USA > Florida > Orange County > Early settlers of Orange County, Florida; reminiscent-historic-biographic, 1915 > Part 1
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REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
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T. ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 02309 6701
EARLY SETTLERS
OF ORANGE COUNTY, FLORIDA
Reminiscent-Historic-Biographic 1915
_ Property of Daughters of the American Resolution Florida State Library
C. E. HOWARD, ORLANDO, FLA. PUBLISHER
1 038
€ 79 7949 :
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016
https://archive.org/details/earlysettlersofo00howa
2034
OLD WORTHIES OF ORANGE COUNTY
The late llon, W. L. Palmer The late Gen. W. H. Jewell The late Judge J. D. Beggs
The late Capt. L. C. Ilorn The late Judge Cecil Butt
The late Will Wallace Harney, Orange County's Poet The late Dr. J. N. Butt
The late J. P. Hughey
Iliram Beasley Bailiff of Orange County Court from the earliest days to now
PREFACE
C. E. HOWARD, PUBLISHER
C. E. Howard, native of Pennsylvania, came to Orange County, locating on Lake Jessamine, October, 1883. Sold to Dwight D. Porter, returned to Pennsylvania, came back in 1888 and located permanently in Orlando in 1904. Has followed publishing business and photog- raphy. Edited Orlando Star, Orange County Reporter, Reporter-Star, Sentinel, and for the past five years owned and edited the Orange County Citizen. Served as city alderman twelve years, several terms chairman; Secre- tary Board of Trade for several years and is now chairman District School Trustees.
This volume is dedicated to the tried and true pioneers of Orange County, Florida,
many of them gone to a just reward, many still living to enjoy the fruits of their carly labors, a host of them not mentioned in this book, those who are, deserving a place in the future archives of the county.
This little work is not intended as more than an introduction to a few of those worthy men who should not be forgotten by the living beneficiaries of their labors nor by posterity. and to whom they will stand debtor.
Some time, some one will need material for a history of the county and for some of it, at least, he may turn to the facts contained in the lives of those mentioned herein.
THE AUTHOR-C. E. Howard.
DAR
The Early History of Orange County
THE DAYS OF LONG AGO By MRS. J. N. WHITNER SANFORD, FLORIDA
COUNCIL OAK
J. M. Alden, Artist,
Whatever of pride and enjoyment we citi- zens of Orange County may feel in her pres- ent day achievements, our sentiment cannot be praiseworthy till we shall have paused and paid our tributes of respect and honor to those of a generation ago, who, by their Christian faith and practice, their sterling characteris- tics and ability, overcame primitive conditions and made possible within a lifetime the civ- ilization we now enjoy,
There is a duty-a privilege-sacred and binding, which devolves upon the few of us who are left; who have personal recollections of the real pioneers, that can only be per- formed by ourselves. The day is growing late when if we would be their worthy successors we must arouse and prepare for the use of those who shall write our country's history, reminiscent characteristic sketches of the men and women who laid so well the foundations upon which we have built, of their traditions and ideals, their manners, social life and re- ligious habits, with incidents, anecdotes and facts relative to them.
When the earliest of our county's history
shall be evolved from the shadows of the past, and recalled by patient efforts, we shall find it is a part of that story of unsurpassed trag- edy and romance, the story of the Seminole wars of nearly a century ago.
For this reason Orange County contains many places of interest, of which now we have only a vague knowledge but when the work is completed of compiling the Seminole war records from the archives at Washington, we hope to obtain information which shall be reliable.
Prominent among these places are the mili- tary graveyards of two wars, familiar to many persons and for their care appropriations might be obtained from the United States Govern- ment.
Some of the localities are well known, where historic and otherwise prominent events have occurred, where earliest settlements were made (many of these are sacred to us now) and where the dead were laid to rest. Only after the utmost care should data be accepted as authentic, but when satisfactorily established the places should be marked even if at pres-
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EARLY SETTLERS OF ORANGE COUNTY
ent in very simple manner, and the sentiment which time attaches to such will suggest ap- propriate and enduring memorials in tablets and stone.
A peculiar pathos lingers around everything connected with the Indians and all over our country are traces of their neighborhood life, and along the St. Johns River, which they called Welaka, are many burial mounds. These mounds, especially, should be preserved from the hands of vandals.
In 1750 the Creek Indians in Alabama sep- arated and many of them emigrated to Florida under a chief name Secoffee and settled in the western part of the peninsula, which they called Alachua. These united with the native tribes of the peninsula and together they ab- sorbed many run-away negro slaves from Georgia. Their descendants became the fierce Seminoles and by the end of the century had over-run the peninsula.
This remnant of the once free, proud, red men, crowded back, and driven before the march of civilization, proved a formidable foe to any who dared encroach upon the sunny strip lying between the ocean and the gulf, the last left to them of all the continent which by Divine right of inheritance and possession had belonged to their people.
The record of the Seminole War of 1836 reported the establishment of Camp Monroe on the south shore of the lake which bears that name, thus opening the route by which the United States army advanced into the in - terior of the eastern half of the peninsula for the suppression of the Seminole Indians. The post was occupied by two companies of artil- lery, four companies of dragoons and some Creek Indians.
Can one imagine the indignant horror of the Indians at the sight of these forerunners of the army of their pursuers entering the gate- way of their retreat? And they would claim even this !
Leaders arose, stimulated perhaps to a greater degree of daring by slight trace of the blood of white men in the veins of some of them. These poor savages in their extreinity arose to the white man's conception of the loftiest heights of valor for the defence of their wigwams and their hunting grounds.
Under the counsel of Oceola, and the leader- ship of King Philip and Coacoochee, son and grandson of the old chief Secoffee, four hun- dred braves made a bold and desperate at- tack upon Camp Monroe on the 6th of Feb- ruary, 1837, a few weeks after its establish-
ment, and but for the greater force of artillery over simple fire arms, the story of the mas- sacre would have been frightful to relate.
With a desperate courage the Indians fought fiercely for three hours. Captain Charles Mellen was killed. Fourteen others were wounded. The Indians' loss was twenty-five. It was said afterwards that the Indians be- came terrified at the roar of the cannon, with twigs and limbs falling from the trees, and thinking that a thunder storm was raging, sent by the Great Spirit to aid the white men, the poor creatures gave up the attack and fled in terror to the woods.
The military records state that after this attack the name of Camp Monroe was changed to Fort Mellen and became the most important and healthful inland state in Florida; as a base for supplies and distribution for the many forts and military camps which were scattered all over Mosquito Co., the territory of which extended from St. Johns County on the north southward to Monroe, which then extended across the peninsula on the west from Alachua to the Atlantic.
A few of the names of these forts and camps are still perpetuated in our county as Fort Reed, Maitland, Gatlin and Christmas, all having been the scenes of military life.
At Fort Gatlin, now almost within the sub- urbs of the beautiful county site, Orlando, stands the bleached trunk and bare wide- spread branches of an immense dead live-oak. It is said that under this oak the red men and the white met to hold a council. At this late day, we can easily believe that the Indians' part in that council was but to listen to the arbitrary sentence which would expel them forever to the cold, bleak plains of the West, away from the fair land that they loved, from its shady hammocks of moss-draped cypress and magnolias, its winding rivers overhung with palms and willows and oaks, red hybiscus and white lilies, its grassy prairies stretching off into rolling forests of lofty" pines, dotted here and there with clear blue lakes and the wide stretch of the waters in her inland seas, the happiest hunting ground that Indians ever dwelt upon, where a variety of game roamed in abundance and the rigors of cold were scarcely felt. White men had need of this peerless land, and a council was called to in- form the red men of the plans for their de- parture on the ships to be in waiting for them at Tampa, and our fancy suggests that what the children of the forest heard that day broke the heart of the tree. The Indians are
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EARLY SETTLERS OF ORANGE COUNTY
gone. Some went to the West, a few were permitted to remain beyond a line which the white men drew and their descendants still lodge in the swamps of the Everglades.
But the Council Oak stands, her white arms held aloft, a silent protest against the injus- tice of war, a ghostly presence lamenting her children, a memorial of them, which time, nor storm has expelled in all the years since then. A very beautiful picture has been painted of the Council Oak by a talented member of this association, Mr. Alden, of Orlando. We may find no proofs, but tradition of the story of the oak and the council, but the legend is sweet and we will pass it on.
Before leaving the subjects which will be of interest to our historians, we would particular- ly emphasize the type of the people whom we have called Orange County's pioneers, as dis- tinct from the adventurous spirits who usually inhabit new countries.
Orange County was populated at two dis- tinct periods, her earliest settlements were a consequence of the Seminole wars, and the second infusion resulted from the unsettled condition of society incident to the Civil war. A large proportion of the soldiers in the Sem- inole wars were volunteers. When the time came in 1857 that the regular army was with- drawn, some of the volunteer soldiers remained and many of the camps proved the nucleus of a neighborhood, and the fact must be recog- nized that in the main these made substantial citizens.
From that period till after the Civil War few persons came to the county and few moved away. Some small orange groves were plant- ed and the people produced from the soil main- ly what they consumed for food. Large herds of cattle grazed upon the prairies and many
persons ( in proportion to the standards of the time) grew wealthy.
1866 ushered in the first glow of a new era. In the great readjustment which was taking place in the states north of us, as if by a simul- taneous impulse attention seemed fixed upon Florida. The world heard of her orange groves and her balmy climate. Many families in other southern states, disturbed and unset- tled in the plantation life in which they had been reared, turned to new scenes. Accus- tomed to agricultural pursuits, fruit culture seemed natural and attractive and the result was the removal from those states to this coun- ty of a class of persons who had many of them lived on the same soil since their fore- fathers came to America in the early colonial days. Those from the north sought health, climate or investment, each representing a more refined and cultured type than is usually found among the early settlers of a new territory.
This is a meagre outline of the causes which ' led to the displacing of the original inhabitants of peninsular Florida, and the rapid filling up of our county, from a period immediately af- ter the Civil War by a population so cosmopoli- tan that in every audience that assembles al- most every state in the Union has its repre- sentatives, besides many foreign countries as well. Such conditions might reasonably well have consumed a longer period in adjusting these various elements into a harmonious citi- zenship, but the spirit and ideals of the major- ity of them is attested by the public institu- tions for which they laid the foundations, and upon which their successors have builded, un- til ours is a civilization of which we may just- ly feel proud as being equal to, and in some respects superior to what has been achieved in many of the older states.'
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EARLY SETTLERS OF ORANGE COUNTY
CAPTAIN B. M. SIMS CHARTER PRESIDENT ORANGE COUNTY PIONEERS' ASSOCIATION
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CAPT. B. M. SIMS
Capt. B. M. Sims, of Ocoee, is a Tennessean, educated at Hiwassee College in that State. Served through the Civil war. Came to Florida in 1865 and found Orange County about 120 miles long by 60 miles wide, with 75 voters: no railroad nearer than Jacksonville, and no postoffice in the County.
He taught school the first year, which was the first school ever taught in Orange County. He built the first frame courthouse in the county-the old courthouse being a log house with a dirt floor.
A few years previous a little colony of wealthy men had settled on South Apopka. The little colony owned over one hundred negroes, and cleared up several hundred acres of rich hammock land for raising Sea Island cotton and sugar cane. Some of the names of the little colony were Iludson, Pigue, Roper, Dr. Stark.
When the war came on, most of the settlers left, the negroes being freed. Capt. Sims rented fifty acres of Dr. Stark's plantation and planted cotton and corn. He raised 2,000 pounds of cotton and one thousand bushels of corn, selling the cotton for $2,000. While he was cultivating the crop he bought a piece of wild hammock land on Lake Apopka with wild orange trees. He cut the wild trees oft and put sweet buds in the stumps, and planted
a citrus nursery, which was probably the first mercantile citrus nursery in the United States. He has kept that business up to the present time, furnishing trees for almost all the large old groves in this part of the State, and ship- ping a great many to California, and has at the present a large, fine nursery.
He is probably the only man living who was selling oranges and trees from his own rais- ing in 1870.
He was the only man owning a ten-acre bearing grove at that time. In 1893, when the "big freeze" came, he owned 60 acres of bearing grove, after having sold 30 acres for thirty thousand dollars.
At that time he owned stock in the Citizens' National Bank of Orlando, and was one of the directors. The freeze caused the bank to break, and the stockholders had their stock doubled on them and lost it all. He was one of the first men to ship vegetables to the North.
He has never held office except County Commissioner. He is the oldest Freemason in the county, and was once District Deputy Grand Master for the State.
He has four children and is able to start them on ten thousand dollars' worth of prop- erty apiece. lle says he has done his best, has fought a good fight and got licked.
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EARLY SETTLERS OF ORANGE COUNTY
J. WALTER SIMS
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J. WALTER SIMS
J. Walter Sims, son of Captain B. M. Sims, is an "Orange County boy," for the very good reason that he was born in Ocoee, where his boyhood and youth were spent amid the orange groves, gardens and native Florida woods.
It was not surprising that, as he studied the map of the United States and noted the vast expanse of the great western domain that
he fancied he was a bit too cramped in Ocoee, hence he emigrated, "Westward, Ho!" But he found it wild and woolly and not at all in keeping with good old Orange County, and after giving it a fair trial, he shook the dust of it all off his feet and returned home to live and when done living, to die in Dixie.
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EMIRLY SETTLERS OF ORANGE COUNTY
DR. EUGENE O. SIMS
Doctor Sims has a right to be called an old settler in that he first saw the light of day at Ocoee, Orange County, Fla., June 11, 1867.
After attending the public schools of that day until twelve years of age, he was sent to the Tullahoma, Tenn., public schools and from there went to Burritt College, Spencer Coun- ty, Tenn., where he graduated.
Deciding upon dentistry as his profession. he went to the Baltimore College of Dentistry, from which he graduated in 1890.
And now, having an education and a pro- fession, one of the most important as well as most profitable, he had all the world before him to choose where best to locate for the good of the people, as well as for himself.
Of course they needed him right in his own county and near to his own home and the time would come when he would consent to such an arrangement, but first there was the whole world beckoning to him with enticing hand.
The state of Texas held out inducements and
he went there to practice dentistry, remaining two years, moved to Brunswick, Georgia, two years, removed to Atlanta for two years and in 1898 went to llonduras for a year and in Cuba two years, finally returning to Ocoee, re- mained a year, and in 1912 opened an of- fice in Winter Garden. Thus, he holds den- tal certificates of Florida, Georgia, South Caro- lina, Maryland, Texas, Cuba. DR. EUGENE O. SIMS
MURRAY S. KING
Pennsylvania contributed Murray S. King to Or- lando, in 1904.
For several years he fol- lowed building and contract- ing and when the time seemed ripe, took up his profession as architect.
Many of the best buildings in the city and county stand as monuments MURRAY S. KING to his sl:ill and creative genius. Among those that might be men-
tioned are the Robt. Dhu MacDonald residence in Winter Park, the beautiful Tiedkie mansion on Magnolia avenue, the Astor Hotel, the Grand Theatre, Yowell-Duckworth department building and the Presbyterian church ..
Surely a man who adds to the permanent, habitable, business and religious buildings of a city is a citizen worth while, and Florida has long looked forward to the time when men of sufficient foresight would see that her peculiar climate calls for a style and quality of archi- tecture differing in many essentials from that of the frigid and temperate zones, besides the fact that the very environment gives oppor- tunity for many departures into the Spanish Mission, Greek, Roman, Indian and other types, which fit suitably into it with particular suitability.
Mr. King's personal fitness has won for him recently an appointment to the Florida State Board of Architecture, of which he was made president, and he is also a charter member and director in the Florida Association of Archi- tects.
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EARLY SETTLERS OF ORANGE COUNTY
C. A. BOONE
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C. A. BOONE
City Assessor and Tax Collector C. A. Boone was one of the earliest citizens of Or- lando. There are at this writing four of these first citizens still residents of the city.
He came from North Carolina to Orange County, Florida, in 1870. First he taught school. In 1872, the first public school was established in Orlando; the photograph of the original building is found elsewhere in this book.
Mr. Boone was proprietor of the only hotel in those early days-The Lovell House. He was one of the original merchants, having a general store with W. A. Patrick as partner.
In 1875. Mr. Boone went into the County Clerk's office and held his position until 1881, when he again entered the mercantile field, the hardware business, his old partner. W. A. Patrick associating with him under the firm name of C. A. Boone & Co. This hardware
company did a flourishing business, as about this time Orlando and the prosperous section thereabout began to take on its first wonder- ful growth. In 1893 hie sold his hardware business. He was elected Mayor of Orlando in 1883. He also served as City Councilman in the earlier days and was one of the original incorporators of the city in 1875.
From 1893 to 1907, he conducted an exten- sive dairy and nursery business, the latter occupying much of his personal attention. As an orange grower, he was successful, Boone's Early Orange being one of his productions.
From 1907 to 1914 he was successively elect- ed to the office of City Clerk and Assessor, and under the new Commission city govern- ment he holds the position of Assessor and Tax Collector. Mr. Boone has thus lived a busy and honored life among his townspeople from the very beginning of the city.
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E.IRLY SETTLERS OF ORANGE COUNTY
FRANK H. DAVIS
place of Mr. Davis was Manchester,
N. H. Born on April 5th, 1854. His father, Dr. E. H. Davis, was a physician
and surgeon and practiced medicine in
Manchester for more than thirty years ; was surgeon in Fifth New Hampshire Regiment in
the Civil war. He graduated
FRANK H. DAVIS
from the Man- chester High School in 1874; being anxious to take up the business activities of life at once, he did not continue his studies as he was privileged to do. but went to Boston, where he secured a position in the counting room of a wholesale house on Summer Street; was there about two years. His attention was first directed to Florida in 1876 through let- ters from a friend who had settled in this State near Apopka. He came South in October, 1876, and joined this friend. For many years he lived the life of the aver- age first settler ; carly took up a homestead and set about clearing land for an orange grove.
During those years he occupied bachelors' quarters and roughed it with the rest. At that time Apopka had one mail a week and on Sat- urday, which was mail day, the one little store in town was the Mecca toward which all steps were tending ; no boxes in those days, the mail was distributed directly from tlie bag. San- ford, or Mellonville, was the base of supplies, and the mail and all goods were brought by team from that point. Later freight and pas- senger service was furnished via the Wekiva River. Apopka proper was early known as "The Lodge," so called from the old established Masonic Lodge. The Apopka district com- prised all the country around Lake Apopka and included Oakland, Ococe, Winter Garden, and Apopka of the present day. Dr. Mason,
The native one of the very first settlers of Apopka, was the oracle of wisdom on all matters pertaining to fruit culture; Judge Mills, who figures so prominently in land titles in this section, did the surveying ; the Sims Grove on Lake Apop- ka was the ne plus ultra of orange groves in the county, and Judge Speer, of Oakland, was quite prominent in county affairs.
The life of the early settler was replete with varied and trying experiences. Everything was crude, and there were many deprivations. At times the one store in the settlement was without flour, sugar, butter, and other indi- spensables of the present day, but there were no fickle appetites, and hog and hominy was not frowned upon if the delectables were lack- ing. Social gatherings gave zest to life, for the first settler always found time for fun, and then there was the old-fashioned camp meeting, where all repaired once a year to be regaled with explosive exhortations, vand inci- dentally with sweet potato pie and other inter- esting accessories. The virgin pine forests, un- touched by turpentine or mill men, were the special charm of Florida in the old days, through which the roads and trails were well defined and accordingly easily followed. Alas the change! With the passing of the timber came obliteration of old trails, and consequent confusion as to roads and courses and one of the most interesting features of the old Florida has gone from us.
The first railroad was built through Apopka in 1885 and it was during that time that Mr. Davis opened a real estate office and continued in that business, in connection with orange growing, since that time. Latterly he has had trucking interests at Winter Garden, making a specialty of lettuce and cucumbers on sub- irrigated lands from artesian well.
He met with great reverses in 1895 in com- mon with so many others in Florida, and for a time it seemed that he might be compelled to make change of base. He concluded to stick, however, and now is getting a good share of his income from groves that were. killed down at the time of the Big Freeze.
Mr. Davis has been prominently identified with public affairs in Apopka. He has served as councilman many times; was active in the organization of the Apopka Board of Trade, and was its first president, holding this office for two terms. lle took the oath of office of Mayor in January, 1915.
EARLY SETTLERS OF ORANGE COUNTY
A. SPEER
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A. SPEER AND WIFE
A Speer, the subject of this sketch, was born at Augusta, Ga., October, 1852. His father, Judge J. G. Speer, moved to Florida in 1854. when the son was two years old, when Orange County was almost an unbroken for- est, and the highways were little more than cow-paths. Almost his earliest recollection was the moving of the last of the Indians from this state to Indian Territory. llis father was living at Ft. Gatlin, when the present county site was located. His parents moved to the present site of Oakland when Mr. Speer was a very small boy, and when there were just a few settlers with miles of forest between them, when the woods were alive with all kinds of game, such as bear, panther, wildcats. deer and turkeys, not leaving ont the wolves, which howled within hearing of his home every night and morning. When a deer or turkey was wanted all one had to do was to take his gun (always the rifle) and go get it. After the civil war he went to South Carolina to school.
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