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
RIGHTING HISTORY one factual step at a time
VISIT my website for details:
http://www.CroninBooks.com/RIGHTING-HISTORY.html
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