Tuesday, July 25, 2017

KEUKA of Putnam County, Florida - Part 4 of 4

KEUKA & Lady IDA of Florida’s Pleasant Valley
PART 4 - The Conclusion to KEUKA of Putnam County, Florida

I have lived in several States and different localities in each.” William H. Mann wrote this in 1884, while commenting on MANNVILLE in a marketing brochure for his new start-up town. Four (4) miles east of Ed Rumley’s town of KEUKA, Mann had subdivided 2,000 acres west of Palatka, summarizing the attributes of his place as “the best to enjoy health and life the writer has ever found.”

William H. Mann and Edward Rumley had both relocated to Florida from Illinois, and both founded town on Florida Southern Railroad (FSRR). Mannville is today on Route 20. Rumley’s town of Keuka is now a rural community off Route 20A, an old road that originally followed, and then replaced entirely, the FSRR.

Old Keuka Cemetery Road runs off 20A, and requires little explanation as to what awaits at trails end. Town of Keuka was first laid out in 1883. The earliest documented burial at Keuka Cemetery was Eunice GARLING, January 4, 1886. In 1885 however, sixteen (16) deaths were recorded at Florida’s Pleasant Valley District of Putnam County. Of the causes of these deaths, seven (7) were of Typhoid Fever. The average age of all 1885 deaths was only 19.

Two fever fatalities were Mattie Rumley (age 16), and George Rumley (age 14), of the KEUKA family founders, Edward & Anne Rumley. An even earlier death at Pleasant Valley though was a 25 year old bride. All but forgotten now by historians, the young girl, and her brother, are truly the most likely candidates for the naming of not only Lake Ida near Mannville, but Rumley’s town of Keuka as well.


Ida Amie (Winegar) Harrison (1857-1883)
Hafner Publishing Co - 1970

As reported in Part 2, Edward Rumley was credited by Palatka Daily News of 1884 as the individual who laid out Keuka in 1883. FSRR had begun service in 1881, but a stop at Keuka depot did not appear on its original schedule. Part 1 told of the first owner of the land upon which Keuka was laid out. A railroad employee, Land Agent Charles A. Boardman acquired the property in 1882. But neither Rumley nor Boardman appear to have named the town.

The significance of the name Keuka is ‘Crooked Lake’.” This curious comment was reported by Palatka Daily News in 1887. Six years earlier, in 1881, one of New York’s celebrated ‘Finger Lakes’ changed its name. Originally known as ‘Crooked Lake’, the lake suddenly became known as Lake Keuka. Mere coincidence? I think not!

Keuka is said to be of Seneca Indian origin, of the Iroquois tribe, having ties not to Florida’s Putnam County, but to New York’s Finger Lakes. Long before the lake changed names, a steamboat named KEUKA was sailing New York’s Crooked Lake, so the two names share a history. It has been said that Keuka means, ‘Canoe Landing’.

Although Ed Rumley, a native of England, had settled at Iroquois County, Illinois, and married Anne, a New York gal, nothing to date connects him to New York’s Finger Lakes. Canadian Charles A. Boardman was born at New Brunswick, and nothing has been found to link him with the Finger Lakes of the Empire State either.

With my search into how Keuka, Florida got its name going nowhere, I decided to look into the one source quoted most often throughout this blog series, the Palatka Daily News. The Library of Congress shows the newspaper was published from 1884 to 1888, and that the paper’s editor during this time was Benjamin Harrison.

A 27 year old single fruit grower in 1880 Putnam County, Florida, the Alabama native, single as well in 1885, had become Palatka’s Postmaster and editor of the Daily News. During this same five year period, Benjamin Harrison had written often about towns along the route of the FSRR heading west from Palatka. His name never appeared in his writings, nor did Benjamin ever write of his tragic, short-lived marriage.


1887 Palatka, Florida Advertisement

Four (4) days shy of celebrating her eight (8) months of marriage to Benjamin Harrison, Ida A. (Winegar) Harrison, age 25, died at Palatka, Florida. They married October 10, 1882. Ida died June 6, 1883.

Ida Amie Winegar followed her older brother, Palatka banker William J. Winegar, south to Florida. He was four years older than Ida, both were born at Union Springs, on Lake Cayuga in Cayuga County, one of New York’s numerous ‘straight’ Finger Lakes.
Only one of New York’s Finger Lakes curved like that of Putnam county Keuka Lake!


KEUKA OF PUTNAM COUNTY FLORIDA TIMELINE

1881: A Private Bank, William J. Winegar & Co., opened at Palatka, Florida, about the same time as the FSRR was laying down track in the direction of Palatka. The first trains begin running in August, but towns Mannville and Keuka were not listed then as station stops.

1882: Gainesville banker Henry F. Dutton, a native of Vermont, bought most all of the acreage bordering modern day Lake Ida, on September 25, 1882. Benjamin & Ida married on the 10th of October; Mannville Post Office opened November 17th.

1883: Ida Amie (Winegar) Harrison died June 6, at age 25. Keuka Post Office, on crooked Keuka Lake in Putnam County, opened September 25th.

1884: Palatka Daily News began publishing April 29th.

1892: Benjamin Harrison became Associate Editor for Jacksonville Daily Standard, and then Editorial Writer for the Jacksonville Times Union in 1899. He continued with Jacksonville newspapers as a contributor until his death, November 5, 1926. The tombstone of Benjamin Harrison says simply; “He was a writer.” Benjamin F. Harrison (1852-1926) clearly was a listener too, for the stories told by his young wife IDA, his one and only spouse, of her New York Finger Lakes homeland, clearly found their way into the extraordinary history of 19th century Putnam County, Florida.  

CitrusLAND: Curse of Florida’s Paradise
A land I’ve dubbed, CitrusLAND


Farming Citrus and developing Florida’s wilderness were two constants defining 19th Century CitrusLAND. The first settlers arrived around 1842, and immediately began planting commercial orange groves. But despite promised wealth in a land of health and sunshine, by 1870, few families were calling the 3,000 square miles of Orange County their home. More than a history, CitrusLAND is the story of remarkable people, men and women alike, brave pioneers who took on the challenge of their lives, a challenge that very often cost them their lives. 37 Exhibits and a bibliography citing 700 plus references assists in the telling of a fascinating story – the first days of Central Florida.

AVAILABLE at AMAZON.COM


Acknowledgements:
Special thanks to the Genealogy of the Winegar Family of Lake Grove on Cayuga Lake, NY – begun by Ira Winegar in 1859 with photos added by Hafner Publishing Co., 1970.
References available upon request: contact RCronin@Croninbooks.com


Tuesday, July 18, 2017

KEUKA of Putnam County, FL - Part 3

Part 3 – John H. Moore & the Family Companion

We want the capital removed to KEUKA just as soon as we get fixed up a little.” This August 27, 1884 letter to the Palatka Daily News Editor was likely written in jest, for the author was responding to the paper’s editorial claiming Palatka would make a more convenient State Capital. The letter, signed J. H. Moore, concluded: “Great oaks from little acorns grow. Keuka is the little acorn, and is now growing rapidly.”

Non-existent in 1881, Putnam County’s town of KEUKA, according to Webb’s 1885 publication, was a “town of 250 inhabitants,” adding that a town newspaper, “Family Companion,” enjoyed a circulation of 3,000. That Keuka had its own newspaper was of no surprise, since town founder Edward Rumley had been a publisher of various Illinois newspapers for nearly 30 years prior to moving to Florida. But the Family Companion was not Ed Rumley’s paper!


The Family Companion, J. H. Moore, Publisher
Rowell’s Newspaper Directory of 1884

Florida’s first Brethren Church, according to Sebring Church of the Brethren (2016), was established at Keuka in 1884. The Minister, John H. Moore, was also editor and publisher, said Webb’s of 1885, of the widely circulated ‘Family Companion,’ a long-established paper having its origins, like that of many Keuka citizens, in #Illinois. Publisher J. H. Moore based his national newspaper at Mount Morris, Illinois, prior to relocating his publication to Florida.

A cluster of Putnam County start-up towns, each a stop on the Florida Southern Railway (FSRR), began, during the early 1880s, referring to themselves collectively as ‘Pleasant Valley.’ In reality however, these neighboring cities could have identified the region as ‘Publishing Valley’. Within a few miles of each other were depots Keuka, Interlachen, Lanarks, and MacWilliams, each a want-to-be town during the 1880s, all founded by a journalist.

John H. Moore, one of these journalists, was born April 8, 1846 at Virginia but his family moved to Illinois when he was 4 years old. At age 25 John married Mary S. Bishop (1853-1888) at Champaign, Illinois. Three of their children were born while they resided at Illinois. A fourth child, a daughter Alice, was born in 1884 at Keuka, Putnam County, Florida.

Established in 1876, ‘Brethren at Work Publishing House’ had been founded by John H. Moore at LANARK, Illinois. Six years later, the Moore family moved to Putnam County, Florida, and a LANARK train station popped up along the FSRR railway line between INTERLACHEN and MANNVILLE.

Mary (Bishop) Moore died in 1888, and the Minister remarried a year later, to Phebe Brower (1847–1932). By 1891, John H. Moore and his newspaper had returned to Illinois, but the Minister would again find his way to Florida. In 1916, John H. Moore helped establish the Sebring Church of the Brethren. Phebe died at Sebring in 1932. John died at Sebring December 23, 1935.

Next week, KEUKA, our series concludes: “The significance of the name Keuka is Crooked Lake,” was the lead sentence in May, 1887 from a Palatka Daily News feature story on the town of Keuka, Florida. Compare this opening line to another town’s history, found on the website of the Keuka Lake Association: “In 1885, common usage had changed the name of the lake from “Crooked” to “Keuka.”

BY AUTHOR RICHARD LEE CRONIN
A FLORIDA MYSTERY – TRUE FLORIDA HISTORY!
THE RUTLAND MULE MATTER

Anxiously awaiting his father’s return from the war, a 9 year old Central Florida boy instead becomes witness to a most unusual occurrence; a military officer delivers a mule to his mother. A mule! But what happened to his father?

Fast forward 20 years, and Othman Rutland is still haunted by that childhood memory.  
Determined to learn what really happened to his father, he sets out on a life-altering journey. Traveling to Rutledge in 1885, he visits with a retired General, and begins to collect fragments of a past others preferred to forget. Learning of the Navy’s 1864 landing at Lake Monroe at the end of America’s Civil War, Othman Rutland’s search leads next to Ohio’s State Capital, and later to the sacred chambers of a stunning new Pensions Building at our Nation’s Capital.
Ultimately, Othman’s search exposes a long buried file folder, a U. S. Provost Marshal’s file, TRUE correspondence dated in the 1860’s. A historical novel, The Rutland Mule Matter reveals a true-life story of an early Central Floridian, a statesman, a man who was eradicated off the pages of Florida history.

Isaac N. Rutland was the true-life Statesman. That man’s son was Othman Rutland.

Real people, real events! Finally knowing why his father disappeared, Othman is now faced with a troubling dilemma - what to do with that disturbing discovery?

Tuesday, July 11, 2017

KEUKA of Putnam County, Florida - Part 2

Part Two: Ed Rumley & his Illinoisans:

Keuka, Florida (1918) “is a discontinued post office on the A. C. L. Railway, in Putnam County, 19 miles southwest of Palatka.” R. L. Polk’s Florida Gazetteer of 1918 made Keuka sound much like a Ghost Town, contrary to an 1884 description by Palatka Daily News describing the place as a “beautiful county village.” Keuka, in 1884, was a stop “on the Florida Southern Railway”, laid out in 1883, “by Ed Rumley.


1890 Putnam County, route of Florida Southern Railway

Years before involving himself in the 1883 Florida town, the very same man had been involved in organization another new city, that one far to the north, in Illinois: “With the assistance of Mr. Edward RUMLEY, a young man whom GILMAN will always hold in remembrance, (Mr. Thomas) surveyed the town and began the work of making a city.” This account of Rumley is found in ‘History of Iroquois County, Illinois’, a history penned in 1880 by H. W. Beckwith, citing Ed Rumley as being one of the founders of Gilman, Illinois back in the year 1857.

Palatka Daily News, of April 29, 1884, while writing of the developments at a new town named Keuka, said the town had been, “laid out little more than a year ago by Mr. Ed Rumley, then a new citizen of the county.” Rumley was indeed new Putnam County and Florida, as he and wife Anne had just relocated from Illinois.

One man did not alone make Keuka, but without question, Edward M. Rumley was a major player in establishing a cluster of neighboring communities to the west of 1880s Palatka, railway stops, places including Mannville, Interlachen, Lenarks, and to an extent, Pleasant Valley. Each of these place names had once been a stop on Florida Southern Railway, a train running between Alachua County’s town of Gainesville and the St. Johns River port town of Palatka.

Not every settler to the area were native Illinoisans, but many of those who arrived in the 1880s relocated to Florida from that State. Even the railroad surveyor, Nathan R. Gruelle, a native of Kentucky, had been an Illinois County Sheriff before serving as a Civil Engineer with Florida Southern Railway.

William H. MANN (1827-1905) was also a native of Kentucky, but married at Illinois in 1851. The founder of MANNVILLE, on the route of Florida Southern Railway, he had been a long-time Iroquois County ‘Nurseryman” before becoming a Putnam County ‘Nurseryman’. The town of Gilman was located in Iroquois County, Illinois.

Lenarks, a station one mile east of Mannville, and home to the Baptist Minister of Keuka, shared a connection as well with Lenark, Illinois. Elder J. H. Moore, a Virginia native, brought his national reputation to the Pleasant Valley region west of Palatka. Much like Rumley, J. H. Moore was also an Editor and Publisher, although his story we reserve for ‘Part 3: John H. Moore & the Family Companion.

The first Keuka general store, Reid & Son, opened in 1883 (See Part 1). Merchant John D. Teeter (1846-1908) opened his store soon after. Teeter, a native of the State of Pennsylvania, relocated as a child to Illinois with his parents. John married Illinoisan Susan Hershey (1855-1904), and after a brief California stint, they came too came to Keuka. (The Teeter’s later moved to Hawthorn, in Alachua County, where John and three of the couple’s grown children taught school. John and Susan were both buried at Hawthorn, Florida in the 1900s). 


1880S Advertisement for KEUKA by Ed Rumley

Perhaps the largest single Rumley sale was 480 acres in 1884 to Mr. Uriah Copp, Jr. (1830-1908). Born at Great Falls, New Hampshire, Attorney Uriah Copp practiced law in 1881 at Loda, Illinois in Iroquois County. Another interesting 1884 sale was a 40 acre parcel that included, ‘the famous Keuka Springs.The buyer, said Palatka Daily news, was “a wealthy gentleman, Mr. Gnagy of Illinois.”

No record of a Keuka Springs has thus far been found, but the same year Gnagy of Illinois purchased that parcel, Reid & Son merchants began selling tickets for a stage coach journey between Keuka and Orange Springs.


A Palatka Daily News reporter visited Ed Rumley’s residence and toured the town of Keuka in 1887, writing this of his visit: “I was taken in hand and my eyes made to feast on the beauties of his place, where his (Rumley’s) house stands on the summit of the hill you have a fair view of the lake and surrounding countryside.”

The reporter was in Keuka for a special marketing event, and critiqued the town: “Four years ago the sound of woodman’s ax had wakened the long slumbering echoes where now stands Keuka. Less than twenty miles of speed and luxurious railroad travel, over the popular pioneer road, The Florida Southern - The Orange Belt Route, separates it from its neighbor Palatka. The excursion taxed the capacity of the road to transport the crowd, and town lots went like hot cakes, the wonder is that there were any left. There are now two general stores with a business that keeps up a good average throughout the year, and a neat drug store is kept by Mr. Belden where the few ailing ones can find panaceas for their woes.”

James L. Belden (1840 – 1918), owned Keuka’s neat’ drug store, but Belden also had a store at Gaddes, New York.  The chemist expanded his Keuka location in 1888, to include manufacturing space with his 20’ x 32’ Drug Store, and in his manufacturing addition he prepared a product he called ‘Eve Salve’, sold statewide.



Edward M. Rumley had established several Illinois newspapers prior to relocating to Putnam County as a Land Agent for his new town of Keuka, and he remained active as a reporter in Florida. In 1887, he edited, “Palatka, The Gem City,” a brochure telling of the many merits of, “Putnam County, Home of the Citrus Family.” (Later editions of this brochure appeared in the early 1900s). ‘Florida Agriculturist’, published in 1891, “The Poor Man in Florida, by Mr. Ed Rumley, of Keuka,” an article that also appeared in Rumley’s Journal, ‘Home Seeker’, offering advice about the difficulties poor northerners will find if trying to relocate to Florida.

An Illinois newspaperman for a quarter century, Ed Rumley played a major role after his move to Florida in directing potential residents southbound to Florida as well as Ed Rumley’s town of Keuka. His many years as a Putnam County journalist served to expand the reporter’s national reputation, until that is, The Ocala Evening Star, on 23 February, 1898, brought closure to his stoic career: “Edward Rumley of Keuka, Fla., died suddenly a few days ago. He was a noted correspondent of the Palatka Times-Herald.”

Next Week, Part 3: Elder J. H. Moore & the Family Companion

And then, Two weeks from now: KEUKA or CROOKED LAKE?

The significance of the name Keuka is Crooked Lake.” This was a lead sentence in May, 1887 for a Palatka Daily News feature story on Keuka, Florida. Comparing this opening line, used to describe an 1883 Florida city, to another town’s history far to the north, found on the website of the Keuka Lake Association, adds even more intrigue to our Florida story.


Crooked Lake Mercantile logo design at Keuka lake, NY

“In 1885, common usage had changed the name of the lake from “Crooked” to “Keuka.”

This Keuka Lake Association will not be found in Illinois though, as Keuka Lake is one of New York’s famous ‘Finger Lakes.”

VISIT MY WEBSITE, www.CroninBooks.com for Florida History

Wednesday, July 5, 2017

KEUKA of Putnam County, Florida - Part 1

Part One: Like Fathers, Like Sons

A skinny two-lane road meanders through a heavily forested region of Florida today where once a series of hopeful new towns suddenly appeared during the 1880s. For one to fully appreciate the ‘why here’ though, one must take into account that the skinny road was once a right-of-way for the Florida Southern Railroad.


Florida Southern Railroad terminal at Palatka, Florida.
Provided east-west train service to Hawthorne & beyond.
Photo: Palatka: ‘The Gem City’, 1887, by Edward Rumley
Photo source: George Smathers Libraries, UF Gainseville

Florida’s western Putnam County town of KEUKA was originally “laid out” in 1883 by Edward Rumley. A native of England, Rumley had long been Editor of an Illinois newspaper prior to relocating to a remote, “unbroken pine forest in Florida.” Arriving in Florida, like many other newcomers of that time, Ed Rumley tried his luck at growing oranges as well as land development.

I’ll get to the fellow Rumley and his Illinois clan soon, but feel I should begin my series by telling of three other individuals responsible for encouraging Rumley to start a town of Keuka in an out-of-the-way Putnam county location. Each of these three were sons who followed, to some degree, in their footsteps.


First is Charles Augustus BOARDMAN. He acquired 1,120 acres in the “unbroken pine forest” along the “Road from Alachua County to Picolata.” Purchased in 1882, his land was located 20 miles west of the St. Johns River port town of Palatka. A native of New Brunswick, Canada, Charles, 37 years old at the time, was an Alachua County resident making plans to greatly expand a personal Florida financial empire.

The name BOARDMAN was actually a perfect fit for a father and son Canadian team dealing in lumber. George A. Boardman, the father, had begun the business in 1828, having relocated from Massachusetts. His son Charles, born at Milltown, across the St. Croix River from Calais, Maine, was Canadian born because of his father’s prosperous New Brunswick lumber business.

Charles Boardman, by 1880 a graduate of Bowdoin College, found his way 1,500 miles south, and was Land Commissioner for the Florida Southern Railroad. As a partner in the railroad venture, Boardman began accumulating land, lots and lots of land, all of which was acreage located along the train’s intended route east to Palatka.

Most land he acquired in the name of the railroad, but the 1,120 acres in west Putnam County was purchased in his name alone. Heavily forested land, this ‘board-man’ from Canada was looking out for himself as well as his expanding railroad.

SEE ALSO: Florida’s Forgotten Founders Blog: Charles A. Boardman


Land Commissioner advertisement 1884: C. A. Boardman

Palatka had become an important transportation hub during the 1880s. Its location on the St. Johns River had made it a key port city for steamboat traffic running between Jacksonville and Lake Monroe. As track was laid down, the north-south Jacksonville, Tampa & Key West Railroad travelled through Palatka, as CSX Railroad does so today. A second railway terminal served Florida Southern Railroad (sketch above), making the city of Palatka a major transportation hub in Florida. (The sketch of the Florida Southern Railroad terminal appeared in an 1887 marketing pamphlet prepared for the ‘Palatka, the Gem City’ by Edward Rumley, Editor).


Our second son was Hamilton Disston. He bought four (4) million Florida acres in 1881. His historic land purchase became the catalyst for most schemers and dreamers who then found their way to the wildernesses of Florida during a 1880s land boom.

Many think first of Osceola County when hearing the Disston name, but the man’s massive landholdings reached far beyond central Florida. Both Tarpon Springs and Pine Island in Charlotte Harbor were also part of the Disston lands. Today a quality tool brand, a company founded as a manufacturer of quality saw blades, DISSTON was already a huge success by 1880. Henry Disston, the father, began his firm in 1840. Eldest son Hamilton assumed control of the business after Henry’s death in 1878.

But in 1880, State of Florida had entered its tenth year of a court injunction prohibiting use of public lands to encourage the building of railroads. The State’s pre-Civil War debt had included huge amounts owed to Francis Vose, a New York Capitalist. Vose funded Florida’s first railroad, the Sea-to-Sea Railroad running from Fernandina to Cedar Key. Built in the 1850s, some of its debt was still outstanding as of 1880. So, until he could be repaid, Vose got a court order preventing new railroads from being built, an action that in turn had stymied development in the State following the Civil War.

Hamilton Disston came to Florida’s rescue, buying 4 million acres for $1 million dollars. The State became debt free, resolving the court injunction and releasing public lands that could finally be used to entice the building new railroads. Florida witnessed, as a result, an onslaught of dreamers and schemers.

Charles A. Boardman and Hamilton Disston were both born in 1844. Each began taking notice of Florida in 1880, just as South Florida Railroad arrived for the first time, (built using private funds with no reward of public lands), in the tiny four (4) acre village of Orlando.

That same year, 1880, long-time Palatka merchant and visionary, Robert R. Reid, still a resident of Palatka, recorded the first ever town plat of a twenty-three (23) year old county seat of government known as the village of Orlando.


Joseph F. REID, our third son by a third father, turned 21 in the year 1880. Robert R. Reid, the father, had settled at Palatka in 1851, and platted at that time the town of Palatka. The father however soon went bankrupt because of a lack of buyers, but Reid’s mercantile business thrived. The dockside Teasdale & Reid store supplied river traffic for those traveling between Jacksonville and Lake Monroe.




Palatka Daily News Advertisement of 1884
Keuka Family Store & Disston 4 million acre Purchase

After the Civil War, Robert R. Reid purchased, at auction, the town of Orlando, paying the County Sheriff $900 for 120 acres surrounding a tiny log courthouse. Reid held on to his mostly vacant Orange County land until that first train finally arrived at Orlando in 1880. The train increased land value, as new arrivals no longer had to trek down a long lonely 22 mile dirt path from the pier at Lake Monroe. Settlers could instead hop aboard a train and travel in style to their Orange County inland homestead.

Like that of his father, Joseph F. Reid was interested in developing a new town down a long lonely dirt road from a pier at Palatka. Of course, Joseph’s 19 mile trek inland, where the planned town site of KEUKA was to be established, was also about to get a new railroad too. The train had begun meandering through an unbroken pine forests, connecting Hawthorne and Gainesville in Alachua County, with Putnam County, Palatka, and that busy port on the St. Johns River.

The Florida Southern Railroad followed an old trail, taking public lands no longer held hostage thanks to Hamilton Disston, trekking upon land acquired by the train’s Land Commissioner, Charles A. Boardman.

Reid & Son branched out, opening a KEUKA mercantile store that soon boasted of having weekly sales averaging $1,000 (See Reid & Son Ad above). A KEUKA Post Office opened September 25, 1883, its first Postmaster being the town’s merchant, Joseph F. Reid. The actual town site of KEUKA itself however was the creation of an Illinois newspaper Editor, a native of England, Ed Rumley.

His story, and the founding of KEUKA of Putnam County, are the subjects of Part 2.

Wednesday, July 12, 2017: Part Two


Ed Rumley & friends

RIGHTING HISTORY one factual step at a time

VISIT my website for details:

http://www.CroninBooks.com/RIGHTING-HISTORY.html