Part Two: Doyle & Brantley
Michael J. Doyle, Sanford and Orlando's Section 13
Central Florida’s first reboot began on the 31st of May 1866 at Lake Monroe when two veterans of America’s Civil War commenced an aggressive plan to develop Orange County’s wilderness. Merchants at first, their idea grew quickly to make Section 13, north of the village of Orlando, an integral part of the development plan.
Although fighting between the Union and Confederate Armies had ended 9 April 1865, the war had yet to be officially declared over. President Johnson didn’t issue that proclamation until 20 August 1866, but in the minds of Veterans Michael J. Doyle and George C. Brantley, the war was behind them, and it was clearly time to start anew.
Florida’s extensive Mosquito County, relabeled Orange County following statehood in 1845, had begun attracting a few settlers during the late 1840s, and picked up steam in the 1850s as a few more of the bravest of brave souls dared to take up homesteads in the Florida wilds. But then in 1861, growth in this isolated region came to a screeching halt when America went to war with itself.
During the 15 years between statehood and Civil War, bringing civilization to Central Florida had made little progress despite development ideas of its earliest citizens. A lack of dependable transportation – a railroad back then, prevented any significant economic growth, but plans had been in the works to connect Lake Monroe with Tampa Bay by train in the final days before the war. Those plans were scrapped when the canons began to fire.
Settlement of Central Florida’s wilderness, begun during the 1840s, all but ceased in 1861.
Peace and Reboot #1:
All of Orange County had only a few men to contribute to the Confederate cause, and of the few who were available to fight, one-third never returned home after the war. As if the percentage of lives lost is not in itself unimaginable, the local impact is more telling when translated into actual numbers. In 1860, only 270 of-age enlistment males lived in Orange, Osceola, Seminole and half of Lake Counties of today. Ninety-one (91) never returned home after the war.
In the year 1866, when Michael J. Doyle and George C. Brantley conjured up an idea of making something of Orange County, Florida, the county’s entire population was fewer than 1,500, with the majority being children – many of whom had come south as orphans to live with relatives.
Canadian John Angus MacDonald arrived at the dilapidated Lake Monroe pier in early 1867. A Civil Engineer & Surveyor, MacDonald came south in search of a friendly environment with hopes of repairing his failing health. He wrote later that his health improved significantly, adding that upon landing on the lake’s south shore that year he found a nearly abandoned village at a place where Fort Mellon was built in 1838, and where in 1850 a village of Mellonville had been established by a soldier who had previously occupied the old fort.
The only sign of civilization in 1867, wrote John MacDonald in 1882, “was the small store of Doyle & Brantley which had only a short time before commenced a mercantile business. The residents of 1867 Mellonville, said MacDonald, “looked to the future with the most-gloomy forebodings.”
Depressed and gloomy, yes, but Central Floridians had just suffered a horrific loss of both life and property. They had lived through four protracted years of America’s most disastrous Civil War, and the first two individuals MacDonald encountered had themselves witnessed the horrors of war firsthand. Michael J. Doyle had even been a prisoner of war for the greater part of the Civil War.
Making matters worse for Mellonville residents of 1867 were the Union gunboats patrolling the St. Johns River. The war was over, but the Reconstruction Period was just getting started. The gunboats, on occasion, docked at the Mellonville Pier so that Union soldiers could come ashore to verify that the residents were behaving themselves.
So yes, the Mellonville folks may have looked to the future with the most-gloomy forebodings!
After making their deal to establish a store on the south shore of Lake Monroe on 31 May 1866, partners Doyle & Brantley used nearly every remaining dollar to stock their store. The business plan, however, was not to merely own one general store on Lake Monroe. That became evident as early as 1 June 1868, when Doyle & Brantley acquired two of the twelve lots in the still war-torn village of Orlando, where the partners opened a second store, twenty-two miles down that still-lonely Fort Mellon to Fort Gatlin Road, the location of Orange County’s Seat.
Opening an Orlando general store was merely step two, for on 25 November 1868, partners Doyle & Brantley purchased 119 acres just north of Orlando. Forty of the 119 acres were in Section 13 and included frontage on the Fort Mellon to Fort Gatlin Road.
And in addition to the old military trail, this Doyle & Brantley property included a creek that crossed their land, a creek that connected two soon to be important lakes - Lake Ivanhoe and Lake Formosa.
The Phantom Train:
Michael J. Doyle then became an Officer in a railroad venture intending to connect Lake Monroe with the Orange County seat of government. Incorporated in April 1870, this planned railroad eventually failed, but during its brief life span it originated a decade-long attempt by the local pioneers to build a railroad to Tampa Bay. That endeavor finally resulted in the South Florida Railroad arriving in downtown Orlando on 11 November 1880.
Orlando was abandoned at the start of the Civil War. Only a few pioneers stayed behind to meet the needs of any occasional court hearing, while the vast majority of the 1860 citizens departed. Stores were boarded up in 1861 as the two merchants prepared to go to war. As a result, Orange County’s Seat at Orlando could have easily become a faded memory - had it not been for Doyle & Brantley, two Confederate veterans who dared to dream big.
As for Doyle & Brantley’s Section 13 property, Sheldon Adams, in his 1884 history of Orlando, told of “Doyle’s Mill,” a lakeside mill that was, by 1884, described as “the old-mill site.”
Homesteads and Swamp Lands
As disclosed in more detail in my book Orlando: A History of the Phenomenal City, we learned from Historian E. H. Gore that “Reverend George T. Self was born in 1857 on the north shore of Lake Ivanhoe.” An attempt to verify this as fact, though, came up empty at first, for no recorded deed or homestead exists to prove he owned land in the area. Sixty-six years earlier, however, in 1884, Historian Sheldon Adams wrote that “Dr. George Self was located at Willcox, on the old mill site, as he had a little cabin covered with boards split out by hand.”
An Orange County mystery yes, but this mystery was solved thanks to a good friend and Orange County memorabilia collector. Arthur Stephen Patrick, a lineal descendant of Orlando’s first family, come upon an envelope and letter that had been mailed in 1854 from Orange County. The letter was written by George W. Self, and it concerned his ownership conflict in Section 24, 22S, 29E. (Orlando, I should point out, was not established until 1856.)
According to records of the General Land Office, the office responsible for recording homestead deeds issued to pioneers, shows not one homestead deed for the one square-mile Section 24, that land adjoining Section 13 to the south. To state more simply, no acreage was homesteaded on the south side of Lake Formosa or the east side of Lake Ivanhoe, land one would think was desirable land considering it was Orlando’s northern gateway. Furthermore, the General Land Office says only two homestead deeds were issued within Section 13, an equally desirable area for pioneers.
The reason for the few homesteads was the Federal Government allowed States to keep a certain amount of acreage. In addition, areas containing numerous lakes were at times determined to be swampland, additional land kept by the States. The Florida Internal Improvement Fund was set up in the 1850s, and pioneers could buy land directly from the State of Florida.
Michael J. Doyle and George C. Brantley had purchased their land in Section 13 from the State, while a lady named Isaphoenina C. Speer bought 160 acres in Section 24 from the State. George Self, on the other hand, had mailed a check to the General Land Office for land Mrs. Speer had already purchased, and no one bothered to inform him or return his money.
Untangling the mysteries of early Orange County history requires at times chasing one clue after another. The further-back we go in time, the more challenging each clue search becomes. It is thanks to Florida’s Internal Improvement Fund that we are introduced to yet another landowner in Orlando’s Section 13. James Wilkinson, a South Carolina attorney, acquired 240 acres to the north of Orlando in 1873. 160 of his acres wrapped around two lakes inside Section 13, and it is there that we will pick up next week.
Orlando: a History of the Phenomenal City
by Richard Lee Cronin
Visit CroninBooks.com for details about each of my Central Florida history books
コメント