ELIZABETH of PALM SPRINGS, Seminole County, FL

Blog Series: Central Florida Would-Be TITANS

Part 2: Elizabeth of Palm Springs, Seminole County, FL

A Seminole County Ghost Town today, PALM SPRINGS began as a railroad hub in 1888 Orange County, a city developed by Elizabeth McClain Saunders-Massey.

“As we passed through Palm Springs,” wrote Amos Root, a passenger on one of six daily trains passing through Elizabeth’s 1895 Palm Springs, “I got just enough of a glimpse to feel I wanted to stop there.” Amos did return, but curious central Floridians might find themselves asking today, “returned to where?”

1890 Orange County Map: (A) Orange Belt Railway from Sanford; (B) Florida Midland Railway from Longwood, now SR 434; (C) Hoosier Springs Grove & Estate; (D) Intersection of I-4 & State Road 434 today; (E) Lake Brantley.

Elizabeth came to Florida in 1887 because of her son’s deteriorating health. Setting out from Toronto, Canada, the Widow Saunders arrived in the widely-promoted land of health, wealth and sunshine, a land I call CitrusLAND. Timing is crucial to appreciate Elizabeth’s legacy, for women of the 19^th century were typically confined to the difficult task of homemaking and child rearing. The business world was a male thing. But in 19^th century central Florida women, such as Widow Saunders, were breaking with tradition.

A biography of Elizabeth M. Saunders-Massey, as our Palm Springs developer was known in 1915, was included with a collection of biographies of Orange County settlers, and began by stating: “Usually men are the earliest settlers.” Even in 1915 the author understood the significance of her achievements, a lady who lived in the “mansion on the hill-side and orange grove known as the “Hoosier Springs Grove.”

Our story of Elizabeth of CitrusLAND began at a place called Hoosier Springs.

1885 Plat of Hoosier Springs (Partial)

Widow Saunders bought the 161 acre homestead of Ingram & Gertrude Fletcher, closing on her purchase January 28, 1887. The land itself had been sub-divided in 1885 as both a personal residence on the Wekiva River and a town of “Hoosier Springs” on the south side of the planned Florida Midland Railway track. (Hoosier Springs, in the 20^th century, became SANLANDO SPRINGS.)

But Hoosier Springs of 1887 had not been a success story. Elizabeth’s deed spells out the town’s lackluster development. Excluded from all 161 acres was a one acre church lot; a 0.87 acre town lot sold to brothers Frank & William Baker; and the standard right-of-way path allowing two railroads to cross over the property. Most all of the town first platted by the Fletcher’s remained unsold and undeveloped.

“The mansion on the hill-side and orange grove known as “Hoosier Springs Grove,” as the CitrusLAND home of Elizabeth Saunders was described, had been the winter residence of a one-time prominent banker from Indianapolis, Ingram Fletcher. As his native Indiana was the Hoosier State, hence – Hoosier Springs!

Bordering the less than successful town of Hoosier Springs was yet another tiny village, a much older want-to-be town known as Altamont. First envisioned in 1874 by a New York doctor, Washington Kilmer, this neighboring town was no more a success than Hoosier Springs.

Had Elizabeth looked across her 1887 landholdings, she would have seen the unfulfilled dream towns of two city planners, two adjacent towns having a hundred plus vacant town lots each, acreage crisscrossed by two railroads. Surrounded as well by countless citrus groves though, the potential of her landholdings likely seemed endless.

Within five months of closing on her land, the Widow Saunders revised the Altamont plat, merging Kilmer’s city with the old Hoosier Springs town she had acquired from Ingram Fletcher. Elizabeth however dressed up the layout of the town by adding a dozen ‘Town Squares’, each crossroad square called out by such names as Gardenia Square, at the junction of Saunders and Cambridge Streets; or Oleander Square where Orange Avenue crossed Toronto Street.

A portion of 1887 revised Altamont Town Plat

A month later, June 14, 1887, Elizabeth sold her first town lot. Lot 18 of the new Town of Altamont fronted Railroad Street, on the east side of the Orange Belt Railway and Florida Midland Railway crossing. The Baker Brothers, lot number 22, was on the west side of the crossing, where they operated a general store and railway depot. The buyer of lot 18 was William Massey, the man Elizabeth would soon marry. (William died soon after they married, and so Widow Saunders became Widow Massey.)

ALTAMONT could boast of location, location, location, but so too could a neighboring city three miles east. That town, ALTAMONTE, was situated on another railroad line, the South Florida Railroad, and that location had a luxury hotel as well. Distinguishing the two locations became crucial, and so on the 12^th of January, 1888, one year after Widow Saunders acquired Hoosier Springs, Frank W. Baker, the merchant of Lot 22 in Altamont, became Postmaster of a newly formed Palm Springs Post Office.

“Palm Springs 1893: The spring from which the place takes its name is about one quarter of a mile north of the store. Hoosier Springs is a short distance west of the store.” Illustrated Orange County, 1893

Having viewed Palm Springs in 1895 from onboard Orange Belt Railway, Amos Root returned a day later to personally “investigate” the area: “In a little shady nook were great palm trees that threw their protecting branches all over and around, and a beautiful crystal spring boils up, sending out a volume sufficient to make a good sized creek. The waters are just warm enough for nice bathing, and there are seats arranged on the mossy banks, making it a most inviting place for picnickers or pleasure-seekers.”

The author of ‘Gleanings in Bee Culture’, Amos Root wrote of touring central Florida months after the freeze of 1894-95. The region’s future at the time of Root’s visit was not yet known, although perhaps unknowingly, he predicted the area’s fate while at the same time telling of a little shady nook known as Palm Springs: “In consequence of the freeze, however, business was, as might be expected, dead, and things looked dull.” 

Elizabeth McClain Saunders-Massey had been mother to seven. She buried two husbands and five of her children prior to 1900. The son she brought south because of his poor health, John McClain Saunders, was buried at Greenwood Cemetery in Orlando after his death, August 30, 1906. John’s Orlando physician at the time of his death was Dr. Washington Kilmer, formerly of Altamont.

Elizabeth and her only surviving son, Thomas Malcolm Saunders, returned north to Canada. Thomas died in April, 1917, in France, during World War I. One month before her 83^rd birthday, eight years after Seminole County carved away a portion of Orange County, Elizabeth McClain Saunders-Massey, on June 3, 1921, passed away at Ontario, Canada.  The year of her death, only one of two 1921 Seminole County maps included Palm Springs. Soon thereafter, most every sign of Elizabeth’s once-upon-a-time town began to vanish.

Florida’s Great Freeze of 1894-95 destroyed not only the State’s record-setting citrus crop, projected to be nearly 9 million boxes, it wiped out as well the ambitious dreams of many of the wealthiest individuals in the world.

Racing along at a top speed of nearly 6 mph, travel aboard Orange Belt Railway in the spring of 1895, and meet the visionaries, men and women alike, those who had given it their all to establish West Orange County.

CitrusLAND: Ghost Towns & Phantom Trains includes stops at Sylvan Lake; Paola; Island Lake; Glen Ethel; Palm Springs; Forest City; Toronto; Lakeville; Clarcona; Crown Point; Winter Garden and Oakland.

CLICK ON BOOK COVER TO VISIT AMAZON.COM SITE

Along the 35 mile West Orange County route of Orange Belt Railway you will meet many of the region’s earliest settlers, including: Edward T. Stotesbury; John Parker Ilsley; Brothers Alastair & William MacLeod; Whitner; Benjamin M. Robinson; Thomas E. Wilson; Fox; Mary Lambert; Dr. Washington Kilmer; Ingram Fletcher; Roswell Fulmer; Walter W. Hunt; Mrs. Elizabeth (McClain) Saunders-Massey; Peter A. Demens; Allan MacDowell Smyth; the Root family; John G. Hower; George Reed; Alice C. Hill; Samuel Hyde; Sidney Witty; David E. Washburn; Robert A. Mills; Mahlon Gore; the Roper family; the Speer family and many others.

CitrusLAND books, the true history of the people and events that shaped central Florida, by Richard Lee Cronin. Copyright 2015.       

CLEMENT R. TYNER (TINER)

Blog Series: Central Florida Would-be-Titans 

PART One: CLEMENT R. TYNER (aka TINER)

He’s the reason Orange Avenue south of Oakridge Road parallels the railroad tracks, and he also laid out what is today Lancaster Road, Anno Avenue, Fairlane Avenue and yes, even Tiner Avenue, spelled with an ‘I’. Not one of his 1880s streets are known by the names he first gave to each, but that’s because all were renamed by Orange County in 1955. Despite the town’s name being inspired by a house Will Wallace Harney built, Pine Castle the town owes its very existence to Clement R. TYNER, a 19^th century pioneer, and the first in our series; ‘Would-Be Central Florida Titans’.

Pine Castle Depot, located at C. R. TINER’S Pine Castle

Twice the man served as first Postmaster of a newly established CitrusLAND frontier post office. In February 1884, Clement became a town founder, recording the original 80 acre town plat of Pine Castle. Sub-dividing nearly 200 town lots, Tyner opened the first of at least two mercantile establishments, one located in the town he founded.

A native of Florida’s untamed wilderness, Clement R. TYNER was born in 1846 at Marion County. His parents, Leonard & Mary (BLITCH) TYNER, had obtained a permit to homestead 160 acres there before surveyors had completed Marion County’s mapping. Leonard, selecting land southwest of present day Belleview, settled on land adjacent to his father, John G. TYNER (1794-1883).

The TYNER family next relocated to WELAKA, on the St. Johns River north of Lake George in Putnam County. But next, and possibly due to Union gunboats on the river all during both the Civil War and subsequent Reconstruction Period, the town’s population suddenly dwindled. Most residents moved on, including the TYNER’S. By 1869 the family had resettled again, this time in Orange County, selecting an isolated parcel far from the St. Johns River pier on Lake Monroe.

Age 23 when he first arrived in the isolated region south of the County’s War torn Seat of Government, Clement R. TYNER became witness to early efforts, during 1870, to build a railroad linking Orlando with Mellonville. That venture quickly failed, but the locals desire to connect steamboats plying Lake Monroe with the Port of Tampa far to the south of TYNER”S homestead endured.

Arriving in south Orange County about the same time as Will Wallace HARNEY, builder of a Lake Conway residence Harney named Pine Castle, goals of Harney and Tyner appear to have differed. Harney seemed to be a loner, whereas TYNER obviously longed for success. The southernmost city at the time both arrived was Orlando, and travel anywhere in central Florida had been, for decades past, via old sand rutted trails. When locals lost hope for their 1870 train, would-be business titan, Clement TYNER, appears to have stepped up to the plate.

Topography today fails to show the eastern branch of Shingle Creek existing at the time Leonard B. TYNER homesteaded 80 acres west of present day Pine Castle. A detailed Orange County map of 1890 however clearly reflects just such a waterway.

Clement R. TYNER possessed a means in 1870 to connect foot traffic on old Fort Mellon to Fort Gatlin with nearly 10 miles of waterway to reach Lake Tohopekaliga, where travelers could then continue on toward Tampa. TYNER’S homestead was also the eastern headwaters of Shingle Creek.

Orange Map 1890. Homestead of Leonard B. TYNER (red rectangle)

[About the 1890 map: Red STAR pinpoints trail’s end of the old Forts Mellon to Gatlin Road (1838-1870). Red/white rectangle pinpoints location of L. B. TYNER’S 1869 Homestead. One branch of the Shingle Creek headwaters began at TYNER”S homestead, flowed southwest, as shown by the red arrow, and both branches merged in the vicinity of present day Oak Ridge Road and John Young Parkway].

Clement R. TYNER not only explored Shingle Creek, he also acquired, August 30, 1873, 40 acres west of present day Kissimmee. Part of Orange County at that time, Tyner established Shingle Creek Post Office on November 10, 1873, nine years prior to the opening of a Kissimmee Post Office.

Clement found more than land at Shingle Creek, for here he met and married his first of three wives. He married Mary Yates in 1873, daughter of Needham Yates, the same Needham Yates shot and killed during the notorious 1870 Barber-Mizell Feud.

Historian William F. Blackman wrote in 1924 of the ‘great storm of 1871,’ a hurricane, during which so much rain fell the “Wekiva River was a mile wide”. Will Wallace Harney writings, published as ‘Dateline Pine Castle’, (available at Pine Castle Woman’s Club), also tells of this storm. Harney believed “the eye of the storm passed right over Lake Conway”. Harney also told of droughts of 1872, 1875 and 1876, after which he “feared for settlements on Shingle Creek.” Then came yet another Hurricane in 1876.

It’s plausible that torrential rainfalls, followed by droughts, raised and lowered Shingle Creek, making navigating uncertain, for Clement appears to have lost interest in this waterway. Despite fathering three children prior to divorcing, Clement returned to his parent’s home in 1879, alone, and soon after opened a second post office.

Pine Castle Post Office was established December 8, 1879, one year prior to the first 

southbound train finally departing Sanford, heading in the direction of Orlando. He then focused attention on his own 80 acre homestead alongside Will Wallace Harney.

Marrying a second time February 27, 1881, Clement and his bride, Theodosia E. GEIGER, watched while rails were laid up to, and then diagonally across, their 80 acre homestead. The track maximized rail siding exposure for their land.

A New York Times reporter, traveling with President Chester A. Arthur in April of 1883, described the journey, saying; “after Orlando, there is nothing worthy of a town name until reaching Kissimmee City.” That was about to change though, as Clement R. & Theodosia E. Tyner deeded two (2) lots to the railroad, land to be used for a railway depot, February 29, 1884. Both lots referenced: ‘C. R. TINER”S Town of Pine Castle.” In 1885, Clement & Theodosia TYNER had a store open alongside the Pine Castle depot.

As 19^th century central Florida developments had a way of not working out as planned, Clement R. TYNER, after selling only a few town lots, opened C. R. TYNER & Co. even further south, at Lakeland. Clement married a third time at Lakeland, this, his final marriage, was to Elizabeth Gavin.

Try as he did, neither town platting nor rail side stores were meant to be for this would-be central Florida Titan. Clement moved on again, finally settling at Clearwater, where he and Elizabeth lived until his death, at the age of 75, January 29, 1922.

The 1870 Pine Castle residence built by Will Wallace Harney inspired the naming of a 1884 town first platted by Clement R. TYNER, the visionary who laid out streets still in use today, even though by a different name.

Clement was not alone though in such endeavors, and when our series continues April 19^th, we’ll tell of Miss Frances E. Hewlett, another fascinating would-be central Florida TITAN.

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BEYOND GATLIN

Coming fall 2017

Inspired by my Pine Castle Woman’s Club presentation:

THE HISTORY OF SOUTH ORANGE COUNTY, FLORIDA

Reserve your Signed and NUMBERED first print copy:

Gatlin; Conway, Troy, Pine Castle, McKinnon,

Taft, Prosper Colony, Oak Ridge & more!

I will personally notify you by email when this book is available

Reserve your copy now at: BeyondGatlin@CroninBooks.com

Anticipated availability: October, 2017

$16 plus tax with FREE shipping IF RESERVED NOW!

First Road to Orlando; CitrusLAND Curse of Florida’s Paradise, The Rutland Mule Matter and other central Florida books are already available at Amazon.com

NEXT BLOG: APRIL 19, 2017

FRANCES E. HEWLETT of WASHINGTON, DC

THE ALDEN'S OF ORLANDO'S PINELOCH:

James M & Frances E (Hewlett) ALDEN

Pine Castle Historical Society Appreciation Edition

Clarence E. Howard published ‘Early Settlers of Orange County’ in 1915. An Orlando photographer, Howard’s enlightening book of biographies included an introduction, ‘Early History of Orange County,’ authored by Annie (Caldwell) Whitner, a resident of Sanford, Florida, part of Orange County until 1913.

From the 1915 book, Early Settlers of Orange County by C. E. Howard

A long-time resident of the county, Annie wrote of the “bleached trunk and bare wide-spread branches of an immense dead live-oak, still standing. It is said that red men and white men met here to hold a council. The Council Oak stands, her white arms held aloft, a silent protest against the injustice of war, a ghostly presence lamenting her children, a memorial of them, which time, nor storm has expelled in all the years since then.”

Rollins College President William F. Blackman authored ‘History of Orange County’ a dozen years later. Blackman too wrote of a legendary tree. “There is a tradition,” he wrote in 1927, of a meeting between the Army and Indians near FORT GATLIN, a meeting said to have taken place “under a huge live-oak tree, and this oak, now no longer existing, was long-known as the Council Oak.”

The Council Oak vanished between 1915 and 1927, but fortunately, Annie Whitner included with her historical account a painting of the tree, along with this comment: “a beautiful picture has been painted of Council Oak by Mr. J. M. Alden, of Orlando, a talented member of our association.”

Upon reading her account, two questions immediately came to mind. Where is J. M. Alden’s painting now, and who was the “talented member” of Mrs. Whitner’s historical association?

James Madison Alden and Annie (Caldwell) Whitner made for a most unlikely pair, as their families had been staunch enemies only a few decades earlier. By 1915 though, both were working alongside one another in an attempt to preserve central Florida history. Born 1859 in North Carolina, Annie grew to adulthood at Fort Reid, a mile east of modern day Sanford. She arrived with her parents at a time Sanford was little more than a ‘concept’ of a port town on the St. Johns River.

Alden was a New Englander, born in Massachusetts in 1834. An Orange County farmer by the turn of the 20^th Century, James M. Alden was by that time in his second career, having already completed nearly a half-century of outstanding military service to his country.

Alden was a Yankee. Annie (Caldwell) Whitner was a Confederate. By 1915, both were proud Floridians. Both were proud Americans!

Even before Annie Whitner was born, James M. Alden had already become a distinguished Navy artist. Traveling with the United States Exploring Squadron led by Captain Charles Wilkes, young Alden’s sketches of Northwest Territory earned him the title, “James Madison Alden, Yankee Artist of the Pacific Coast”. Google this title for even more information on the man and his famous works. During the Civil War, at a time when Annie was an infant, James M. Alden served as Navy Secretary to Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter. Assigned to Washington, DC, Alden remained in DC after the War, continuing to serve Admiral Porter.

Yosemite Falls, by James M. Alden, Yankee Artist of the Pacific Coast

Frances E. Hewlett was born in England and employed as a Clerk at the Treasury Department in Washington, DC by 1880. Single, and twenty-six years younger than James M. Alden, Frances became Mrs. Alden after the death of the first Mrs. Alden, and after resigning her Pensions Department position in June of 1890.

Frances however had already teamed up with fellow DC Pension Clerks to become an Orange County land speculator a full year prior to her marriage to James M. Alden.

In fact, I first introduced Frances E. Hewlett in Chapter Eight, ‘Pen Pals’, of my Historical Novel, The Rutland Mule Matter. Frances, and another true-life Pension Clerk Eugene P. Mallory, are approached by an Orange County lad named Othman Rutland. A nine year old boy in 1865, Othman recalls the time a Navy Officer delivered a mule to his family home at Apopka. Desperate to learn of what happened to father, Othman travels as an adult to DC in 1888, hoping to solicit assistance from two clerks with whom he has something in common – Orange County landownership.

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Othman’s father had gone missing during the closing days of the Civil War, and those still alive and living in Orange County who might know what happened to Isaac N. Rutland weren’t talking. Washington DC clerks, many of whom really did become Orange County land speculators in the 1880s, were Othman’s final hope if ever he was to learn the truth about his father.

Isaac, Othman, Frances E. HEWLETT, Eugene and a return of a mule are all historically accurate, as is the ultimate answer that Othman finds inside an 1865 U. S. Provost Marshal’s file, a file folder buried in DC, and labeled, The Rutland Mule Matter. Yes, even the Provost Marshals’ file is historically accurate!

It was while researching Frances E. Hewlett that I doubled back to James Madison Alden. I had researched Fort Gatlin and the ‘Council Oak’ years earlier, learning of the Navy Artist, and of how valuable his paintings had become. I asked about the Council Oak painting and discovered, with assistance from Christine Kinlaw-Best of Sanford Historical Society, that his painting was gifted to Orange County Historical Society in 1971. I passed that information along to the folks at the Society, informing them as well that the man’s other works are now quite valuable.

Lieutenant James Madison Alden retired a Widower in early 1890, and later that same year, he married Frances E. Hewlett in Washington, DC. On the 7^th of February, 1895, Frances E. (Hewlett) Alden purchased 45 acres on the west side of Lake Pineloch. Buying the land from Albert G. Branham, deeds for this Alden parcel reference earlier deeds issued by R. F. Eppes. [Robert Francis Eppes, born 1851, was the son of Francis Wayles Eppes]

James & Frances (Hewlett) Alden owned an orange grove on a portion of 160 historic Orange County acres. First owned by Lady Isaphoenia C. Speer, this parcel was situated alongside the Fort Mellon to Fort Gatlin Road, THE first north-south road in the county. The Alden land sat north of the historic Fortress Gatlin.

The very land owned by the Alden’s was also the home, in 1871, of Frances W. Eppes, grandson of President Thomas Jefferson. And on this historic property also grew an “immense live-oak tree”, the legendary Council Oak.

Historian Kena Fries, in her 1938 book ‘Orlando in the Long, Long Ago,’ dedicated a chapter to Council Oak: “On the west side of Pine Loch Lake, where the old trail worked its way thru the pine woods, there once stood an immense live oak, said in its glory to have been the largest live oak in all of central and south Florida. It was known as ‘council oak’, the gathering place of the Seminole warriors.” The daughter of Orange County surveyor John Otto Fries, Kena, in describing “the old trail,” a/k/a/ the Fort Mellon to Fort Gatlin Road, went on to say; “In September 1904, while spending the day with the late J. M. Alden, we rowed across the lake.”

An ancient Indian trail became a military route leading from Lake Monroe to Fort Gatlin. The Council Oak was located on the trail, on the west side of a lake named by the grandson of President Thomas Jefferson. A parcel chock full of central Florida history, including an historic old oak tree, was preserved for history by a retired Navy Officer turned Orange County Citrus Grower.

James M. Alden died at Orlando May 10, 1922. His Widow, Frances E. (Hewlett) Alden, passed away April 16, 1930. Both were buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington, DC.  

The Alden property at Lake Pineloch became Pine Loch Heights in 1921. Blogger Syd Albright wrote of James M. Alden and his wife in an October 12, 2014. In his blog, Albright said the Alden’s: “retired to OAK KNOLL, Fla, near ORLANDO. He spent the rest of his life tending his fruit trees and painted until 1915 when his eyesight failed.” Council Oak may well have been the last painting of James M. Alden, and one most wonder, did the Council Oak have anything to do with his naming his acreage, Oak Knoll?

Research compiled by Richard Lee Cronin

My thanks to Pine Castle Woman’s Club and their Pine Castle Historical Society for allowing me to present to their organization on Sunday afternoon, March 12, 2017.

PINE CASTLE ORIGINS

Historic MELLONVILLE Road tunnels beneath timeless oaks a mile east of modern day SANFORD, Florida. Beginning at the road’s origin on Lake Monroe, driving south a little more than a mile will bring you to RANDOLPH Street, a rather inconspicuous intersection today, where one is hard pressed to comprehend that they are actually at the hub of 170 years of intriguing Florida history.

Mellonville Road at old Fort Reid

A FORT REID intersection, in the 1840s, met here at this location of RANDOLPH Street and old Fort MELLON to Fort GATLIN Road, the 28 mile trail ending where fortress GATLIN was originally established in 1838. Fortress GATLIN stood along the west shore of a lake known today as LAKE GEM MARY, originally named in the 1870s by William M. RANDOLPH for his wife, MARY E. (PITTS) RANDOLPH.

Continuing south beyond old Fortress GATLIN, tracing the western shoreline of Lakes GATLIN and CONWAY for yet another mile, one again arrives at another road named RANDOLPH. At this 1891 crossroads, RANDOLPH intersects with WALLACE Ave on the one-time homestead belonging to William Wallace HARNEY, builder of a home fronting on Lake CONWAY that he named the PINE CASTLE.

HARNEY’S residence led to the naming of a nearby Post Office, established in 1879. The pine residence was also the inspiration for an adjacent town, founded in 1884. The town hub of 1884 PINE CASTLE is not so easily discernable today, but the center was not far from the present day intersection of South Orange Avenue and Oak Ridge Road, the location of a 70 year presence of PINE CASTLE WOMAN’S CLUB.

One added note of interest. The land upon which the Pine Castle Woman's Club now stands was once owned by Mary E. RANDOLPH.

William & Mary (PITTS) RANDOLPH are but two of the earliest amazing pioneers who settled in CitrusLAND and played roles in shaping a central Florida landscape we know and love today. I am honored to present, Sunday, March 12, 2017, for the Pine Castle Woman’s Club, GATLIN vis-à-vis PINE CASTLE – the true story of how a secluded South Orange County town came to be. 

Free and open to the public, this event begins at 3 PM. Then, Rick’s FREE Blog will follow that very special event with additional insights of an intriguing land south of Orlando. 

Stay tuned for a history packed MARCH and APRIL of Blogs, concluding with a very special Blog: THE REAL MCKINNON!    

JENNIE of Florida's INDIAN RIVER

The conclusion to my Nine Part Fall Blog Series: 

Florida's Forgotten Frontierswomen: 

Florida history has wrongfully identified this intriguing woman as Jennie of the Anheuser beer family, an error illustrating how women all too often became lost or muddled in recorded historical events. The story of a duke and his Duchess living for a time on Florida’s East Coast is indeed true, although the real identity of these high profile individuals had remained, until now, unclear.

Florida's Dummitt a/k/a Dummett Castle along the Indian River 

Jennie was not the daughter of Eberhard Anheuser, founder of Anheuser Busch. Florida’s ‘Duchess of Castelluccia’, as this fascinating lady was most often referred to, was not in any related to the Anheuser family. In fact, Jennie was born in New York before the beer brewer ever arrived on America’s shore.

There is ample compelling evidence as to the true identity of both the duke and duchess, evidence documented in detail in my EBook, ‘Florida’s Indian River Duchess’. Only vague references to a duke and duchess exist in Florida’s history, but the couple did receive extensive notoriety elsewhere in the USA and abroad.

The duke and duchess had purchased historic Florida land along the Indian River in 1881, but then sold their land in 1886. The duke never returned to Florida. His duchess however did return briefly, to wed a final time.

I emphasize the word final in her marriage because of varying accounts as to exactly how often this “strikingly beautiful lady” was said to have walked down the aisle. Early court records pertaining to her estate ‘suggests’ Jennie had been married four times, but the record also  sarcastically added the duchess had, “a special predilection for matrimony and for the making of wills.”

The Duchess of Castelluccia appears to have married only three times. Even the court record suggesting otherwise names only three husbands. Of each of her marriages, the third and final was, by any measure, the weirdest. Jennie’s third and final wedding took place south of her earlier Florida homestead she had owned with the Duke.

On January 29, 1895, the Duchess of Castelluccia married at Hotel Indian River in Rockledge, Florida. Four months following this third wedding, Jennie, Florida’s infamous Indian River Duchess, died in New York.

Newspapers in the North fell in love with America’s Duchess of Castelluccia. They wrote of her and her Italian duke often, published stories that in turn preserved in print a history of Florida’s earliest economic engine, the Florida Orange!

The historic Dummitt (Dummett) Grove appears on early Florida maps

It’s true! A captivating story of a young New York girl who made it BIG actually served to record the history of Florida’s Indian River orange. The Duchess, so it turns out, was rich! Her money, combined with the experience of an Italian duke, acquired what had been one of Florida’s original orange groves. The Dummett (a/k/a Dummitt) Grove south of New Smyrna and northeast of Titusville has long been known as one of the earliest groves, but it was the notoriety of a duke and duchess that helped preserve the grove’s real history.  

The press never tired of passing along stories of America’s adopted royalty – an Italian duke and his American born duchess. From her native New York to an island of granite off the coast of Maine, Jennie had become a millionaire by the time of her second marriage to the duke. Interviewed in the Hawaiian Islands, a Marine, Jennie’s third husband, half her age, told of their short-lived marriage, and of how he lost much of the fortune Jennie had accumulated.

Florida’s Indian River Duchess is available in EBook for $3.79 or FREE to Kindle Unlimited members. Visit: https://www.amazon.com/Floridas-Indian-River-Duchess-Castelluccia-ebook/dp/B01G42CK4G/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1482932963&sr=8-1&keywords=Florida%27s+Indian+River+Duchess

The role of women in history is not easily found, but it’s a challenge gladly undertaken by the author of CitrusLAND books. Our true-life American story, including the story of early Florida, can only be told through the lineal descendants of its earliest pioneers, men and women alike. Telling the story of early Florida through its people is an integral part of all CitrusLAND books. Visit my website www.croninbooks.com for further information.

CitrusLAND books are available at BOOKMARKIT ORLANDO bookstores, Amazon.com and FREE to Kindle Unlimited members!

Visit my FREE Goodreads Group ‘Florida History’

This concludes Ricks 9 Part FALL 2016 Blog Series

Coming to Rick's Blog in 2017:

The First Families of Florida’s Highlands

GERTRUDE of SANFORD

If you believe the entire story of Henry S. SANFORD and the founding of Sanford, Florida has been told, think again! A native of Connecticut, Henry Shelton Sanford purchased the 12,000 acre Moses Levy Spanish Land Grant in May of 1870. A year prior to his Florida land deal, Sanford was wrapping up a 22 year career as an American diplomatic.

Henry acquired the Levy Grant with an $8,200 down payment and a $10,000 note due in 12 months. A public servant for much of his life, an obvious question seems to be, where did Sanford get the $18,200 to buy his land? One likely answer points to a Philadelphian and one-time owner of the once-upon-a-time 19^th Century orange grove Belair.

Born at Philadelphia in 1841, Gertrude Ellen Du Puy was living in Paris with her widowed aunt when she met and married Henry S. Sanford. Gertrude married Henry in 1864. Sanford retired from diplomatic service five years later, in 1869, and a year later, found his way back to the USA and to central Florida. Henry S. Sanford then invested a sizeable sum of money in undeveloped Florida wilderness land.

Gertrude E. DuPuy (left) with her mother

Three miles inland from a planned town of Sanford, Henry Sanford reportedly developed an estate known as Belair. “I sometimes feel the 18^th day of December at Belair was a delicious dream” wrote a journalist visiting General Sanford’s estate in 1882. Continuing the write-up the reporter wrote: “Having dismounted at the rustic Belair Station, on the South Florida Railroad line, carriages then transported our party through a broad gateway into a shady avenue. The pure fresh air is ambrosial.”

Ten railway minutes south of Sanford, Belair was the first stop on South Florida Railroad’s 1880 first train to Orlando. “The grove and residence of H. S. Sanford,” wrote a reporter in 1889, viewing the estate from onboard his train, “had Crystal Lake on one side and Belair Station the other.” Upon 145 acres, said that reporter, were “all the principal varieties of oranges grown in Florida.”

Early write-ups reference Belair as dating to 1870, yet during 1875 and 1876, Henry S. Sanford and wife Gertrude signed deeds as: “residents of Jacksonville, Duval County, Florida”. Belair occupied acreage included in Sanford’s 1870 Land Grant purchase, so an 1878 deed raises a rather interesting question.

Among Orange County’s early deeds is a transaction regarding Belair estate: “Reverend Charles Du Puy, of the City of Philadelphia, PA, did give and bequeath to Gertrude E. Sanford, his niece, certain property, real and personal.” The parcel transferred in 1878, to Gertrude in exchange for the receipt of $18,000, was 400 acres described as “property known as Belair, bounded on the south by Crystal Lake.”

As Belair was part of the 12,000 acres purchased in 1870 for $18,200, why had Reverend DuPuy bequeathed the 400 acres in 1878 to Gertrude E. Sanford for $18,000?

Reverend Charles Meredith Du Puy, brother of Gertrude (DuPuy) Sanford’s father, died November 26, 1875 at Philadelphia. At the time of the Reverend’s death, Belair, the citrus grove near Sanford, Florida, belonged to a member of the DuPuy family.

Likely the source of funds for Henry S. Sanford to acquire the Levy Land Grant, the 1878 deed may well have settled that loan. Gertrude’s family may have given Henry the idea of not only developing the town of Sanford, but the naming of Belair itself.

Gertrude’s brother, also a Charles Meredith Du Puy, was serving in 1870 as President of a railroad venture at that time constructing a line between New York and Philadelphia. Gertrude’s brother, named for her uncle, had also been instrumental in this nation’s westward movement into Illinois prior to his Philadelphia venture.

The DuPuy family of Philadelphia predates William Penn by five years, says a detailed history of the DuPuy family. DuPuy’s Rock is noted on early Philadelphia maps, while nearby, Bellaire Manor, “a building known by all variations of Bell Air,” according to the building’s historic preservation records, dates to the very early 1700s.

Henry S. Sanford is remembered as founder and developer of Sanford, Florida, but as is often the case with early Florida history, an amazing frontierswomen was clearly involved as well. Presently the County Seat of Seminole County, Sanford, it appears, truly owes its very existence not only to Henry Shelton Sanford, but to his lovely wife, Gertrude Ellen (Du Puy) Sanford (1841-1902) as well.

The next and final installment of my fall 2016 series will be posted December 30, 2016.

The role of women in history is not easily found, but it’s a challenge gladly undertaken by the author of CitrusLAND books. The true-life American story, including the story of Florida, can only be told through lineal descendants of the earliest pioneers, men and women alike.

Each of twelve chapters in my CitrusLAND: Curse of Florida’s Paradise, Second Edition, begins with a dedication and brief biography of an exceptional central Florida Frontierswoman. Telling the story of Florida through its people, each CitrusLAND book is described in more detail at my website: www.croninbooks.com

CitrusLAND: Curse of Florida's Paradise

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Ricks FALL Blog finale: December 30, 2016

Part 9 of 9: Florida’s Indian River Princess