Happy Valentines Day! Rather than mailing a card I thought I would instead write about a Sweetheart Lake considering this is, after all, a History Blog. And selecting Lake Sumter of The Villages for my Sweetheart Lake Blog became a no brainer.
Why Lake Sumter? While preparing for my Valentines Day Talk Show appearance on Happenings and History with Kelly (WQBQ 1410AM), I posted a Facebook teaser promo (shown above) asking what the name of Lake Sumter had been in 1850 - before being named Lake Sumter. In no time at all a comment appeared on my post claiming the lake did not exist before The Villages. It was man-made, said a stern comment, suggesting I knowest not was I was talking about. Now, I do not proclaim to never make mistakes - but, my question is indeed legitimate.
Kelly Lovell had invited me to be her guest on Valentines Day to talk about historic lakes of long ago, lakes that had been named for a “sweetheart” – quite appropriate, we both thought, for the day that was being celebrated. One of the first lake’s that came to my mind was Lake Sumter, a sheet of water enjoyed by many today in The Villages – a lake that had dried up over the course of 150 plus years – yet none the less a lake that previously existed as a sizeable sheet of water in the year 1850. To be accurate, I should state, in the year 1848!
Sumter County did not yet exist in 1848 and would not exist for another five years. This land in 1848 was Marion County, but even that name did not matter to the brave individuals who first charted the State of Florida. Government surveyors were busy in the 1830s & 1840s surveying Florida, chopping up a vast wilderness of thousands of square miles, on paper, into 36 square-mile Townships, and then further sub-dividing Townships into smaller one square-mile “Sections.” The 19th century surveyors were so precise that County Appraisers today reference these very same Townships and Sections on property records. The surveyors mapped Florida so that homesteads could be issued to settlers.
Cody’s at Summit Landing, a restaurant I enjoyed eating at often in years past while visiting The Villages, is a perfect location to view Lake Sumter. Today we tend to use a mailing address to find Cody’s, while the Sumter County Property Appraiser identifies the place as being in “Section 23, Township 18 South, Range 23 East,” a precise location that had been established in December of 1848 by Surveyor Benjamin F. Whitner, Jr. Regardless of the address and names applied to this one-square-mile area today, referencing the 1848 Section 23, 18S, 23E survey can tell us exactly what this land was like in December of1848. That survey document shows a lake in Sections 23, a lake that extends west (left) into Section 22, or to state differently, a large lake nearly a mile long east to west, by nearly a half-mile north to south.
Surveyors of the 19th century typically did not name lakes despite outlining hundreds of lakes on their survey documents. On occasion, however, surveyors did name a lake or two they surveyed. The name Benjamin F. Whitner, Jr. on the 1848 survey above caught my eye in years past because he had surveyed nearly 600 square miles of South Orange County beginning in 1843. Benjamin F. Whitner, Jr. named Lake Conway and Lake Butler in Orange County, both lakes being named for his boss at the time he completed that area. Valentine Conway was Florida Surveyor General in 1843 when Benjamin F. Whitner, Jr. surveyed Lake Conway, and then Robert A. Butler was the Surveyor General in 1846 by the time Whitner had worked his way west toward the Butler Chain of Lakes.
Another 1840s surveyor, James M. Gould, stated in his field notes that he had named Lake Ellen Hawkins, not realizing the lake had already been named. Ellen Hawkins was scratched out on his completed document, replaced with the name Lake Eustis. In most cases, however, surveyors either left a lake unnamed, or wrote “Pond.” (Note Lake Hawkins east of Lake Griffin in 1865 map below).
A dozen years after Sumter County was carved from Marion, an 1865 Sumter County map (above) showed a sizeable sheet of water west of Lake Griffin named Lake Sarah Jane. Trails on this map tell us the lake was west of the lake we know today as Lady Lake, an unnamed lake on the 1865 map. By 1888, this large lake appears again on a Sumter County map, shaped almost identical to the lake sketched in 1848 by Benjamin F. Whitner. The 1888 map (below) was also divided into the 36 one-square mile “Sections,” showing this large unnamed lake dominating much of Sections 22 and 23, of Township 18S, 23E, exactly as drawn four decades earlier by surveyor Benjamin F. Whitner, Jr.
Ellen Hawkins had been a daughter of Florida Surveyor General Robert A. Butler. Sarah Jane was yet another daughter of Robert A. Butler. Our sweetheart lake story, however, is not yet told in its entirety.
Sarah Jane (Church) was also the name of the wife of Benjamin F. Whitner, Jr. An amazing lady, this Central Florida frontierswoman, in 1870, partnered with another incredible lady to establish the first hotel south of Lake Monroe – the first frere standing hotel in a region that today contains countless thousands of hotel rooms.
Yet another interesting twist is this - was Lake Sarah Jane the original Lady Lake? There is good reason to believe it may have been, but before I start getting even more stern comments I think I'll leave that subject for another time.
Did Benjamin F. Whitner, Jr. name Lake Sarah Jane for his sweetheart, allowing his boss to think the lake had really been named for Robert Butler's sweetheart – daughter Sara Jane Patton?
Not every Florida lake was named for a sweetheart. Others provide a clue to many mysteries of Central Florida’s history. My latest book, Historic Florida Lakes & Waterways, an encyclopedia of 415 Lakes, Rivers, Streams & Springs, is hot off the press and available at Amazon. Signed copies will be available as well at Pine Castle Pioneer Days on February 22 & 23, and Ethel Heritage Day on March 22, 2025.
My thanks to Kelly Lovell and Bob Grenier for having me as a guest on Happenings & History with Kelly, a great weekly Friday afternoon Talk Show on WQBQ 1410AM from 1 to 2PM.
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