In search of Florida's Citrusland

Earnest Chapel, Fort Reid, Florida, circa 1874

On Fort Mellon to Fort Gatlin Road (1838-1857)

AKA, Mellonville to Orlando Road (1857-c1888)

 “One must take a buggy and follow the picturesque old Fort Mellon Road among the groves and gardens of a prior generation.”

The Gate City Route, South Florida Railroad (1887)

The Way it Was:

Florida’s population in 1870 was 187,748, for the entire State, making it the 33^rd most populous of all 37 States at that time. Considering the United States population in 1870 was 38.5 million, the Sunshine State’s minuscule population equaled only 3.5 residents per square land-mile, with most citizens living in the northern part of the State, nearest the Georgia and Alabama borders.

Of the 187,748 Floridians in 1870, only 2,195 were residents of Orange County, a county that in 1870 was much larger than our modern-day Orange County. The counties of Lake, Osceola and Seminole did not exist yet in 1870, and one large Orange County averaged only one (1) resident per square land-mile.

There was no talk of a “Central Florida” in 1870, only a “South Florida,” a massive undeveloped portion of the State below the southernmost railroad, David Yulee’s Sea-to-Sea Railroad, running east-west between Fernandina Beach and Cedar Key. Of the 67 present-day Florida counties only 39 existed in 1870. Dade County had only 85 residents in 1870 and stretched south from Jupiter Inlet to Biscayne Bay. One quarter-century after Statehood, Florida’s Orange County, and most every county to the south of Orange, still had vast sections of uninhabited countryside.

Despite much talk these days about the 19^th Century Homestead Act, a national program intended to encourage pioneers to relocate so as to spread the population around the country, the Act as of 1870, had in Florida been anything but successful. Since its Statehood in 1845, Florida’s population had increased only about 5,000 citizens annually to 1870. And newspapers in the North were not helping Florida’s settlement, for Northern Editors had begun preaching, “Go West, Young Man, and Grow up with the Country.”

A protracted Civil War in the 1860s, including a “Reconstruction Period,” the uneasy post-war years when Union Provost Marshals ruled the South, hadn’t helped Florida’s growth either. John Angus MacDonald (1841-1917), a Canadian who arrived at Lake Monroe in 1867, wrote in 1882 about his landing where Sanford, Florida is now:

“On landing at old Fort Mellon, on the south shore of Lake Monro (sic), the only sign of civilization was the small store building of Doyle & Brantley, who had a short time before commenced a mercantile business. They were southern men and had no conception of the possibilities I had in view.”

Plain Talk About Florida, J. A. MacDonald, 1882

Michael J. Doyle (1837-1888) and George C. Brantley (1837-1878) partnered in 1866 to open a General Store on the south shore of Lake Monroe in the lakeside village of “Mellonville.”

Mellonville, Lake Monroe, Florida

One mile east of present-day Sanford, Florida Pier

Frustrating Formative Years

The Civil War had only recently ended when MacDonald came ashore at Mellonville. A third of the Orange County young men living in this county in 1860 had since perished in the War. Two Confederate soldiers who had survived, Michael Doyle and George Brantley, had only recently become merchants. The future did look bleak, but evidence suggests some were also looking to rebuild and begin anew, despite a continued presence of Union gunboats on the St. John’s River, that, and Union Provost Marshals who routinely stopped by every now to check on Mellonville. Accomplishments in developments of Orange County prior to the Civil War, it seems, had been all but forgotten – to locals and later historians.

Mosquito County of the Florida Territory had become Orange County upon Statehood in 1845. An 1850 census found only 466 residents in Orange County, an overstated statistic because Volusia County was not formed until 1854. At least half of the 238 Whites, and quite possibly half or more of the 228 Slaves of 1850, were in fact residents east of the St. John’ s River, land that would become Volusia County. Towns of Enterprise, New Smyrna, and a settlement called Volusia were well established “places” in 1850, whereas the land south of Lake Monroe, Orange County after 1854, had not a single “established” town yet. So, a more accurate estimate of 1850 Orange County residents, those citizens living south of Lake Monroe, was about 235 citizens.

Present-day Orange, Osceola, Seminole and half of Lake County had 235 residents in 1850!

Two plantation proprietors south of Lake Monroe in 1850 were James D. Starke on the south shore of Lake Apopka and William S. Delk at Rock Springs. Both had slaves that presumably were included in the 1850 census. Orange County excluding Volusia County in 1850, the land that is currently Orange, Osceola, Seminole and half of Lake Counties, had about 120 Whites and perhaps 115 Slaves, for a total population of about 235 citizens scattered throughout 2,195 square miles.

James D. Starke (left), William S. Delk (right)

Seminole Indians also lived in this 2,195 square-mile land area, but an estimate of exactly how many lived in the area is nothing more than that – an estimate. Most Indians in 1850 Florida lived further south in Florida by then, but even that assumption is no more than conjecture. We do know skirmishes between the settlers and Indians continued until the mid-1850s, so we can assume that at least a small number of Indians were still living in Orange County in 1850.

In 1854 and 1855 however, additional settlers began finding their way south to Orange County. The numbers were small at first, but the presence of these early pioneers most certainly made a lasting impact on the future of Central Florida, a vast wilderness that was soon to become known, in the 1880s, as “America’s Paradise,” aka, “Florida’s Citrus Belt.” Orange County Commissioners in 1883 referred to their area as “Orangeland.” This author dubbed the term “Citrusland,” for by the 1880s Florida’s worth began increasing because of Citrus and a growing desire of Northerners to own a piece of the Citrus Belt.

Pre-Civil War Settlements

The greatest lasting impact of the earliest pioneers were the settlements they established along an old military trail leading into the heartland of Florida. It was this route that determined the future of Central and South Florida as we know it today.

Among the prominent first arrivals in 1850s Orange County were Dr. Algernon Sydney Speer (1815-1857); his wife Christianna (1818-1853), Algernon’s cousin, James Gamble Speer (1820-1893), and his first wife, Isaphoenia Cleopatra (Ellington) Speer (1824-1867). Each of the four played dynamic roles in developing Central Florida, but a review of their death dates as shown explains why only one of the four became a central figure in Central Florida history. James G. Speer, credited by historians as accomplishing more than he in fact accomplished, earned such acclaim because of a few misleading documents of the 1850s and the fact that he outlived the other three mentioned pioneers by nearly 30 years.

Algernon and Christianna settled in the Mellonville – Fort Reid area, on the south shore of Lake Monroe. James and Isaphoenia settled further south, 24 miles further south to be exact, along Florida’s Historic Citrusland Route. The first home of James & Isaphoenia was located on the east shore of what is currently known as Lake Ivanhoe, and included frontage on Lake Highland, two miles north of the original village of Orlando, the town for which James G. Speer is credited with founding in 1856. Three-fourths of a mile of Fort Mellon to Fort Gatlin Road crossed over the Speer property prior to it becoming Main Street (now Magnolia Avenue) in 1857 Orlando.

Florida’s Historic Citrusland Route is a moniker I have given to a route first known in the 19^th century as the Fort Mellon to Fort Gatlin Road. This route has had various names throughout the past 186 plus years. First a 25-mile sand rutted military trail connecting two forts in 1838, the old dirt trail began delivering the earliest pioneers to Florida’s interior in the 1840s. By 1870 the old trail was known as the Mellonville-Orlando Road, forerunner of the South Florida Railway in the 1880s, a Dixie Highway Spur in 1916, US Highway 17-92 of the Roaring Twenties, and a route which eventually inspired the right-of-way for the Interstate 4 Corridor.

The route from Lake Monroe to Tampa Bay has shifted somewhat through the years, but since its inception in 1838, the priority destination of this route for many generations of Floridians has been Tampa Bay. Over decades of Florida history, the Fort Mellon to Fort Gatlin Road expanded on either side to connect the Atlantic with the Gulf, but this Blog deals only with the origin of the route – a Military Trail in the wilderness, connecting Lakes Monroe and Tohopekaliga.

Along Ye Old Military Trail of 1838:

You need not twist my arm to convince me to reveal my thoughts about the single-most historic location along the 1838 Fort Mellon to Fort Gatlin Road. In fact, a case could be made to declare one specific parcel as the most historic place in all of Florida. A 160-acre parcel, the location of my “most historic” spot is the west shore of Lake Pineloch in Orange County. This one parcel of which I write is home to a long-overlooked history about the origin of Florida’s 19^th Century Citrus Belt, and the origin as well of village of Orlando and that swath of land between the Atlantic and Gulf coasts we know and love (or hate) today as the I-4 Corridor.

Whitner Survey (1843): Sections 1, 2, 11 & 12, each 1-mile square; arrows point to the surveyed “Road to Fort Mellon;” Large Red Square is 160-acre Eppes Parcel; The small red rectangle at bottom is surveyed “Fort Gatlin”.

Historians have long-known this very parcel to be the one-time home of Francis Wayles Eppes (1801-1881), grandson of President Thomas Jefferson. A historical fact that is not news, what is newsworthy, however, and largely unknown, is that Jefferson’s grandson’s presence on this land barely scratches the surface of the extraordinary history about this historic parcel.

Now bordering Orange Avenue on the west, Pineloch Avenue on the north, Lake Jennie Jewel on the south, and Lake Pineloch on the east, within a one-quarter-mile square is a history that begins long before Franics Wayles Eppes, predates as well the establishment of Orange County, and a history that continues long after the death of Thomas Jefferson’s grandson.

A condensed version of this mysterious and fascinating history of a parcel I’ll call, “The Eppes Property,” and its connection to the earliest days of Orlando, Central Florida, South Florida, and even Citrusland, will be revealed in this Blog. For those desiring a more detailed account of this history I suggest my books, Beyond Gatlin: A History of South Orange County and/or Orlando: A History of the Phenomenon City, both by yours truly.

Beyond Gatlin: A History of South Orange County (2017), and Orlando: A History of the Phenomenal City (2023), by Richard Lee Cronin. Both are available at Amazon.com

RE: Breaking News on “The Eppes Property:”

“Among those to whom this county owes its first start are Colonel Whitner of Mellonville, Honorable W. M. Randolph of Louisiana, Honorable Francis Eppes formerly of Tallahassee.”

Will Wallace Harney, Cincinnati Commercial newspaper, August 16, 1875

Francis Wayles Eppes, Thomas Jefferson’s Grandson, was not the first owner of the Orange County parcel he settled on in 1871. The first owner of this exact same parcel, however, was in fact a lineal descendant of Colonel Francis Eppes III (1659-1718)! Not only that, this first owner, a fascinating Lady no less, was in 1860 the largest single landowner in all Orange County.

What were the chances? In 1871 Orange County, where the population averaged one (1) resident per square-mile of wilderness, ended up owning the same exact parcel as another lineal descendant of Colonel Francis Eppes III?

The first record of trespassers on the historic “Eppes Property” was the Army in November 1838. Troops stationed at Fort Mellon on Lake Monroe since December 1836 were ordered in October of 1838 to move inland 25 miles and establish a fortress. While on their way south into Mosquito County’s wilderness a supply fortress was built at Mile 16. It was named Fort Maitland for their fallen comrade William Seton Maitland (1798-1837). At Mile 25, on a knoll surrounded by three lakes, Fort Gatlin was built. It was named in honor of Dr. John Slade Gatlin (1806-1835), killed during the Dade Massacre while marching with Army troops from Tampa Bay toward what is now Ocala. In 1838, in their final approach to Fort Gatlin, although the troops would not have known at the time, they crossed over the 160-acres of the “Northwest Quarter” of Section 12, half of which in 1871 would become the homeplace of Francis Wayles Eppes Property.

The 6-mile by 6-mile Township in which the historic Eppes parcel is located was the first land surveyed south of Lake Monroe. Allow me to clarify! Somewhat mystifying itself, Surveyor Benjamin F. Whitner traveled down the St. John’s River on a steamboat, stepped ashore at a tattered wharf on the south shore of Lake Monroe, then hiked with two chainmen a distance of 23 miles through nothing but wilderness. Then, 23 miles south of Lake Monroe, Whitner began his survey work, eventually surveying nearly 600 square miles of South Orange County and land that, in 1887, became north Osceola County.

Later surveyors would soon complete mapping of the 23 miles north of Whitner’s “Township 23 South,” land that included the present-day towns of Sanford, Maitland, and Orlando. The first historic landmark ever documented south of Lake Monroe, however, was Fort Gatlin, surveyed by Benjamin F. Whitner II during the 2^nd Quarter of 1843. And while mapping the area around Fort Gatlin, Whitner also surveyed the land that, in 1871, became the “Eppes Property.”

The Eppes Property, however, where the grandson of Thomas Jeffersonb built his home in 1871, was only half, or 80 acres, of a historic 160-acre parcel that would be more accurately titled the “Eppes-Trist Homestead.”

Francis Wayles Eppes relocated his family to the Orlando area in the aftermath of the Civil War. Financially ruined before departing Tallahassee, Eppes arrived in Orlando broke and was invited to build his home on 80 acres by the owner. Eppes was told he could pay for the land whenever possible. A note attached to an 1871 deed by William M. Randolph says it plain and simple.

“Whereas I hold the legal title, and for which land I bought, and for which Francis Eppes has recently built and on which he now resides. And witnesseth that whenever Francis Eppes returns me the money which I have paid said property will be his.”

William M. Randolph assisted Francis Wayles Eppes in relocating from Tallahassee to Orange County, Florida in 1871 by allowing Eppes to build his home on one-half of a 160-acre parcel Randolph had acquired in 1870. The other half, 80 acres, was deeded by William Randolph to “Nicholas P. Trist of Alexandria, Virginia.”

Francis Eppes not only built a residence on his LAND, he also planted a CITRUS grove just as Orange County was about to become a hub of an industry that would improve the fortunes of its citizens – including Francis Wayles Eppes, grandson of President Thomas Jefferson.   

Florida did not begin growing oranges in 1871. Orange Lake, far north of Orange County, was already named such in 1820. Weather patterns have been changing likely since the beginning of time, and during the 19th Century the "Frost Line" was continually moving further and further south. What did change in 1871, however, was an interest in growing oranges, especially when the growing of wealth became one and the same as growing oranges.

Now that the stage has been set, In search of Florida's Citrusland will continue with Part Two with an introduction of the amazing Lady who first owned the Eppes-Trist parcel, and of how the troubling 1870's evolved into America's Paradise during the 1880s. Watch for Part 2 beginning next Monday, April 6, 2026.

Visit my website CroninBooks.com for details about each of my Florida history books