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
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