exercise last May (1892),’ the review article stated, “the board had the satisfaction of seeing represented in the Woman’s Building a valuable and complete showing from Great Britain, France, Germany, Austria, Russia, Italy, Mexico, Brazil, Siam, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, Holland, and Greece.”

A Woman’s Building at Chicago’s World Fair:

The Woman's Building, Chicago World's Fair of 1893

Says the National Park Service website of the Board of Lady Managers for the Chicago 1893 Exposition: “During the planning stage, some civically engaged, upper-class women pressured Exposition administrators for greater representation. As a result, Congress authorized and funded the Board of Lady Managers. The 117 Board members were the first women who served in an official capacity at a world’s fair. Yet, women were still excluded from any major decision-making. Socialite Bertha Honoré Palmer served as the Board’s president.” One thing the NPS failed to say about the accomplishments of Bertha and her Board of Lady Managers is best summarized by an 1893 statement by a review of the Exposition itself:

“Mrs. Palmer’s efforts to exploit The Fair in Europe were not surpassed in zeal and perseverance by those which had such force and weight with the Congress of the United States. It is universally admitted that no one member of the National Commission or Directory exercised with that difficult body one-tenth the influence which Mrs. Palmer exerted through the force of her own personality.”

“It is a Lovely and Charming Place.”

In late fall 1916, while motoring south from Chicago toward Sarasota, Bertha Honorȇ Palmer detoured onto the Central Branch of the newly established Dixie Highway to pay a visit to Winter Park, a town she described that November as a lovely and charming place. The Widow Palmer had come to Orange County on both business and pleasure.

Earlier in 1916, Bertha Palmer had been elected the First Vice-President of the Florida Livestock Association, and so one reason for her driving to Central Florida was to visit with Dr. William Fremont Blackman. Retired from his position as President of Rollins College, and not yet ready to publish his acclaimed History of Orange County, Dr. Blackman had been elected President of the Florida Livestock Association at the same meeting that February. And so, among other places in Central Florida she planned to visit, Mrs. Palmer toured Dr. Blackman’s 4,000 acres Wekiwa Ranch on the St. Johns River. Afterwards, she visited the Willett Ranch at Lake Maitland to “view the thoroughbred hogs that Mr. Willett was making a specialty of,” prior to proceeding toward her winter residence near Venice. Bertha Honorȇ Palmer was by no means a passive Florida rancher.

Nor did Bertha Honorȇ Palmer likely appreciate how historic her journey through Central Florida had been. After crossing the St. Johns River at Lake Monroe, her motoring would have taken her into downtown Sanford, where in the 1880s, arriving settlers the likes of Piers E. Warburton would have disembarked from steamers arriving from Jacksonville. Piers Warburton came in 1883 and settled at Maitland before moving further south to lay the groundwork for a town of Sarasota.

Driving the new Dixie Highway in 1916, Bertha would have passed through Longwood, where in the early 1880s, the Longwood Whisper was being published by a man who was to become known as the “Dean of South Florida Press,’ the very “Dean” who later published Sarasota’s first-ever newspaper. Next, after departing the lovely and charming town of Winter Park, Bertha Honorȇ Palmer would have crossed a narrow strip of land separating Lakes Ivanhoe and Highland on her way into Orlando, where roadside was located the one-time residence of Joseph H. Lord, the very person who had enticed Bertha to bring much of her vast wealth to Sarasota.

Look for my booth at Sarasota's

History Day in the Park

Phillippi Estate Park

March 25, 2023 from 10 AM to 5 PM

Florida history is chock full of fascinating individuals and intriguing happenstances, a shared heritage between Orlando and Sarasota included. Railroads of the 1880s became the initial link – a means by which to reach Tampa Bay from the steamboat docks at Sanford. And although that was before Bertha Honorȇ Palmer’s time, it was the precise time for a young Irish lass named Winifred A. Hodgson to make the long journey from England to Sarasota. 

Florida history indeed includes many of the most fascinating individuals ever – men and women alike. You read a bit about Bertha, was one such founder, and Winifred, she will be next in this March series.

To Sarasota, with Love, Orlando

Our Shared Heritage

By Richard Lee Cronin

Pick up a signed copy at History Day in the Park

Or, Buy it today at Amazon

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

Part IV Fort Gatlin Month: The Cabin

 Dateline Fort Gatlin: The Cabin  

March 27, 1924 at Fort Gatlin 

Three decades after pioneer William Wallace Harney wrote of seeing “the site of old Fort Gatlin, with its camp drill grounds and marks of old quarters and chimneys still standing,” an admirer of Harney’s poetry, William Dunbar of New Orleans, called upon the aging poet at the tiny hillside cabin where Harney was living in 1904. Harney’s home in 1904 was no longer his historic “Pine Castle” of the 1870s. He no longer looked out across Lake Conway from his residence, as he had done so as the Orange County pioneer who had inspired the founding of a city named for his lakeside dwelling. Will Harney was 73 years old when Dunbar came knocking on the door of a little cabin atop Gatlin Hill, where his view then was of Lake Gem Mary, a lovely little round lake named in 1870 for the mother of Will Harney’s beloved bride, Mary St. Mayer Randolph.

“He was a rather small man, heavy-set, with one of the most superb heads I ever saw. His brow was so high it reminded me of pictures of Shakespeare. His eyes were handsome, and very intent and keen. He was most gracious in his manner and cordial, seeming to really appreciate my visit.”

William F. Dunbar’s description of Will Wallace Harney

Established in 1838 and abandoned by the Army in 1842, the brief existence of a remote Army fortress became etched in the annals of Central Florida history not so much because of its brief stint as an Army outpost during the Second Seminole Indian War, but rather because of the pioneers who came thereafter – and kept the memory of Fort Gatlin alive.

Fort Gatlin as a settlement pre-dates Orlando. Named by the earliest pioneers, individuals such as Aaron Jernigan, a Fort Gatlin community encompassed a large portion of Orange County, extending north from the fortress and encompassing that which we know of today as Orlando, the county seat.

The writings of correspondent Will Wallace Harney, published in the Cincinnati Commercial newspaper during the 1870s, wrote of Fort Gatlin, the historic location owned as of the 1870s by Harney’s in-laws, William & Mary (Pitts) Randolph. And it was on the east side of the old Fort Gatlin, only weeks after Harney’s arrival in Central Florida in December 1869, where he buried his one true life-long love, Mary, his bride of only18 months.      

“The Randolph Family erected and occupied a fine home on the northwest shore of Lake Gem Mary; this lake was named for Mrs. Randolph. A family burial ground, often mistaken in later times for an Indian burial place, was located near the house; in this some half-dozen bodies were interred, all of them later being removed to Greenwood Cemetery.”

History of Orange County by William Fremont Blackman (1927)

Government surveyors first arrived in Central Florida to survey the land south of Lake Monroe in the 1840s. The first landmass surveyed however was south of both present-day towns of Orlando and Sanford. In fact, seventy-two square miles of Orange County, land surrounding Fort Gatlin and Lake Conway, had been surveyed before the land from Orlando north to Sanford was surveyed.   

Gatlin Hill, the name coined for the historic property tucked between three awe-inspiring lakes; Jenny Jewel, Gem Mary, and Lake Gatlin, was purposely selected for a greater role by the first private citizen to step foot on Gatlin Hill following the end of the Seminole Indian War. Deputy Surveyor Benjamin F. Whitner not only envisioned a great future for this location, he also took part in developing that planned role. Whitner acquired hundreds of acres around old Fort Gatlin years before the village of Orlando was founded.

“In the dead of the night, the dead of the night

There’s a sound along the rails.

The creaking of a whirling crank

Like the flapping of iron flails.

With the long, low roll that herald’s a storm,

Over sunburnt fields of grain:

With the sullen roar of rain in the wood

Comes the Invisible Train.”

 

The Phantom Train

By Will Wallace Harney

 Cypress Grove Park, one mile east of Gatlin Hill, is the location of Pine Castle Pioneer Days, an annual celebration of this region’s bravest of the brave, the founders and settlers who carved out a remote wilderness to create a region we know and love today as South Orange County. There is much to see, do, and hear at Pine Castle Pioneer Days, such as Vintage Baseball, a Classic Car Show, great Music all day long, and scheduled history talks at the History Tent.

Bring the family and help celebrate the legacy of Fort Gatlin. You even stop by my Cronin Books booth and pick up a signed copy of my book, Beyond Gatlin: A History of South Orange County.

 The History Tent schedule for February 25, 2023

The History Tent schedule for February 26, 2023

Beyond Gatlin: A History of South Orang County

Available in Paperback & Hardcover

By Richard Lee Cronin

Rick’s March Blog Will Celebrate Sarasota Month

Part III - Fort Gatlin Month: The Militia

Part III: Fort Gatlin’s Militia

Countdown to Pine Castle's Pioneer Days

Snell's Home, Sarasota Bay, and the Captains of 1856 Fort Gatlin

On the 7^th of January 1856, Florida’s Adjutant General notified communities throughout the state that they should form a militia immediately to protect themselves. Indians had again gone on the offensive, so at Fort Gatlin, veteran Indian fighter Aaron Jernigan answered the Governor’s call by organizing an Orange County Militia consisting of eighty-three (83) settlers. During the months leading up to the Governor’s statewide militia call, beginning in late December 1855, the Indians had attacked an Army regiment in southwest Florida led by Lt. George L. Hartsuff.

It had been thirteen years since the Second Seminole Indian War had been declared over, but in 1856, fears were that a third war would soon be underway. As in prior conflicts, the warriors did not confine their raids on the military. “We have reliable information direct from Tampa” reported the Alligator Advertiser of Manatee County on 16 March 1856 ”that twelve Indians had attacked the premises of the Honorable H. V. Snell at Sarasota (Bay), about sixty miles south of Tampa, and nine miles from the Manatee settlement.” The homesteader, Hamlin Valentine Snell (1810-1886), was not home at the time of the attack, but a gentleman by the name of Cunningham died in the attack. Snell’s home was burned to the ground.

MARCH IS SARASOTA MONTH

North of Tampa in Hernando County (now Pasco County), on 14 May 1856, yet another Indian raid claimed the life of two young children who had been standing on the porch of their family dwelling when the Indians began firing on the home. “Known today as the Bradley Massacre, a history marker now tells of the attack: “A Seminole War party attacked the home of Robert Duke Bradley of the Florida foot volunteers. Two of the Bradley children were killed before the Indians withdrew. This was the last such attack on a settler’s homestead east of the Mississippi.”

Pine Castle Pioneer Days

February 25 & 26, 2023

Cypress Grove Park, 290 Holden Avenue, Orlando, FL

There was, of course, no way of knowing in May of 1856 that the Bradley Massacre was to be the last such attack on homesteaders, so at Orange County, Jernigan’s militia readied itself to defend their communities. Although qualified to lead based on his years of fighting Indians in Georgia and Florida, Aaron Jernigan, in 1856, was not the right candidate for the job. He had witnessed an Indian raid in 1839 on his Georgia home, during which a member of his family was killed. Then, a decade later, Jernigan sheltered his family at Fort Gatlin (Part II) fearing yet another raid, this time on his new home in Florida. 

So, in September 1856, Jernigan’s Orange County Militia needed a change of guard. The conduct of the Militia had been called in question, with some reporting that "Jernigan's company, stationed for the protection of settlements, in some cases were dreaded by the settlers more than the Indians." Charged with mistreating Indians, Captain Jernigan was relieved of command, with Isaac Newton Rutland being named the new Captain of the Orange County militia. (Rutland, in January 1861, cast the second vote opposing Secession for Orange County. The Rutland Mule Matter, by Richard Lee Cronin).  

The complete list of Orange County’s 1856 Militia “mustered in” at Fort Gatlin will be found in Appendix A, (page 225), of Beyond Gatlin: A History of South Orange County, now available in Paperback or Hard Cover, by Richard Lee Cronin.

Now available in Paperback and Hard Cover

Beyond Gatlin will be available at Pioneer Days

 

As most all of Florida had been surveyed during the 1840s, these surveys at times included any in place residence or fortress at the time the survey was made. Both Fort Gatlin and the home of Hamlin V. Snell are shown on the earliest surveys of each specific location.

Hamlin Snell’s home was built on the beach of Sarasota Bay about two miles north of present-day downtown Sarasota. The site of Snell’s home later became known as Indian Beach (not to be confused with Indian Rocks Beach of Pinellas County). Today par of Sarasota, a town of Indian Beach existed here as early as 1891. This stretch of Sarasota Bay beach, in the 1880s, had even more in common with Orange County than the Indian raid of 1856.

March: Sarasota Month - Our Shared Heritage

 Pioneer Days - Day 1: Professor Paul W. Wehr Day

1856 was a pivotal year for Fort Gatlin. A metropolitan area known up until then as Fort Gatlin became known in 1856-57 as Orlando. The name change came about by the Militia members of 1856 who also voted on a location for a new Orange County seat of government. For more than a century a factual tally of that election was never accurately reported by the historians who have written of the founding of Orlando, Florida.

The accurate result of the election of 1856 is publicly available today because of one man, a true historian, Paul W. Wehr. A professor of history at the University of Florida for twenty-five years before his retirement, Professor Wehr traveled to Tallahassee in years past and dug for the long-buried election results of 1856. And finding the tally sheets, Wehr documented the surprising results in his book, From Mosquito to Orange County, published by the Pine Castle Historical Society in cooperation with the Pine Castle Woman's Club.

I Invite you to join me at 10:15 AM, Saturday, February 25, 2023, at the HISTORY TENT at Pine Castle Pioneer Days, as I open this year's lecture series with a tribute to Author and Historian, Professor Paul W. Wehr.

Then, stop by Cronin Books Booth, adjacent to the History Tent, and say hello.