Florida's Sweet Orange

In Search of Florida’s Historic Citrusland – Part 3

Orange Lake, Florida, 1833 Survey by Henry Washington

“Aside from its importance as an orange-growing district, Mandarin (now a Jacksonville suburb), has become a celebrity through being a winter residence of the famous authoress, Mrs. Harriett Beecher Stowe.”

Mandarin, Florida, Duval County, Webb’s Historical (1885)

Historic Florida Towns & Places, Richard Lee Cronin (2026)

The Dawn of Citrusland

There was a time in Florida’s past, more than once in fact, that a devious land agent would have tried his best to convince you that the entire Sunshine State was a Citrusland. But only once, in my view, did the Florida Sweet Orange truly play a momentous role in drastically changing the future of this, the 27^th State. Citrusland, I believe, describes a significant twenty-five years in the history of the Florida Sweet Orange. During these twenty-five years, from 1870 through 1895, the orange forever changed our State - for the better, despite learning during this same time that Florida’s orange was not a state-wide agricultural commodity.

Citrus had been an agricultural product of Florida long before the year 1870, even prior to the United States taking possession of the Florida Territory in 1821. On September 17, 1823, The Daily National Intelligence of Washington, D.C., in an article about the agricultural capabilities of East Florida (at that time everything east of the Suwanee River), reported on fruit damage that occurred during the severe frost of February 1823. “Orange trees of 20 years standing were killed in New Orleans, Pensacola, and Georgia, but groves of St. Augustine, and on the St. Johns (River), only lost their leaves, and produced fruit the same year.”

The 1823 article added that the orange had been around for quite some time. “The sweet orange tree rises 35 feet and spreads 50. Its highest produce is 6,000 oranges; this quantity having been gathered from one tree on the St. John’s (River); its longevity is traced to 116 years (1707).”

Britain and France were at war for control of North America during Queen Anne’s War (1707 – 1713), so while the general belief is French explorers introduced the orange tree to the Florida Territory, its origin in the New World is not truly known. However, and whenever, the orange arrived in America, the Florida Sweet Orange, referred to often during the 19^th century as a “Golden Apple,” seems for certain to have predated the birth of our Great Nation.

From its origin until 1870, marketing and farming of Florida’s Sweet Orange had never been a major organized industry. The lack of a reliable transportation system in Florida delayed large-scale farming of citrus until railroads began expanding state-wide in the 1880s.

Who Put the Orange in Orange Lake, and Why There?

Histories in the past have credited John D. Shelton of New Smyrna with discovering an orange tree along the Indian River circa 1842. The wild trees were said to have been part of the historic Douglas Dummitt Grove, and yet Douglas Dummitt, born in 1806 and lived in Brevard County until his death in 1873, is cause to question that account. According to Dummitt family history, Douglas had reportedly found sweet orange trees in New Smyrna’s old Andrew Turnbull Plantation years earlier. Turnbull was a fortress of sort established by the English around 1763.

Still other histories credit Arthur Ginn, an Irish Immigrant and Georgia apple farmer, as planting the historic Ginn Grove (aka Speer Grove) at Fort Reid (now a Sanford suburb), also in the year 1842. The real historic Ginn-Speer grove was located on the St. John’s River, between Lakes Monroe and Jesup. It was identified on an 1846 survey, but Arthur Ginn also had his personal grove on the Fort Mellon to Fort Gatlin Road, the latter being the actual Ginn Grove of Fort Reid.

Surveyed after Speer’s “River Grove” of the 1840s was planted, Surveyors showed the grove, which existed along the west side of the St. John’s River

Both men are truly important in the history of the Florida Sweet Orange, but the introduction of the sweet orange to Florida predated both, as evidenced by an 1833 Survey by the nephew of President George Washington. Orange Lake (see first photo above), was named as of 1833 per Surveyor Henry Washington, telling us that attempts to grow and market oranges had begun long before John Shelton and Artur Ginn established their groves in the 1840s.

“Orange Lake Creek,” said The Pensacola Gazette of May 4, 1822, drains Orange Lake, into which in wet seasons there runs a head of water called Cascowilla Branch, discharging a portion of the waters of the great Alachua Savanna.” So, even before Henry Washington surveyed the area, the name Orange Lake existed as The Florida Territory became part of the United States. While we may not know when the first Florida orange tree was planted, we do know it was prior to Florida becoming a Territory of the United States. 

The earth’s weather has been in an endless cycle of change since its formation - a fact Florida citrus growers learned the hard way. Orange trees “were killed to the ground in Pensacola” said the Daily National Intelligence in 1823, and yet in March 1894, Samuel S. Harvey published his ill-fated book on growing oranges in Florida’s Panhandle. Then a resident of Quintette, Florida, 19 miles north of Pensacola, (one of 625 towns in my Historic Florida Towns & Places), Mr. Harvey wrote about his orange “orchard,” bragging that his orange trees would be coming into full bloom within the next twenty days. Nine months later, December 29, 1894, the first of two dreadful freezes swept across Florida. A second wave, February 7, 1895, dealt the final blow to Sam Harvey's "orchard" by killing the orange trees in and around Pensacola, again.

How does that age old saying go? History repeats itself!

“The common impression of those who have never been to Florida,” wrote Ledyard Bill in his 1869, A Brief Historical Summary; Hints for the Tourist, Invalid, and Sportsman, “is, that beautiful fruit-trees may be everywhere seen and that they literally abound. This notion would vanish if ever they were to visit the State. It is only in the older settlements that you see groves of sweet oranges. It is true, single trees, or a half-dozen trees, are not infrequent in numerous localities, but we have never seen over a half-dozen that were worthy of the name grove or orchard.”

Citrus farming in Florida, therefore, was minimal as of 1869, with the region for growing of oranges being largely in the northern part of the state with exception of the famous Indian River orange. Ledyard Bill wrote of where he saw actual groves: “One at Mandarin, three in St. Augustine, two in and near Palatka, and one, the finest in Eastern Florida, about thirty miles south of New Smyrna, near Indian River.

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Birth of Florida’s Citrusland

John A. MacDonald arrived in Central Florida in 1867. Poor health brought him to the South, but for him to remain in Florida he needed a means of supporting himself and a family. There were no jobs, though, so he invented one, establishing himself as a land agent of sort by writing letters to the editors of Northern papers and offering his Civil Engineering and surveying services to those desiring Florida land.

William Wallace Harney arrived in Central Florida at Christmas time in 1869. New family ties brought him to The Sunshine State, where among his first chores as a frontiersman was burying his young wife after only three weeks as a Florida resident. Harney earned his living during his first decade in Florida as a correspondent, writing on Christmas Eve 1870: “Sugar Cane is the surest product of this climate (Orlando area).” Other agricultural products mentioned by Harney in his 1869 article included bananas, pineapples and yes, oranges.

The Arthur Ginn / Algernon Speer groves of 1840s Fort Reid had not only survived, but by 1869, the farming of oranges was beginning to show promise as a worthy Central Florida agricultural product. The lack of reliable transportation, however, prevented the cultivation of large-scale citrus groves. Change, however, was on the horizon.

John A. MacDonald, in 1882, wrote about his early days in Central Florida. Arriving just after the end of the Civil War, he wrote about the area’s despair and poverty. “I knew the country must eventually come into notice and attract immigration, but few of our northern people had any faith in either the people or the lands in the South. Westward Ho was the cry.” Newspapers in the North were in fact encouraging young men to go west rather than south during the early 1870s, making it harder for the war-torn South to attract desperately needed new settlers.

To what extent MacDonald and Harney can be given credit for reversing the pessimism and hardships of Central Florida of the 1870s is debatable, but fact is, real change began occurring very soon after their arrival. The entire State's 1870 population was only 187,600 persons, but beginning in 1871, and increasing slowly but steadily well into the 1880s, Florida population began to grow, thanks in large part to the Florida Sweet Orange. Central Florida especially then evolved into a region known around the world as “America’s Italy,” an “American Paradise.”

Settlers, railroaders and land speculators came to Central Florida from around the Nation, but a very intriguing faction of newcomers taking a sudden interest in the area were residents of one specific location. While the young men of this Nation were being told to go west, residents of Washington, District of Columbia, began acquiring large chunks of America’s Paradise.

Many of those who were described as “D. C. Residents” had been “government employees,” while others were prominent lawyers, politicians, and descendants of some of the best-known Capital City families. All shared, however, one common interest, Florida’s Sweet Orange!

Mr. Harry F. Smith, that is!

Citrusland, D. C.

The origin of modern-day Central Florida – including the infamous I-4 corridor, date to an era that occurred between 1870 and 1895. I refer to this very special time as “Citrusland,” for it was during this time that farming of citrus and development of land shaped the region as we know it today. And of those who re-shaped a wilderness into a paradise were citizens from Washington, District of Columbia. Numerous amazing individuals at that.

My next installment of this Citrusland blog series will be an in-person presentation viewable as well on my Facebook Page. In Washington, D. C., on April 28, 2026, I have the honor of presenting “Citrusland, D. C.” live and in in-person at Florida House, the one and only State Embassy in our nation’s Capital. This presentation will begin at 8:30AM, going live on Facebook at 8:26AM.

This Citrusland, D. C. presentation wil alsol be available on YouTube in early May.

Tune in April 28, 2026 at 8:26AM when I go Live, from Washington, D. C.