Lake Monroe - Doyle & Brantley - Part 4 of 4

FORT MELLON MONTH, Part 4 of 4 

Doyle and Brantley at Mellonville

Mellonville Road of today and yesteryear’s Doyle Residence at Mellonville

More like that of a scene out of a Wild-West picture show, it’s not easy today to imagine 300 to 400 painted warriors storming the Lake Monroe beach in their attack on Encampment Monroe. A fierce battle however did in fact occur on the south shore of Lake Monroe on 8 February 1837, a Seminole Indian War clash which forever changed Central Florida. 

The Grave of Capt. Charles Mellon

The most noticeable change occurred within days of the incident, with Encampment Monroe being renamed Fort Mellon in honor of the one fallen comrade, Captain Charles Mellon (Part III). The battle of 8 February 1837 was but the beginning of a series of claimed land ownerships that, by the 1880s, would officially establish a gateway for Central Florida settlers.

Coming in February: Fort Gatlin Month

While the Army fought for control of Lake Monroe’s south shore in 1837, a battle of a different nature was already underway at the U. S. Supreme Court in Washington, DC. A Morocco native named Moses was arguing before the court that the very same Florida Territory property, 12,000 acres to be exact, rightfully belonged to him. Spain, said Moses E. Levy, had granted this land to him, and on these 12,000 acres he planned to establish a homeland for persecuted Jews of Europe. Levy had won his case, but the United States filed an appeal.

Spanish Land Grant map of 12,000 acres on Lake Valdez

Moses Elias Levy Grant

Lake Valdez was renamed Lake Monroe

Meanwhile, back in the Florida Territory, two soldiers of the Second Indian War, recruits from the North who survived the six-year War, remained behind as their comrades began to pack up and return home. And the two who stayed in 1842 forever changed Central Florida.

Henry A. Crane of New Jersey and Augustus J. Vaughn of Virginia both remained at their posts – literally – after victory had been declared. Crane and Vaughn became the first settlers, two of the bravest of brave who claimed homesteads south of Lake Monroe.

Henry Crane homesteaded fortress Mellon and 160 acres surrounding the abandoned fort. He established a settlement there, naming it Mellonville. The pier on Fort Mellon built by the Army became a port of entry for private citizens, a landing spot for the earliest steamboats to offload settlers – more of the bravest of brave Central Florida pioneers.

Augustus Jefferson Vaughn homesteaded Fort Reid, a supply fort 1.5 miles inland that had been established just prior to the end of the War. Vaughn selected 160 acres which included the old fortress, and he too established a settlement, naming it Fort Reid (misspelled Reed in 1846 by an early surveyor). [A visitor to Fort Reid in 1873 met an “old gentleman,” Augustus Vaughn, and asked if he could see the fort and its soldiers. Augustus Vaughn replied, “This is the fort, and I am the soldier”]

Fort Mellon and Fort Reid were connected by a trail 1.5 miles long, the first part of a trail that was 22 miles long and known in the 1840s as the Fort Mellon to Fort Gatlin Road. In the 1850s this trail became the Mellonville to Orlando Road, and, for the short portion still in existence, is now known as Mellonville Road.

Coming in March: SARASOTA Month

Settlements Mellonville and Fort Reid were both established in 1842, prior to the Homestead Act Amendment requiring homesteaders to select acreage at least two miles or more from an Army post. Central Florida pioneer Aaron Jernigan arrived in 1843, desiring to homestead Fort Gatlin, but was required instead to choose land that was two miles from the fortress Gatlin – a story best told next week – during Fort Gatlin Month – our countdown to Pine Castle Pioneer Days series.

 

As Mellonville began developing on the shore of Lake Monroe at the old fortress, the Supreme court in Washington, DC, ever so slowly deliberated the fate of the Moses Levy Grant. In 1850, 18 years after Levy had filed his Spanish Land Grant lawsuit, a final decision was handed down giving Moses E. Levy his land. Then a resident of St. Augustine, Levy was awarded all 12,000 acres, and the Court also ordered a surveyor to return to Central Florida to establish boundaries of the Levy Grant.

Eastern boundary of 1850 Mellonville Survey

Surveyor Arthur Randolph found half of Mellonville, including the Lake Monroe wharf, to be located on property belonging to Moses Elias Levy as of 1850. The 1842 Homestead of Henry A. Crane was voided, and Crane thereafter departed Orange County.

Moses E. Levy sold his 12,000 acres on the south shore of Lake Monroe to an Irishman, Joseph Finegan, who soon after became Florida’s Brigadier General during the Civil War. Finegan sold his 12,000 mostly undeveloped acres to a Northerner, Henry S. Sanford, who in turn sold most of his unsold city of Sanford to a consortium of English Investors.

Although Joseph Finegan still owned most of the 12,000 acres in 1867, one small parcel had been sold to Michael J. Doyle and George C. Brantley, two Civil War veterans who decided to establish a General Store on the south shore of Lake Monroe near the old Fort Mellon Wharf. The Doyle & Brantley store welcomed a new generation of settlers to Orange County - a remarkable generation of dreamers - and doers - from around the globe.

In later years the gateway would shift one mile to the west, but during the 1870s, the First Road to Orlando opened the way to development of the Central Florida we know and love today.  

My Five-Star Rated First Road to Orlando is available at Amazon.com

 Available also at my CroninBooks Booth next to the HISTORY TENT

Pine Castle Pioneer Days, February 25 and 26, 2023

FORT GATLIN MONTH BEGINS

Next Wednesday, February 1, 2023