The Moses J. Taylor, Jr. Residence

 

HISTORIC LAKE COUNTY HOMES

Part 2: The Eustis House Moses Built (1883)

 

116 Diedrich Street, Eustis, Florida

Eustis, as an official town name, was still evolving 137 years ago when the home pictured above was built on 160 acres overlooking little Lake Dot. Surrounded by citrus trees in the 1880s, this circa 1883 historic residence is known as the Moses J. Taylor House, 116 Diedrich Street, Eustis, Florida. Some believe the construction occurred in 1881, but deeds reflect that Annie (Barrington) Taylor purchased the property March 19, 1883. And a letter from Moses J. Taylor, Jr., in which he tells of recently selling land on Crooked Lake, “on which are my house and other buildings”, suggests an 1883 date may be more accurate.

Moses J. Taylor, Jr., said Webb’s 1885 Historical publication, was one of four prominent Eustis residents. Another prominent local was John A. MacDonald, a Civil Engineer and land agent who, together with Taylor, conceived of the idea of marketing this northwest corner of Orange County as the “Great Lake Region”. MacDonald wrote of Taylor as his friend, well-known in Florida, Washington (DC), and at his old home in Southport, Connecticut. “He is a gentleman of ample means”, wrote MacDonald of Taylor, “and is one of the safest men, financially, in our State.”

Moses began acquiring and selling central Florida land in 1873, and by 1882, had already closed on the first of two large citrus groves east of Eustis at Lake Seneca (see also my prior post on the Brock & Fisher Residence of Seneca). “The Seneca Lake selection,” wrote Taylor in 1883, “on which I have set out 100 acres of orange trees for the Lake Eustis Orange Grove of Washington, DC, has proved to be one of the most eligible sites in the county.”

Annie Taylor invested in land as well. In fact, the homeplace featured herein was first recorded in Annie's name alone. Diedrich Street, laid out by John and Susie Diedrich on their homestead in 1887, at first ran north from Washington Avenue to the property of "A. R. Taylor".

Diedrich Property on Lake Dot, South of "A. R. Taylor"

Mrs. Annie R. (Barrington) Taylor owned and developed property north of Orange Avenue (SR 44 today), suggesting the husband and wife's interest in land development was mutual.

"Mrs. Annie R. Taylor's subdivision" between Orange Avenue and Bates Road

Taylor’s ties with our Nation’s Capital is interesting to say the least. An 1883 publication, called Orange Land, reported that Seneca was where “the large grove of 130 acres owned by the L. E. Grove Company of Washington, DC is located”. The article went on to say that the land had been selected by “Cols. J. A. MacDonald and M. J. Taylor, gentlemen long residents in Florida and good judges of land.”

In 1880, while buying and selling Florida land, Moses J. Taylor, Jr. and wife Annie were living in Washington, DC. Moses was employed as a clerk with the “Interior Department”, the department overseeing government lands. Two years later, DC government clerks became landowners and investors in the Lake Eustis Orange Grove Company of Washington, DC. Attorney Charles S. Bundy of Washington, DC, served as the Secretary and Treasurer of the grove company, and he too acquired land in the Citrus Belt. Bundy’s land was south of Seneca, adjacent to where Lake Bundy is today.

Attorney & Judge Charles S. Bundy, namesake of Lake Bundy

Anne Barrington married Moses J. Taylor, Jr. November 25,1874 in Florida’s Panhandle, and then relocated to Mellonville, on Lake Monroe, (Sanford of today) around the same time Henry S. Sanford – also of Connecticut – laid out his town of Sanford, Florida. One of Taylor’s first land sales was to John A. MacDonald. And another Sanford newcomer at the time, Augustus S. Pendry of New York, was hired by Henry Sanford to manage a hotel.

Three of the most important individuals in the founding of Eustis happened to find their way to Sanford by the early 1870s. Pendry desired a hotel of his own, turned to land agent MacDonald for assistance, and just like that, Pendryville on Lake Eustis was born. MacDonald and Moses J. Taylor, Jr. both settled in the Eustis area, and both began envisioning an expansive Great Lake Region in West Orange County. Out of Pendryville grew a city of Lake Eustis, then Eustis.

Thank you Allison, happy to hear you enjoyed my book.

Moses J. Taylor, Jr. owned a piece as well of a nearby start-up town that had captured the eye of everyone who was anyone in 1880s Orange County. A darling of a new settlement, its founders, Attorneys Alexander St. Clair-Abrams and Robert L. Summerlin, envisioned a land- based ‘railroad hub’, where all central Florida trains would meet, offering land-based railway service to all parts of the Nation for both passengers and freight.

So, if hundred-year old residence walls could speak, imagine the spellbinding stories we could hear of central Florida’s fascinating history – tales of yesteryear from inside such historic places as the home of Moses and Annie Taylor. Inanimate walls though remain silent throughout the passing of decades, and so we instead look to deeds, and other historical sources, to learn of the extraordinary men and women who, in the latter half of the 19^th century, migrated to Florida’s Citrus-Belt, where they built some of Lake County’s earliest homeplaces – some of which are still standing today.

Learning of just such amazing pioneers became the mission of this blog series – an undertaking that will tell of the bravest of brave pioneers – men and women – settlers who played a role in helping tame a wilderness, and in doing so, left behind their memorial in the form of a historic homeplace.

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