Excerpt from “Pioneers of Lake County” BY William F. Gouveia (1989) P. 11
EUSTIS
Abraham Eustis, of Petersburg, Virginia, rose to the rank of General and was stationed in Charleston, S. C..
"Until 1836 when he organized several companies of
soldiers and accompanied them to Florida on the ships,
"John Stoney" and the "Santee".
Eustis' troops, under the command of General Winfield Scott, were dispatched to
the Florida territory to restore order
The Seminoles were running amuck and pillaging
the homes of lowly settlers as well as those of wealthy plantation owners. Scott's
ambitious plan involved attacking on three salients: General Eustis moving west from
the St. Johns, Colonel Lindsay moving north from Tampa, and General Clinch moving south
from Jacksonville.
By November 1837 General Jessup joined General Eustis' forces at Volusia Landing.
Sometime during that month Eustis' forces probably remained briefly at Ft. Mason.
General Eustis built a reputation as an efficient but somewhat aloof disciplinarian.
After
the Seminole War ended General Jessup left him in command of military affairs in Florida.
However, Eustis apparently was eager to relinquish his command and return to more hospitable regions.
He died in Portland, Maine on June 7, 1843.
Lake Eustis was probably named in his honor and appears so named on the 1837 map of John Lee Williams and on the 1843 map of Charles Vignoles.
Prior to this time Lake Eustis was called Lake Ellen Hawkins and was reportedly named after the sweetheart of the surveyor.
The town of Eustis may have later been named for General Eustis'
son General Henry L. Eustis. He was a Civil War soldier, Engineer, and a professor at West Point and Harvard and resided in Umatilla briefly.
After the end of the war, in 1842, Ft. Mason became the nucleus of a small settlement... A more recent pioneer,
Charles Smith, later reported that the depression formed
by the moat around the Fort could still be clearly seen when he arrived in the area
in 1875.
In the summer of 1875 seven homesteaders met in Jacksonville with Federal Land Agent
John A. McDonald. They agreed to hire him at $10.00 per day to guide them into the
Florida interior in search of homesteads.
The group included G. D. Clifford...
In November 1875 they took a steamer down the St. Johns to Ft. Mellon (Sanford)
and there disembarked and bought a team and wagon. During the next 16 hours they covered
30 miles arriving at "Doc" Henry's place on Lake Gertrude in Mt. Dora.
When the men
arrived in the
"Highlands" district overlooking Lake Eustis they found a few scattered
homesteaders...
The group
bought their homesteads at the going price of $1.25 per acre.
One member of this pioneer group of seven made the most significant contributions to
The developing community. G. D. Clifford selected 160 acres bordering Lakes Woodward
and Saunders. After filing his claim he returned to Jacksonville and gathered his belongings once again making the circuitous route from Jacksonville to Ft. Mellon, to Mt. Dora,
and on to Lake Eustis
Clifford later related how he arrived at Lake Eustis in a driving rainstorm.
de spent his first night on his homestead sleeping on the ground beneath his wagon.
He then went to Gordy's sawmill in Altoona, and with the lumber built a two-room house,
one side housing a general store.
Clifford's store was called "The Lake Woodward Store"
and the little settlement began calling itself "Highlands."
Clifford drove his mule
team to the landing at Sanford each week and returned to his store with mail and goods.
In December 1875 Clifford's family arrived from Virginia. (For a vivid description of
pioneer cooking by Lottie Clifford Taylor on her father's homestead, refer to the next
section entitled "Pioneer Tales.")
1876 saw the fledgling community bustling with new building activity.
G. D. Clifford built a two-story general store. Dances were held on the second floor every other
Friday night and were sometimes preceded by an outdoor picnic.
County officials often
met in the store and bachelors rented sleeping space upstairs...
In January 1876 A. S. Pendry homesteaded the "Pendryville" section of town.
He
built a house and offered food and lodging to travelers.
In April 1876 the first tree
was cut down to allow Mr. Pendry to construct his hostelry,
"The Oklawaha Hotel" which
opened in the fall of 1877.
The first Post Office was opened July 2, 1877 in the hotel
with Mr. Pendry as Postmaster. Mail during this period was brought to town by Mr. Clifford weekly. He placed the mail in a box nailed high on a pine tree to frustrate prying
cows and everyone helped themselves to their mail
Pendryville was surveyed and platted by John A. McDonald but the name for the new
settlement never caught on.
Most townspeople referred to the area first as Mellonville
and later as Ft. Mason, although the Fort was really centered about two miles north
of town.
The properties of the Herricks, Pendrys, and Keys all had frontage on Lake Gracie (named
for Pendry's daughter.)
In 1876 Mrs. A. S. Pendry began teaching the first school at the Oklawaha Hotel.
Among the fourteen students was four-year old Lottie Clifford Taylor.
In 1878 the first
telegraph connected Eustis with Sanford and Leesburg.
1880 witnessed the beginning of
weekly steamboat service to Lake Eustis from the Oklawaha River.
Also that year the
railroad connected the town with Fort Butler (Astor)
In 1880 Mr. and Mrs. Hazzard arrived in Florida.
In later years Leona Hazzard
reminisced about the event:
"When we, my husband and I, came to Florida in 1880 the only way to
get to this part of the state was by taking a boat at Jacksonville and
coming up the st. Johns River as far as Astor. At Astor a narrow gage
railroad ran as far as Ft. Mason.
At Astor we crossed the St. Johns
River in a row boat, rowed by a Negro, and stayed one night and one day
at a boarding house there for the train did not make the trip to Ft.
Mason only every three days.
The only way to get to our home, which
is now the Jessie Getford home, was to drive through the beautiful pine
woods from Ft. Mason.
There was only a winding trail, no direct road.
Ft. Mason at that time was more of a town than any place around
here but that consisted only of a store and the railroad station and a
few small houses.
The train consisted of the engine, a baggage car and
an open car with a top and seats around all four sides for passengers. There was no town of Eustis
nothing but scrub along the lake
shore and the beautiful pine woods on the high rise of ground."
In 1881 J. P. Donnelly built a home in Eustis but soon rented it out and moved to
Mt. Dora where he became a leading citizen and founder.
G. D. Clifford was quick to see
the opportunity the new railroad line presented and in 1880-81 he constructed the first
store on Bay Street adjacent to the railroad. He then built a wharf and warehouse
which became known as Lake Eustis Landing. Waterborne freight landed at the site to be
hauled away to nearby communities.
Fertilizer for new groves and hay and grain for
draft animals were leading imports.
However, G. D. Clifford's
health began failing and he was forced to sell out in 1910.
Also in 1882 McDonald, Clifford, and M. J. Taylor joined to
build
"The Eustis House"
on Bay Street.
It was a three-story thirty-room hotel catering
to winter tourists but open year round.
It had a large dining room and two "sample
rooms" where traveling salesmen could display their wares.
Throughout December of 1882 a notice ran in the "Semi-tropical" announcing a meeting of the citizens of Eustis to discuss incorporation.
Consequently, on January 1st,
1883 at 3:00 p.m. twenty-four voters met at Clifford Hall. The meeting was called to
order by John A. McDonald. Colonel D.E.V. Hazzard was elected chairman...
Nine councilmen were elected including... G. D. Clifford,...
J.D.V. Hazzard...
Moses J. Taylor became town clerk...
Curiously a town seal depicting a pineapple was adopted.
About this time the growing cattle population was becoming a menace to the new
town.
Determined to put a stop to cattle roaming the city streets the town fathers
erected a corral to impound strays. Owners had to pay a fine to get their cattle back.
Carrie Dykes, daughter of pioneers Jack and Sarah Dykes later recalled how one local
cattle baron dealt with this new threat to the open range. The townspeople corraled
his cattle and when he rode into town they advised him they felt it necessary to make
an example of him. He replied,
"Stand back and I'll make an example of you."
And
cracking his whip he pulled down the coral gate and rode off with his cattle.
In the summer of 1876 Mrs. A. S. Pendry taught a few students at her home in the
Oklawaha Hotel.
School conditions in those early days were primitive.
Simple arithmetic problems
could be solved by counting the window panes, students used slate boards and slate
pencils ,and books were bought by the parents.
The teacher was paid $25.00 monthly and
boarded in the homes of the school patrons.
The earliest regular weekly steamboat service was begun in 1879 and connected Eustis
with Oklawaha River traffic. Passengers, mail and freight were hauled.
The Clyde Line
transported visitors to Eustis on journeys down the Oklawaha through dense forests filled
with herons, egrets and cranes and waters teeming with bass, alligators and snakes.
The
Clyde Line was joined by the Hart Line in 1885.
In 1895 Connecticut immigrant Captain
William B. Baker commissioned a 75-foot sidewheeler passenger boat at a cost of $10,000.
Captain Baker named the boat
"The Three Kids" after his grandchildren.
The boat became
well known on Lake Eustis and offered pleasure travel to many until it was deemed unsafe
in 1910. It eventually was used as a home in Eustis and then sold to George A. Simpson
who moved it to the triangle corner of SR 19 and 19A. He used it for a Lunch boat called
the
"Dreamboat" and it finally burned.
In 1919 the Bassett Boat Works of Eustis built the "Northland," a forty-five foot
passenger cruiser. In later years the Bassett Boat Works built several glass bottom
boats for Silver Springs.
On February 20, 1879 the St. Johns and Eustis Railway Co. was incorporated and
licensed to construct a twenty-five mile long three-foot gauge track connecting Astor and
Lake Eustis.
It reached Eustis the following year and remained the main rail link until
bought by the Florida Southern Railroad in 1885 and the Plant System in 1892.
Later it
acame part of the Atlantic Coast Line.
The operation of the railroad was dependent upon the farmers who cut and sold pine
logs to the railroad. The logs were stacked near the tracks and receipts left once
they were loaded onto the train. On October 6th, 1891 the railroad agent that year,
Robert Taylor and his intended, Lottie Clifford, were married on the railroad.
They
boarded near Umatilla and when the train stopped in Leesburg, Reverand Julian boarded and
performed the ceremony.
The newlyweds then proceeded on their honeymoon as the train
chugged north.
The early introduction of citrus cannot be dated for certain.
Professor Kennedy
believed some Eustis pioneers may have obtained seeds from a tree on the Turnbull Plantation near New Smyrna when they journeyed there to obtain salt. These wild, sour oranges
of early Spanish years were large and covered with lumps and tasted more like lemons.
They were later crossed with sweet Mediterranean imports.
In 1885 Robert Taylor made
the first estimate of citrus production in order to allot a suitable number of railroad
cars to transport the harvest to northern markets.
In 1890 the U.S.D.A. established an
experiment station on an acre donated by Frank Savage.
Savage, along with Dr. H. J.
Webber and Dr. Walter I. Swingle, developed numerous disease resistant citrus varieties
including lemons, limes, limequats and tangelos. It was in the midst of this hopeful
atmosphere of citrus development that the great freeze struck. Lottie Clifford Taylor's
detailed and moving account of the Great Freeze appears in the next section,
"Pioneer
Tales."
Mrs. C. E. Chaw related how, when the freeze hit, the sap-laden trees exploded with
sounds similar to gunfire.
People lived off fish and cabbage palmettos.
Her father,
John S. Lane bought a city block with a house on it for $600.00 which had been valued
at $28,000.00 before the freeze. Moses J. Taylor had amassed a small fortune by planting
citrus groves on property he bought and later sold to Northerners who paid their mortgages
off annually. The freeze caused most of these properties to be turned back to Mr. Taylor
leaving him in dire financial straits.
According to Grace Smith the exodus caused by the freeze could be seen in a decline
in population figures from 1260 in 1885 down to approximately 600 in 1896.
The freeze
wiped out the experimental seedlings at the U.S.D.A. Station. Another freeze hit in
1898-99 but the groves had not been re-established to any great extent, thus minimizing
financial losses
The early roads of Eustis were similar to those of other Lake County towns.
The
sand roads were covered with pine straw but were highly flammable.
The roadsides were
plowed to cut down on brush fires.
Any citizen who cleared a fallen tree from a road
was paid 50 cents and each registered voter had to contribute one day's labor periodically
to road improvement.
Construct earavnacndam Toad ° In Foad lull dee hota, lane a monstrate the car del avahavia cbads.
In 1915 the legendary
"nine-foot road"
composed of asphalt was constructed linking Eustis
and Altoona. W. W. "Bill" Igou took the lead in developing a modern road system not only
in Eustis but throughout the County.
In Jesse Hunter's
"History of Lake County," Igou
is called "the father of the road system in Lake County
A telephone system received an early start when, in 1898, Southern Bell extended
air lines from Orlando through Eustis on their way to Ocala.
Paid telephone booths
sprung up in drug stores and, in Eustis,Walter Merck established the first privately
owned exchange...
After the turn of the century growth was not as spectacular but, nevertheless constant...
In 1921 the Lake County Poultry Show began in Eustis.
The following year the fair
grounds property was purchased and Lake County Fair became an annual event.
The City Hall was built in 1927 at a cost of $200,000.00. Municipal offices,
a fire station, an auditorium and public library have been housed in the city hall comlex at various times.