“In January, 1876, I came to Florida. The boat on which I traveled up the river would not go into Lake Beresford, so I was obliged to land at Cabbage Bluff, where my husband met me. We had to walk through the woods, my husband carrying our two year old son and I, a suitcase, a distance of a mile to the lake. By signalling across, we attracted he attention of a young man (John Cannon) who came over in a row boat and took us to Beresford Landing and Capt. Alexander drove us through the absolutely trackless forest out to our log house, where I soon began to experience the inconveniences of pioneering." About the same time, other little houses were being put up along the ridge by the homesteaders: Maj. J. G. Owen, Capt. J. B. Jordan, J. B. Wood, H. ·B. Austin, C. A. Miller, M. N. Voorhis, J. W. Cannon, J. F. Allen, H. H. Gillen, E. R. Dean, G. W. Lancaster, J. S. Craig. When the families arrived, they had to go to their new homes in carts without springs or cover. Mrs. Allen was obliged to stay all night at Beresford, because the oxen that were to take her and Mabel on, had been turned out before the boat landed. Mrs. Voorhis and her six months old baby jogged slowly along in the heat from Cabbage Bluff to their cabin in "Westwood". Mrs. Lancaster and her daughter rode from the river to Lake Gertie in the early morning, half laughing and half weeping, until the dim loveliness of the dawn dried their tears. In March, 1876, my father decided that he would take a real vacation. He had been selling saleratus some twenty years and before that hoeing corn and taking care of chickens and turkeys on the farm, so it was time to rest. Down the Atlantic coast, we journeyed in trains that jolted along. The engines had funnel shaped smoke stacks, and they burned wood. One reason they stopped so often was their constant need of fuel and water. The passengers would line up by the train and walk about in the sun. Sometimes, little darkies stood on their heads for pennies, or brought us bunches of the sweetest yellow jasmine. We stayed over in some of the cities. At Washington, the beautiful shaft of the Washington monument was only half way up. I think it stuck there for a while. The Congressional Library, the Pan-American Building and the Lincoln Memorial were in the future. In Richmond, we went to St. John's Church "high placed in its green close,” with its echoes of Patrick Henry's words, "Give me liberty, or give me death". Then we hurried across the red clay of Virginia and the yellowish soil of the Carolinas to historic Charleston. We gazed at the beautiful steeple of St. Michael's Church and sailed out to Fort Sumter. At Savannah, there were docks stacked high with cotton bales to see and Bonaventure Cemetery with its great moss covered oaks. (I thought last year those in DeLand were almost as big.) In Jacksonville we were at the St. James Hotel, considered one of the best in the South. It was a large wooden structure, with wide verandahs facing an attractive park (rates $4 and $5 a day, American plan). The pavements of the Florida metropolis consisted of deep, soft sand. Before one of the banks my cousin saw standing an illassorted team, a horse and an ox hitched together. No one appeared to think it strange. But the curios at Greenleaf's were my delight: feathery Pampas grass, canes of orange wood witjh carved handles, seabean charms, red and brown pins and rings decorated with alligator's teeth and most exciting, live alligators, one and one half feet long to be carried north in little wooden boxes. We were to see many of a larger size on our way up the St. Johns, for it was necessary to go on by water. The only railroads south of Jacksonville were the Transit Railroad from Fernandina to Waldo, from there to Ocala and to Cedar Keys; and two short lines, one from Sanford to Orlando, and one from Astor to Fort Mason on Lake Eustis. The steamers of the DeBary Line left Jacksonville daily at 1:30 P. M. reaching Sanford at noon the next day. The boats must have been small for Mr. A. G. Hamlin on his way to DeLand (1883) in a party of twenty-nine had to share with another man a berth made of a mattress placed on the dining room table. There was a great scurrying about as the time of leaving drew near, passengers arriving in carriages, the drivers cracking their snake like whips, trucks pushed by baggage men who smiling, showed their white teeth, as they hurried by. Up the gang plank: it was drawn in and the ropes were cast off. At Mandarin, fifteen miles south of Jacksonville, I picked my first orange in the grove of Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe. Did she give it to me? I have only a blurred memory of the people, but the oranges! “apples of gold in pictures of emerald.” We reached Palatka in the evening. I am sure the moon was shining above the tufted tops of the palmettos. It was the second city in size on the river. Barbour's "Florida" tells of its offices and stores, of its wharves, depots and storehouses. The next day the width of the river had changed from a mile or more, to a few hundred feet, and it twisted about so that the passengers expected the boat to ground turning the curves. The water churned by the wheels flowed in shallow, brown waves edged with white among the logs and cypress "knees.” Noon brought us to Enterprise (Benson Springs) and the Brock House (Benson Springs Inn), a rendezvous of northern politicians. Near it used to be a garden, where calla lilies grew along the banks of.a little stream. Once I had a rose from there of a wonderful orange hue.

FROM ENTERPRISE TO THE RICH "CABIN"

From Enterprise father went with my uncle, Mr. Terry, to see his homestead situated a mile northeast of DeLand. Their horse dragging his way through the sand must have gone just a little faster than the gophers they may have seen crawling lazily from their holes by the side of the road, for they reached the Rich's before noon and they had come fourteen miles. Driving was my father's favorite pastime, but crawling along at such a slow pace was not to his taste, nor did the scrub oaks and palmettos of the flatwoods interest him. I quote his own words, “The sand was so deep, the country so desolate that I begged Mr. Terry to turn around and go back, time and again.” He kept saying, 'Better country beyond'. When we reached the new Wisconsin settlement called Orange City, I said, “This looks like the West; I am willing to go on.” We saw only one house after that, until we came to Alexander's Landing (Beresford). I enjoyed my drive over the rolling pine land. I was reminded of my own beloved Western New York. As we passed an orange grove, I saw that orange trees would grow on the high land. How charming this country would be, I thought, if settled with pleasant homes and orange groves dotted here and there among the pine trees. It would have all the attractions of the famous resort at Aiken, South Carolina, during the winter, and away from standing water it would be healthful all the year round. This was long before the scientists began their successful war against the mosquitos, carriers of malaria and yellow fever. We were entertained at Capt. Rich's cabin most hospitably. I slept on the floor where I could look out at the stars and put my hand between the logs. Entertaining in a little new, log cabin in the woods miles from anywhere must have been difficult, but these settlers always found a way to be hospitable. The Rich's had only one bed, but they fixed a mattress of pine straw. for themselves and gave their guests their own mattress. They probably had chicken for dinner, as Mrs. Rich kept a flock. The afternoon was spent walking over the Hampson homestead next Captain Rich's on the east and before they left in the morning my father had bargained to buy it. In this cabin, the first house in DeLand, the following year Clara Belle Rich was born. Of her it has been said: "The sterling qualities of the father and the beauty and lovable disposition of the mother have all been concentrated in the daughter, and DeLand has every reason to be proud of her first born.”

Excerpt from the book, The Story Of DeLand And Lake Helen, Florida. 

Written by, Helen Parce DeLand