𝟏𝟖𝟖𝟓 On December 21, HENRY ADDISON DELAND did what he came to Central Florida to do: He sold land to a settler, GEORGE W. HAMLIN, in DeLand for $400. Part of the original 159 acres Mr. DeLand bought during his first trip to Florida in 1876, when the community was still called Persimmon Hollow, the plot was legally described as the South one half of Lot 16 Block 10 of Rich’s Addition. The address would later change to 137 West Michigan Avenue.

Eighteen months later, Hamlin sold the property (probably with a newly constructed house) to a Mrs. MARTHA EAMES for $2,500. After a series of owners and an evolution from simple Florida farmhouse to Colonial Revival style, philanthropists ROBERT and HAWTENSE CONRAD purchased the property and gave it to the City of DeLand. The West Volusia Historical Society restored the house and, in 1990, opened it to the public as The DeLand House Museum. 

Henry DeLand, a successful western New York manufacturer, never owned a home in DeLand, nor was he a settler or even a regular winter visitor. He was a visionary developer who hoped to make money from virgin land he acquired, marketed and sold for a reasonable price. As he had driven over the area’s rolling pineland in 1876, he had imagined how charming it could be if settled with pleasant homes and orange groves among the pine trees. He saw an Athens of Florida. 

He set aside land for streets, a combination schoolhouse and church and even a college. And he gave his buyers a guarantee: A full refund if their purchase was unsatisfactory. Turn of the century freezes brought much buyer remorse — and Henry DeLand kept his promise even though he lost his own fortune. 

— SOURCES: Volusia County Deed Book X, pp 138-140, and The Story of DeLand and Lake Helen Florida, by Helen Parce DeLand, p 8. The early 1900s photo, from the Dreggors Collection in the WVHS Archives, shows an early version of what would become DeLand House.