“Indians!” He gave the alarm, knowing full well it meant his death. He fell, pierced by more than a dozen poisoned arrows.
For some time arrows whizzed and guns boomed, but somewhere near what is now Orange, Church, and Pine Streets the battle ended. The Indians fled, pursued by the soldiers.
Returning to camp, the soldiers found Orlando Reeves cold in death. They dug a grave beneath a tall pine, wrapped him in his blanket, and laid him to rest with a prayer.
The place became known as “Orlando’s Grave.” Travelers along the trail, pointing to the pine, would say: “Thar’s Orlander’s grave, and not fer from hit is a small spring. A right smart place fer campin’.”
Five years before this battle, in 1830, the ninth county in Florida had been formed. It was named Mosquito County and included all of what is now Orange and Seminole, most of Lake, and part of Osceola, Sumter, and Volusia Counties. Because of the Indian Wars, the 1840 U.S. Census showed only seventy-three people living in Mosquito County.
In 1845 the name was changed to Orange County, and an election was held to determine where the county seat would be located. Enterprise, the incumbent, Apopka (then known as The Lodge), Fort Reid, and Fort Gatlin were all in the running. Fort Gatlin won, and the question of a name came up. The post office was known as Jernigan, and the little settlement was frequently spoken of as Fort Gatlin.
It was during a heated discussion that Judge Speer, a devotee of Shakespeare, arose, and said, “The place is often spoken of as Orlando’s grave. Drop the last word, and let this new county seat be called Orlando.” And so it was.
Then came the need of a courthouse. Out in the pine woods, near the old Church Street depot, stood an old deserted two-pen log house with dirt floors and no windows. In the east room, the first county officials opened their offices.
In October 1857, Benjamin F. Caldwell, for five dollars, deeded about four acres of land, to be the site of Orange County’s courthouse, with the stipulation that it was to be known as the original town of Orlando.
The year 1870 marked a new era. The population of Orange County was now 2,195. While the wounds of the Civil War were not healed and, due to the lack of labor, cotton planting was a thing of the past, orange fever was rapidly rising.
It was in this year, 1870, that General Henry S. Sanford, former U.S. minister to Belgium, came to Florida and bought a large tract of land. He planted an orange grove a few miles out in the country, which he named Belair Grove. He next platted a town site to bear his name, which he vainly hoped would become the metropolis of Florida. It was located across Lake Monroe from Enterprise and a mile from old Mellonville. Here he built a large wharf, the Sanford Hotel, and grubbed out the streets. He presented to the Holy Cross Church a picture brought from Belgium, and then, he decided, the county seat must be moved from Orlando to his new town.
Simple enough, he thought; just call a meeting and settle the matter right then and there. He could already envision a fine new courthouse adorning his new town. Meetings were called, but it proved to be more difficult than anticipated. True, some were in favor of the move, but always there was the report of one Jacob Summerlin, the Cracker Cattle King, who was opposed and working against the move. So, after many futile attempts to get this cow hunter to come to him, General Sanford decided to make the long tiresome trip from Sanford to Orlando to confront his opposition.
On his arrival in Orlando, he went to the only hotel the town then had. High brow and high hat, he walked up the steps. There was no bell, and his repeated knocks failed to bring the landlord to the door. Out of patience, and out of sorts, he sat down in one of the rocking chairs on the porch. It was while there that he spotted a man, apparently asleep, on the floor at the south end of the porch. There was a wide-brimmed hat over his face, and he had on cowboy boots. His shirt was open at the neck, and he was using saddlebags for a pillow.
Ah, Sanford thought, this may be a lucky thing after all. This fellow, no doubt, knows the troublemaker and can give me some insight on the best means of bringing him to terms.
The general crossed the floor, cleared his throat, and with a pompous wave of his hand, said condescendingly, “You look like a native.”
“Then I look as I oughter,” answered the cow hunter.
“Perhaps you have met this self-styled cattle king, Jacob Summerlin?”
“Wal, no, I’ve never met him, but my wife knows him purty well. She met him some time ago, before we moved to Orlando; so I’ve heard considerable about his doin’s.”
“Then tell me, if you can, why this ignorant cattle man dares to defy me, General Henry S. Sanford, late U.S. minister to Belgium, in my efforts to move the courthouse to the new town, where it properly ought to be?”
“Wal, I reckon he thinks Orlando is a purty good place, and people are jest sorter used to tending to court and doing their trading here.”
“I care nothing for what he thinks! He will learn that his stubborn opposition and insolent refusal to agree with me will gain him nothing. For I say the county seat is going to be moved to Sanford.”
The cow hunter sat up. “You may be General Sanford and think you’re agoin’ to move the courthouse, but I’m Jake Summerlin, and I say, there on Main Street stands the Orange County courthouse, and there it will stand when you and I, our children and grandchildren have long since passed away.” He then lay back down and resumed his quiet meditation.
The next morning, the commissioners met in the old courthouse. On one side of the room sat Jacob Summerlin, a native, who knew the old pioneers. He knew the simplicity of their lives, their honesty and integrity, their poverty and courage.
On the other side sat General Sanford, a Yankee, who was unaccustomed to physical labor and crude living conditions. He was egotistical and ambitious, with a mental picture of a wonderful city bearing his name.
When new business was called for, the general arose and, in glowing terms, described the benefit to the whole county from the change.
Jacob Summerlin sat quietly. When General Sanford sat down he stood and asked if the general had finished his speech.
“I have,” came the curt reply.
“Then I will make my offer,” said Jacob Summerlin. “The county seat has been located here by the free will of the majority of the settlers, and the land has been deeded for that purpose. I stand here ready to build a ten-thousand-dollar courthouse and if the county is ever able to pay me back, that will be good. If not, that will be all right with me.”
The offer was quickly accepted, and the county seat remained in Orlando.
Telling time: 18-20 minutes
Audience: 4th grade - adult
We enjoy hearing about places where we have been. This story has widespread appeal because people from the four corners of the world come to Orlando today, and many are familiar with Lake Eola and the courthouse. They may not know that it was not until 1913 that Seminole County was formed and Sanford chosen as its county seat. Orange County has had several new courthouses since the one that Jacob Summerlin financed, but all of them have remained in Orlando on Main Street. (The name of Main Street was changed to Magnolia in the mid-nineteen hundreds.)
Jake, King of the Crackers
Jacob Summerlin, known as “Jake, King of the Crackers” was the first white child born in Florida after Spain ceded the territory to the United States. He was born February 22,1821, near Lake City, then known as Alligator.
When he was seven years old, he could ride a horse and crack a whip. When he was sixteen, the second Indian war broke out, and all the friendly Indians became warriors.
Jake’s father knew that he must move his family to a safer shelter than that of their isolated home, so they packed the wagons and set out for a settlement called Newnansville. Other families came pouring in from every quarter, and soon between one and two thousand people were gathered where only a few families had been living.
The men and older boys labored day and night digging a trench and building a double wa
ll of logs (a log behind each crack between the logs in front) fifteen feet high. The hard work made for healthy appetites, and soon, food became scarce.
Jake’s father decided he must go back to his home to get food. He asked Jake and his brother to saddle their horses and come along, so they, too, could bring back food.
Because of the father’s involvement in the war with the Creeks in Georgia, he was a prime target. The Seminoles vowed they would kill him and burn his home.
It was after dark when the Summerlins got to their home, but they found the house still standing and the food untouched — a bank of sweet potatoes in the yard, plenty of meat in the smoke-house, and corn in the barn. They packed up as much as they dared to put on their horses, knowing they might have to ride for their lives going back to the fortification.
When the horses were loaded, they tied them close to the house, and the boys lay down on the floor to sleep. But the father stood watch. As he watched and listened, he gave thought as to why his place was still untouched.
As he might have guessed, the Indians had not forgotten their threat. They were just waiting, hoping that he would return. Even now, the enemy had been alerted to his and his sons’ presence and were creeping up on them, intending to kill him and his boys and burn his home at one time.
As the father listened with keen ears, a sound broke the stillness of the midnight — a sheep bell! The sheep were rushing toward the sheep pen. He knew, by the way they ran, that they had been startled by the approach of men.
“Up boys and out! The Indians are here!” he cried.
In a minute, each was in his saddle and riding for his life. A few minutes later, the glow of the burning buildings lit the sky.
It was their ability to find their way through the woods in the dark that enabled them to make it back to the fortification.
The Indians did not take kindly to being betrayed by the sheep. They penned up more than one hundred of the bleating creatures, and one by one skinned them alive!
During the hot summer that followed, there were sickness and death behind the log walls of the hastily made fort. The Indians seemed to have deserted this part of Florida, and a careless sense of security started to pervade. Mothers started taking their children outside the walls. Old men and boys, who were now the sole defenders of the place, went to hunt wild turkey and other game. In the shade of trees, they cooked and ate during the day and only returned to the fort at night.
Carpenter Horn, a man who could not be idle, made wheels and cleaned and mounted a small, old cannon, which, along with a bushel of six-pound balls, had been discarded and left behind by troops traveling south.
One day, old man Pendarvis went out to see if he could kill a deer. As he followed a narrow stream where deer often came to drink, his old deer-hound stopped suddenly with a peculiar low growl. Pendarvis crept forward until he saw two Indians, armed and painted with war paint, creeping up the brook.
He ran back to give the alarm, and a wild scene followed — women shrieking and rushing to the fort, carrying sometimes their own babies and sometimes others picked up by mistake. Men were bewildered and panic-stricken. There were only three hundred old men and boys, and there were the lives of a thousand women and children at stake.
Carpenter Horn wheeled the cannon into place, and when the Indians made their first dash at the fort, he fired the cannon at them, and killed two. This came as a surprise to the attacking party. They were acquainted with guns, but they had never heard of a cannon. The power and the noise of the weapon so overwhelmed them that some of them fled, but others charged again. There was a fierce battle, but Carpenter Horn with his cannon finally won. Had it not been for the deer-hound, the forewarning of old man Pendarvis, and the cannon, no doubt all of the inhabitants of the place would have been killed, as it was Osceola and five hundred of his braves slipping up that brook.
What part young Jake Summerlin had in this battle is not clear, but we do know that he lived to prosper in the cattle business.
Even as a young man he could wield, with accuracy, a cow whip eighteen feet long, with only an eighteen-inch handle, often referred to as a drag. He received some calves as a gift from his father. He cared for them well and eventually became the owner of large herds. He shipped thousands of cattle to Cuba each year, making a great profit on every shipload.
He bought land, built wharves, and came to own houses, lakes, and citrus groves. He owned the wharf at Punta Rassa (the chief shipping point for cattle sold in Key West and Cuba) and one thousand acres of land adjacent to it. Stories of his riches spread, and he came to be called the “King of the Crackers.” The title or nickname amused and pleased him, for he was proud of his Cracker heritage and appreciated the lessons learned from his early hardships and dangers. He continued to dress, live, talk, and trade as a poor man might, but he gave to the poor and defended the cause of the fatherless against the land sharks as only a rich man can.
Spaniards regarded him with awe — a man who was indifferent to wealth but couldn’t be cheated, who wouldn’t gamble, and who never smoked or drank. Indians respected him as a man who kept his word.
Jacob Summerlin, the famous pioneer cattle king, died in Orlando, November 1, 1893. He was one of the most picturesque figures in Florida’s history. Without a formal education, he amassed a great fortune. He was entirely unpretentious, but very generous in support of worthy public causes — especially the education of the youth of the state.
An impressive incident in his civic contributions was his financing of Orange County’s fourth courthouse, thus thwarting pompous General Sanford’s efforts to move the county seat to his town. He gave Lake Eola and forty to sixty feet surrounding it to Orlando for a park. He also gave the site and erected imposing buildings in Bartow for an institution of higher education. This institution, which in the mid-twentieth century was replaced by the Bartow High School, bore his name, and Summerlin Avenue in Orlando is named in his honor — small tokens of appreciation for one who did so much. But the many lives that he touched with his helping hand must have been the reward most appreciated by Jake, the King of the Crackers.
Telling time: 15 minutes
Audience: 4th grade - adult
Jake Summerlin was a man of small stature — soft-spoken and gentle — but could get very tough when the need arose. He had a good sense of humor and a quick wit. He was a very wealthy man with very simple taste. Some of his descendants do not believe that a portrait showing a man with a corncob pipe in his mouth is of him, because it was a well-known fact that he did not smoke. But a close scrutiny of the features shows a close resemblance to those of the man in a more formal portrait. Knowing his personality, it is not hard to imagine that a reporter traveled to Florida for the express purpose of interviewing this man, dressed him in the costume in which he is shown, and took his picture as “King of the Crackers.” Jacob Summerlin’s life and character are worthy of study.
Seminole Invasion of Key West
The U.S. government set the first day of 1836 as the date for all Indians to be out of the state of Florida. As the date to leave neared, the Indians came together — not to leave their Florida homes, but to fight for them. The Seminoles were on a rampage.
A few months before, Major Francis Dade and his command were recalled from Key West to Fort Brooke (now Tampa) where they were reinforced with additional troops. On December 28th while enroute to Fort King (now Ocala), he and 110 United States regulars were ambushed near Bushnell. All were killed or wounded and left for dead, but at least two (possibly three) privates lived to give an eyewitness account of the tragedy.
The news of the massacre shocked every heart, and there seemed to be a general feeling that Key West would be the next point of attack. Why? It is hard to say, unless it was because the island was so defenseless. The naval force had been withdrawn, and now the army barracks stood deserted on the beach a mile from the town.
The men in town organized themselves into a guard. They were well armed and
kept a patrolled watch night and day. Yet every night the islanders went to bed with the feeling that, before morning, they might be awakened by Seminole war whoops.
For several weeks all went well, but one night it came — the signal that the Indians were coming. It was about two o’clock in the morning when the patrol came tapping on windows saying, “Get up! Get up at once! They’ve come! The signal drum is beating at the barracks!”
Everyone was up immediately. Coming from the direction of the barracks was certainly the sound of a muffled drum.
The men were soon armed and ready. As quickly and as silently as possible, they planned their strategy. A reconnaissance seemed unnecessary, for without a doubt, the enemy was there. They felt sure, within a mile of them, there was such a force of Indians that they would all be scalped before sunup. But to be absolutely sure would be better than to labor under suspense; so, at last, a party of the bravest and most able-bodied men volunteered to form the front line of defense.
As silently as ghosts, these men stole through the gloriously bright, tropical moonlight. Their sweat stank of fear, for they knew that the infernal war whoop might come from behind any bush or tree.
As they neared the barracks and the sound of that muffled drum grew louder, they began to feel the scalping knives and see the war paint and feathers.
In the edge of the low woods, approaching the clearing in front of the barracks, they stopped, afraid that even their breath might betray them. Then they struggled to go through the thicket without a sound. When they reached the clearing, everything was as still as the death they feared. Nothing could be heard but the low wash of the waves on the beach nearby — and the tap, tap, tap of the drum. There was nothing to be seen either — nothing but the old barracks with its broad, open porch.
When the suspense seemed more than they could bear, one man cautiously stepped out into the clearing. Then he took another step; then a few steps further. Then, with a loud shriek of nervous laughter, he jerked his hand from his gun and pointed to the enemy.
Tellable Cracker Tales Page 6