1894-1895 - The Great Freeze
The winter of 1894 brought big changes to towns throughout Central Florida.
It was said that the pioneers were so traumatized by the "Great Freeze" that, thenceforth they would time events in terms of whether they occured before, or after the Freeze.
"Eyewitness accounts regarding the temperature drops and the economic aftermath are similar in each Lake County community.
No event, either before or since, has so dramatically altered the course of history in Lake County.
Whole populations left the county never to return.
Several towns ceased to exist and either vanished from the maps, or are now only place names.
In some cases a few of the townsites remain in the form of a cemetery, but some are lost to history and no one is even certain exactly where they were located.
This intriguing phenomena is, in large part, due to the Freeze.
Yet the touching stories of those who did survive the Freeze, albeit with great difficulty and privation, serve to remind us of the great character and courage possessed by our Lake
County forebears."
- William F. Gouveia, “Pioneers of Lake County” (1989)
Since the long leaf pine trees were not affected by the freeze, turpentine production became even more popular until the agricultural climate improved.
Eustis
Lottie Clifford Taylor (Eustis) wrote:
"The Fall and early winter of 1894 had not been abnormal in any way; some cold weather so that windows and doors were closed and sometimes a fire in the fireplace.
Christmas Day, 1894 was warm and the sun shone until mid afternoon.
About 4:30 p.m. there was a small shower, after which the sky cleared.
But the air cooled.
On the 26th and 27th, the cold increased and the wind came from the west and later from the north.
Before midnight freezing temperatures arrived.
On the morning of the 20th, the thermometer on the north side of the back porch showed 12 degrees.
There followed three or four days of clear.
"All fruit was frozen and dropped from the citrus trees as did the leaves.
Warmer air caused the trees soon to sprout new growth until February 11, 1895.
That day the sun shone bright and the air was warm and summerlike until mid-afternoon.
Some wind came from the west soon after noon.
We closed doors and windows on the west side to keep out the wind - not because of the cold air.
The cold increased rapidly.
On the morning of the --th, our thermometer read 8 degrees F.
Our rain-water barrel was more than half full and the water froze solid.
Citrus trees were ruined in this second freeze.
After the first freeze in December everything had started to grow.
New leaves were out and the wood was full of sap.
The February freeze killed most of the citrus.
Trunks of large trees were split open and roots were frozen.
The loss of the fruit crop and of the early vegetables was severe, but the big loss was the fruit trees.
"Many people gave up, abandoned their homes and moved away.
No work, and not much business, this was a paralyzed region.
The people [who stayed] were too poor to buy anything more than the barest necessities.
Some people could not leave.
Some stayed because they had faith that a come-back would happen.
"Those who did stay learned new ways to live, and to grow many things in Florida that had not been grown here before. Necessity made us learn.
We also learned much about people in their acceptance of adversity, their selfishness or unselfishness, the value of true friendship and generosity.
Also, we learned of the greed of some who came to take advantage of the misfortune of their fellowmen."
Clifford House Museum, Eustis
Leesburg
From the biography of Edwin Hanford Rennolds, Sr. (Leesburg):
"On the nights of December 28 and 29, 1894 a heavy freeze injured the orange trees.
By February following, the trees had put out a vigorous growth and were full of sap and on the nights of February 7th and 8th, another severe freeze killed to the ground all the orange trees, except the extreme southern part of the state, and a few others here and there.
...
This heavy loss caused an almost complete change in the economic conditions of a large part of the state, and a great many people deserted their dead groves and sought other localities to secure the means of livelihood."
Captain Fred Kramer (Leesburg) remembered:
"The total production of the entire State at that time was about five million boxes, and in the Fall of 1894, the orange market before Christmas had gotten down to $0.50 a box on the trees.
My father had a shoe business in Leesburg and his family was living out on a farm about 2-1/2 miles west of Leesburg.
He had a grove that had probably 1,000 to 1,200 boxes of fruit.
He didn't want to take $0.50 a box.
He said,'No, I think maybe the market will go up to a dollar and when they do I'll sell them.
As the Christmas season approached, the market went up a little higher from time to time and, in fact, had gotten to $0.90 a box on the tree.
Mind you, we only had around five million boxes of fruit in the entire State at that time and $0.90 was as high as they went up for Christmas season.
He said, 'I think they will soon be a dollar and when they do, I’m going to let them go.’
Two or three days after Christmas, the first freeze come in 1894.
Very few people in this section had a thermometer, but Mr. Cook, who was living at Fruitland Park at that time, had one and he said his thermometer went down to 11 degrees F.
We knew we had a hard freeze.
"My father, two brothers and I stayed up most of the night and burned up a rail fence we had at that time.
We were hauling the rails to a pile to be distributed along the west side of the grove, hoping the heat would go across and maybe save the crop and trees.
Along about 4 o'clock in the morning, we examined the fruit on one of the trees close to one of the fires and the thing was solid ice.
We quit and went on home - gave up.
"Within the reach of ten days, the fruit commenced to drop.
Every leaf and every orange was falling to the ground, so instead of getting a dollar a box, he let a fellow go in there and was willing to take a chance on shipping some of that frozen fruit, and he picked and loaded three cars at a nickel a box.
"After the Freeze and between Christmas and New Year's, we had about seven weeks of warm weather, warm and moist, and the trees had put out and they had new growth and scattering bloom - new growth three to four inches long hanging all over the trees.
The trees had lost their leaves and fruit but had lost very little wood from the Freeze that came during Christmas week.
"The other freeze that came on about the 19th or 20th of February was just as cold as the previous freeze and the trees were in that condition and were carried to the ground.
And a lot of people had commenced to depend on the income from the little citrus groves and it made it hard.
I remember one old fellow, I won't mention his name, he seemed to be very comfortable sitting on his porch with his rocking chair, but after the freeze he had to herd up some of these Florida cows and raise a garden so as to have something to eat.
I never ate so many rabbits and turtles in all my life as I did after the freeze.
Rations were scarce.
We didn't eat tham because we like them.
No, we were hungry.
"After this freeze in 1895 which came in February following the one of Christmas week in 1894, times were really hard.
People had to do all kinds of ways trying to raise something to eat.
Of course, all business was dead.
Budwood to rebud the sprouts that came up from the ground was scarce.
We had to hunt around to get budwood in order to rebud the sprouts that came up from the root system.
"Leesburg, and this whole section, in fact, has been slow in coming back.
My father bought a home at 15th and Main, ten rooms with a lot 75x350 for $500.
Another man, our family physician, bought his lot across from the Baptist Church, eight-room house with a good sized lot for $300.
This gives you an idea as to what values went down to.
People were running here and yonder trying to get something to eat.
Of course, all types of business were at a standstill and it took some years before we could bring these orange trees back into production.
About that time we got into raising some vegetables and began to making a little bit of money out of growing cabbage for market."
J. Chester Lee (Leesburg):
"Only those who were living here could know just what it was like after the "Big Freeze" of December 1894 and early February 1895.
The first freeze was not quite so bad, as it only stripped the large trees of their foliage and froze all the fruit.
Back in those days, very little fruit was shipped before January as we believed in letting the fruit ripen on the trees.
In order to move a small amount for the Thanksgiging and Christmas holidays, we would go through the groves and pick for size and color.
On Christmas Day in 1894, it was warm enough to jump in the lake and take a swim, but on December 28th you could sit down on the fire and almost freeze.
Milk and eggs froze in our kitchen.
"The old wooden tank that stood behind the Mote Block and supplied the town with water had icicles forty feet long hanging from it.
Many water pipes were frozen and burst, so we had water running and freezing all over town.
A fountain in Mr. Mote's front yard, now the John Morris home, was frozen over and a beautiful sight to behold for days.
But we who had groves would have much preferred not to see the lovely sight. In a few days, the weather turned really hot. We had a good rain and the trees shed their leaves and fruit. We could tell that the limbs and trunks of the large trees were not damaged and, within a few weeks, the trees put on a new growth and were loaded with bloom, so we were rejoicing.
"Early in February 1895, there came another freeze as severe as the first. The trees, having lost their old foliage and being full of sap and bloom, could not stand anything like the temperature of the previous freeze. Neither could we who owned the groves. We were a sick bunch of folks with everyone asking, 'Do you think the trees are killed to the ground?' Some would say "Yes", and others, 'We hope not'. As soon as it warmed up, the bark on large, fifty-year old trees began to split. Then we knew they were killed to the ground.
"Citrus being the only money crop for many of our people who had abandoned cotton, which for a number of years was the principal crop, no one knew what to do. There was no government or state aid in those days, so it was 'root, hog, or starve'. Many of our citizens moved avay seeking employment. Real estate went down to practically nothing. No one wanted to buy and most everyone wanted to sell. You could buy some of the best homes in the town for one-fourth of their value or less. Quite a few of us decided to tough it out. He soon saw that the roots of the trees were not killed and soon the roots started to throw up sprouts. My father, who had a number of groves, said, "As long as they sprout, I will bud them. and he did.
"Back in the early days there was an old saying that they budded the trees on horse-back, up so high that the cattle which roamed the country could not reach the limbs to eat them. Things changed after the freezes. People began budding the trees at the ground, so they could be banked in the winter to save the bud in case of a freeze. It was five years before we had any fruit worth shipping. In my father's grove, he had only one tree that survived the two freezes. It happened to be on the east side of the packing house and well protected. From that tree we got our budwood with which to bud the sprouts that came up.
"Mr. Alsobrook, who had a grove on an island near Lisbon, saved some of his large trees by setting afire a number of live-oak trees that had died and fallen in the grove. The heat and dense smoke saved some of his trees, so he had a small amount of fruit the following Fall.
"After the "Big Freeze" a number of us turned to the growing of lettuce, which proved very profitable, netting as much as $1,000 per acre; also, to the growing of cucumbers, cabbage, tomatoes and watermelons, and at the same time, bringing back our groves to bearing.
"The first freeze lasted from Friday, December 28 through Monday, December 31, 1894. The thermometer stood at 17 degrees F at daylight on Saturday morning. The second disastrous freeze came in on Thursday night, February 7 and lasted through Sunday, February 10, 1895 with temperatures of 15 degrees and lower. The loss, not only of the year's crop of fruit, but the trees themselves, was a staggering blow to the citrus growers. Some people left the country. Others, either better fixed financially, or with more determination, began afresh the effort to harvest a living from the soil."
Fruitland Park
From the records of Fruitland Park resident, A. P. Bosanquet recorded on a thermometer on a north-facing veranda: On December 28, 1894, the thermometer registered 12 degrees F. and records indicate 'Fruit Frozen on the Trees'. An unseasonably warm January caused trees to revive with sap and blossoms only to be hit with a second killer freeze on February 8, 1895. The Bosanquet thermometer registered again 12 degrees F, while others registered 11 degrees F. According to published reports the trees actually exploded with 'the sounds of their cracking and splitting limbs and boughs echoing over the desolate landscape'.
Villa City
With its agriculture flourishing, the Villa City residents prepared for a typical Florida winter of occasional cold snaps and mild freezes, which helped sweeten the fruit and kill the pests in the groves.
What happened in the evening of Decemver 29, 1894 took them all by surprise.
The temperatures dropped into the teens and stayed there all night.
In the week following, the trees became stripped of their leaves.
However, the damage was not bad enough to kill the trees.
In January, the temperatures rose back into the 70s and 80s for most of the month.
The trees began to fill with sap when spring seemed to be at hand.
Then, on February 7, 1895, a massive "arctic express" from the north interrupted the warm humid weather.
The air quickly dipped down to a freezing 12 degrees.
The freezing temperatures started early in the day before the rain clouds had cleared, thus causing snow to fall quite hard and accumulate to depths of up to a quarter of an inch.
The temperatures dropped into the low teens at sunset and remained there all night, solidly freezing the sap in the trees.
This event in itself might not have been as disastrous as it seemed and spared the hardier trees, if they could have warmed slowly the next day.
However, when the morning came with a bright sunshine, the temperature quickly rose up to 85 degrees and warmed the trees.
The rapid thaw of the frozen sap caused the trunks of the trees to burst wide open with loud explosions.
Almost all of the citrus trees in the entire state were destroyed, as well as the vegetable crops and many farm animals.
The devastation was agonizing to look upon.
Ten years of hard labor were gone in a single day.
Villa City quckly became one of Florida's many ghost towns.
Within a year, the population dropped from about 150 to only a few.
Some of its citizens returned to the North to remake their fortunes and others moved closer to nearby settlements.
The King family, with the exception of, Anne Parlow, George King's mother-in-law, picked up their things and moved back to Boston and New Bedford.
Those few who were determined enough to stay in Villa City survived mostly on wild game, fish, and their own gardens.
The experience encouraged what were already tight knit communities to continue to turn to each other for support.
The abandoned property of those who left to the North, were eventually seized by the state for delinquent taxes and the local people moved into the vacant houses.
They took possession of the abandoned contents and eventually disassembled the houses and the lumber was repurposed for other homes and buildings in the area.
The last remaining building was the Gano house, a popular site for high school couples into the 1960s.
It was torn down in 1968, making Villa City a true ghost town.
[Contributors: Mary Helen Myers, Jason Brown]