Florida's Wilderness Courthouses

Part 1: Lake Valdez aka Lake Monroe:

Enterprise, Florida on Lake Monroe

One might logically conclude, considering the nearly 825 miles of pristine coastline, that the State of Florida was settled by oceanfront homesteaders who later worked their way inward to the interior. With few exceptions, however, exceptions like Jacksonville, Pensacola, St. Augustine and Key West, Florida was largely populated from the interior which then worked outwards.

Newcomers in Florida during the 19^th century did not relocate here to enjoy the beach. A few, yes, but the vast majority came south to earn a living farming in a more favorable climate. Others came seasonally to escape the frigid cold northern winters, but most of these “snowbirds” came at first to Florida’s interior.

Twenty-three million residents and counting today, the entire population of 1870 Florida was only 187,748. Of all 39 counties in 1870, only six reported having more than ten thousand citizens. Counties with more than 10,000 residents in 1870 were Alachua, Duval, Jefferson, Leon, Madison, and Marion, with Duval being the 3^rd most populated county in the State. Thirty years later, in the year 1900, Florida’s population had grown to 528,542, with Duval County being the largest of Florida’s then 45 counties. Following in the order of the most populated counties in 1900 after Duval were Hillsborough, Alachua, Escambia, Marion, and Jackson.

Throughout the 19^th century, Floridians were in the State to farm, as the population of Florida’s interior demonstrates.

Jacksonville evolved into “Florida’s Gateway” because of its convenient seaport at first, and then as a land route with the arrival of railroads. Up until 1870, however, railroads were few. The primary means of early travel was by steamboats, with Florida’s primary highway being the St. John’s River, departing south out of Jacksonville into Florida’s nearly uninhabited interior.

PALATKA

The St. Johns River at Palatka

Raised at St. Augustine, Robert Raymond Reid IV (1824-1900) relocated from the coastal city in 1850 and settled at Pilatika (later Palatka) on the St. Johns River. The son of Robert R. Reid III, Florida’s 4^th Territorial Governor, the younger Reid helped establish Palatka as THE principal supply post for steamboats traveling the St. Johns River.

Explorers and adventurers had long sailed the St. John’s River. French and British explorers both sailed the waterway during their Nation’s occupation, and in 1831, Artist John James Audubon included a map and notes about the St. John’s in his diary while sailing the river south to Spring Garden Plantation (now DeLeon Springs). Four years later, in 1835, after the United States declared war on the Seminole Indian nation after they burned 16 Plantations east of the St. John’s and south of St. Augustine, the army sailed the St. Johns River to as far as the lake the Spaniards had named Valdez, the lake newly christened Lake Monroe. President James Monroe had been Commander-in-Chief when the United States took possession of the Florida Territory

LAKE MONROE:

There were no settlements on Lake Monroe in 1835. In fact, the south shore of Lake Monroe remained a hostile warfront throughout the War. Captain Mellon was killed on the south shore of the lake during a February 1837 Indian raid. One year later, Indians burned Fort Mellon.

In 1841, however, before the war was officially declared over, an Indian War Veteran decided to establish his family’s residence on the north shore of Lake Monroe. Said Historian Daniel Gould of Volusia County, “Cornelius Taylor came to this section in 1841, and his homestead was at old Enterprise, about one-mile due west of Enterprise, where the old courthouse now stands.”

A Historical Sketch of Orange County (1834) by Herbert J. Chaffer, wrote, “A few soldiers discharged at the end of the Seminole Indian War settled near Fort Kingsbury and Fort Mellon on Lake Monroe.” One of the veterans, said Chaffer, “was Major Cornelius Taylor, the founder of Old Enterprise, and Territorial Representative of Mosquito County. He had the county seat moved to his plantation, about one mile east of Benson Springs, by Act of February 24, 1843.”

Another of the veterans to stay and settle on Lake Monroe was Henry A. Crane, formerly of New Jersey. Crane chose his homestead on the lake’s south shore, acreage that included the burnt ruins of Fort Mellon. (Crane settled on his land prior to the amendment requiring homesteaders to select land two miles or more from an Army Post).

After the Army departed Mosquito County after declaring victory over the Seminole Indians, two of the earliest Central Florida settlements were established almost immediately, Enterprise on the north shore, and Mellonville on the south shore.

SAINT LUCIE aka LUCIA

The Seminole Indian War was certainly not confined to Lake Monroe. Nor was it confined to the interior of the Florida Territory. A 24 January 1838 dispatch from St. Augustine had reported an encounter with the Indians during which Lieutenants Powell and Fowler were with a detachment sailing on the “St. Lucie Sound when they heard the cries of an old woman sitting on the bank.” At the urging of the lady, the soldiers traveled inland a short distance and where they came upon “about seventy Indians,” and a battle ensued.

Mention of the name St. Lucie Sound in 1838 is of interest to this blog because that county we know today as St. Lucie County was not formed until 1905, six decades after the Seminole Indian War had ended. In 1844, however a St. Lucia County had been formed, but then renamed Brevard County in 1855. The St. Lucie we know today was carved from Brevard County.  

On 5 June 1845, an official deed recorded in Orange County was signed by Peter G. Hynes, who entered his formal title on the deed as “Clerk of Court, Orange & St. Lucie Counties.”

Florida’s wilderness south of Lake Monroe was a mysterious place in the 1840s when the earliest settlers attempted to establish towns, and county seats were from day one an important part of the settlement process. Said Herbert J. Chaffer in his 1934 Historical Sketch of Orange County, “Where now is Winter Park, Orlando, Ocoee, Winter Garden, Pine Castle, and Oakland, was in St. Lucie County with the Indians.” Chaffer’s latter remark is likely explained by an 1821 paper authored by Horatio Dexter (namesake of Lake Dexter), in which he stated land west of the St. John’s River was Indian Territory.

The trail of County Seats of Enterprise, Mellonville, and even the question of where to place the St. Lucie County Seat provides fascinating clues as to the challenges presented to the bravest of the brave – Florida’s earliest settlers. This blog series intends to follow that intriguing trail of our first county seats.

Florida’s Wilderness Courthouses – Part 2, will visit more closely old Enterprise, old Fort Mellon (Mellonville), and old Fort Reid and introduce a few of the bravest of the brave who dared to set foot in these remote placenames.

Portion of the Blog are borrowed from my book

Visit www.CroninBooks.com to View my Central Florida history books

Orlando: A History of the Phenomenal City