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?
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