Wilkinson & Willcox
It was the most decisive year in the history of Orlando! 1879 was a make-or-break year, twelve months during which the future of the Orange County’ Seat of Government was once again put to the test. After 25 years as the county seat, Orlando came as close as ever to becoming just another 1880s Central Florida Ghost Town on 24 July 1879, the day Mayor Charles H. Munger issued his “Proclamation Dissolving Orlando.”
The reason for such a drastic action was because planners of a proposed railroad to Orlando were threatening to bypass Orlando if a property dispute was not resolved. After a decade of failed attempts to connect Orlando and Lake Monroe with a train, success had seemed closer than ever. Or it seemed that way, we should say, until two Floridians, both old-timers, claimed to be rightful owners of the acreage surrounding Orlando’s Courthouse Square. The land dispute also raised serious concerns about the legitimacy of Orlando’s incorporation of four years prior.
As the legality of Orlando came into question in 1879 a new mystery town popped up just north of town on the shore of Lake Formosa. What was the plan for the town of Becker? Could it have been a potential rival for the dissolved town of Orlando?
You say you’ve never heard of Becker? Look again at the photo with this week’s post. Surveyor Edward R. Trafford pinpointed a town called Becker inside the one-square mile Orlando Section 13 on his 1879 Orange County map. Trafford’s map also shows a penciled in route of the South Florida Railroad, a route that included a stop at Becker. Railroad planners had already settled on a route from Sanford to Maitland through Longwood, but their franchise called for building the train to Orlando, which in 1879 had a troubling land dispute problem.
The Year of Reckoning:
Henry Sanford had attempted in 1874 to move the county seat from Orlando to his new lakeside town of Sanford, but Jake Summerlin wouldn’t hear of it. Jake convinced the county to keep the seat at Orlando, and in exchange he built a fine new three-story Courthouse. And twenty years before that, Isaiah Hart, founder of Jacksonville, together with his son-in-law Algernon Speer, had made the first attempt to locate the courthouse at Fort Reid (now a Sanford neighborhood), but that first attempt had failed after residents overwhelming decided on Orlando.
Orlando first appeared in 1857, after residents selected the location. An Orlando Post Office opened on 19 September of that year, and on the 5 October, a 417’ x 417’ Plat of Orlando, four acres, was deeded to the Orange County government.
Forty (40) months later, America’s Civil War began, a tragic war during which the Postmaster of Orlando was killed in action. The individual who gifted the 417’ x 417’ Plat of Orlando was also killed, he by friendly fire. One of Orlando’s three merchants died a prisoner of war, another had been killed on the battlefield.
After four long years the war finally ended, and only a hand-full of 1860 Orlando citizens were still residing in the nearly abandoned Orange County seat of government.
The land belonging to John R. Worthington, Orlando’s Postmaster killed in action, was sold in January of 1867 at a Sheriff’s auction. Palatka merchant Robert R. Reid bought Worthington’s property, 120 acres surrounding the courthouse square. Then, a courthouse fire destroyed many of the county’s documents, including the 417’ x 417’ Plat of the town of Orlando, plus many of the land deeds recording who owned what. Making matters worse, the Sheriff was assassinated in 1870. Some would rightfully question if Orlando was still a village, let alone a viable location for the county seat.
A pedestrian walking one of Orlando’s four dirt streets in 1870 was more likely to encounter a cow than another individual. Orange County’s entire population of that year counted only 2,195 citizens, a landmass which then included Orange, Osceola, Seminole, and half of present-day Lake Counties. Although inhabited by only a few in 1870, one Orlandoan still residing in the village was that of William A. Patrick. Thirty-three years old, Patrick had lived in the Orange County seat since before it had become the county seat.
In 1875, when Orlando was Incorporated, landowners had increased the town size to one mile square. William A. Patrick was still a resident then, while merchant Robert R. Reid was still living in Palatka. Curiously, though, one person not at the incorporation meeting of 1875 was William A. Patrick.
Then, in 1879, William A. Patrick and Robert R. Reid both claimed to own the exact same 120 acres, land surrounding the Orange County courthouse. And both men had proof!
Becker at Section 13:
Orlando was described in 1880 by journalist George M. Barbour as “an old place, typical of the South. The boom,” he said, “that has enlivened every other spot in Orange County seems to have left Orlando comparatively untouched.” While Orlando of 1879 may have been a dismal spot, an area of Orange County just to the north of town was anything but dismal. The Ivanhoe Chain of Lakes region had indeed been enlivened, a transformation that had begun in 1873.
Attorney James W. Wilkinson of South Carolina purchased 270 of the 640 acres of Section 13 in 1873. His property included much of what we know today as Lake Estelle plus an entire smaller spring-fed lake to the northwest of Estelle, a lake we now know as Lake Winyah. Wilkinson did not relocate from South Carolina to Orlando though, for his interest was not in subdividing his land. James W. Wilkinson had acquired this property to plant citrus trees.
Wilkinson Street on the north side of Lake Winyah is today the only “obvious” reminder that a lawyer from South Carolina once owned a considerable amount of acreage north of Orlando. A less obvious reminder, however, has endured the ages. James Withers Wilkinson, a prominent Charleston lawyer, was born circa 1816 in Georgetown, South Carolina, where, his father, Dr. Willis Wilkinson had the family’s plantation on Georgetown's Winyah Bay.
A Commercial Break for a Special Event
Dr. Washington Kilmer walked to Florida in the year 1873. His interest, however, was not Orlando. Not at first. Kilmer’s homestead was north of the county seat, where within a year he established the Altamont Post Office a dozen years before Bostonians opened the Altamonte Hotel. Join us at 7PM, January 14, 2025, at the Seminole County Historical Society meeting in Casselberry for my presentation, Altamonte: A History of Altamonte Springs, Florida.
See my Home Page at CroninBooks.com for details
Meanwhile, back at Orlando's Section 13:
James W. Wilkinson obviously named one of two lakes on property that he still owned in 1883, when the Orangeland publication wrote of Lake Estelle. Did Wilkinson also name Lake Estelle?
While Wilkinson was converting his Orlando Section 13 land into a productive sweet-smelling grove of hundreds of citrus trees, he soon found he was not alone. Another nearby grove of 21 acres was planted by the “eminent Philadelphia physician Dr. Shattuck,” located on the south shore of “Lake Estell.” Also, Orange County Treasurer Charles W. Jacocks planted six acres of citrus trees “near M. J. Doyle’s fine bearing grove, while James M. Willcox (not Wilcox), a wealthy Philadelphian who had taken a special interest in land along the proposed route of a train from Lake Monroe to Orlando, started buying property around Lakes Ivanhoe, Rowena and Formosa.
John G. Sinclair, a prominent New Hampshire merchant and politician, arrived in Florida in 1878. “Mr. Sinclair has purchased the Doyle’s Mill property,” said The Florida Agriculturalist of 9 April 1879, “two miles this side of Orlando, and will at once commence the construction of a starch factory there. This is a big thing for Orange County,” the newspaper article said, “and an eagle’s plume in the cap of the new town of Becker.”
The new town of Becker in 1879 was in Orlando’s Section 13, on land first acquired in 1868 by merchants Doyle and Brantley (see part 2 of this series). Doyle’s Mill had become Sinclair’s Mill in 1879, concurrent with the new 1879 town of Becker becoming a newer 1880 town of Willcox.
With literally thousands of citrus trees growing along the banks of the Ivanhoe Chain of Lakes, news that the railroad may not come to Orlando after all was unacceptable. A train was the only means of transporting all the fruit grown on the Ivanhoe Chain of Lake to the northern markets.
Desperate times called for desperate measures! Mayor Munger and the citizens of Orlando found themselves in a desperate time and in need of desperate measures if they were to save their town.
Orlando: A History of the Phenomenal City
Next week, Orlando once again is saved by the bell. Or should I say, by the sound of a train’s whistle!
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