The Orlando Sentinel from Orlando, Florida • Page 148

Homesteader and steamboat riders settle Longwood teffyjf Jl JL ff --cftMH, a ii'e SENTINEL RLE Historic home. The Bradlee-Mclntyre House is one of the attractions in Longwood's historic district. The railroad followed the steamers, delivering more settlers and a way to the Gulf. By Jim Robison OF THE SENTINEL STAFF In late December 1871, surveyor J.O. Fries rode a lumber wagon pulled by a horse and a mule between Sanford and Orlando.

He noted a lone house along the entire road and one small store in Maitland. The only inhabitants of what would be Longwood were the Hartley family, which had a homestead on Fairy Lake. Today, the city's historic district includes 24 homes and businesses built during the late 1800s and early 1900s. Tennessean John Neill Searcy arrived by steamer in Sanford on March 23, 1873. The son of a doctor and the grandson of a Nashville federal court clerk, Searcy had served in the Confederacy before coming to Florida at age 31.

He homesteaded the area of Long-wood known today as Skylark. He planted groves and sold cypress cut from the land. He also was a carpenter and worked on a railroad survey crew in the late 1870s. Searcy married in 1885. The two-story home built in 1888 on west Church Street where he raised his family still stands.

Arriving by steamer just a few months after Searcy was Bostonian entrepreneur Edward Warren Henck. Henck and a Russian exile are considered the city's founders. Henck, a Civil War veteran, had been part of the honor guard that accompanied President Lincoln's body on the train trip from Washington to Illinois. A year after he began his homestead south of what today is Myrtle Lake, Henck established a mail route linking Sanford, Longwood, Maitland and Orlando. He also began riding horseback to look for a railroad route he would start between Sanford and the Gulf.

On May 19, 1876, the Longwood Post Office was established with Henck as the first postmaster. He selected the name Longwood after a suburb of Boston, which he as a young engineer had helped lay out. Another Bostonian and war veteran, J5 Frederic H. Rand, arrived in Longwood fe in 1876, buying land in west Longwood and planting citrus. By the 1890s he 2 owned one of the largest groves in the area.

He later owned a home in Sanford. Through Rand's efforts, the Episcopal mission established Christ Church on if west Church Avenue in 1881. Henck donated the land and Rand's parents in Boston raised the tion money. Rand, treasurer for 30 years for the Episcopal diocese, also was a generous supporter of Sanford's Holy Cross Episcopal Church, Rand was general manager for Henry wood's settlers says that Demens came from a prosperous noble family in St. Petersburg, Russia.

dent of the First National Bank of Sanford. The 1884-85 'State Gazetteer and Business Directory' lists Longwood's chief industry as the PA. Demens Co. sash, door and blind factory. Pennsylvania, is believed to have worked for Demens.

Besides building E.W. Henck's second home and the Longwood Hotel that is the centerpiece of the city's downtown historic district, Clouser built several homes for his own family, including a large house on west Warren Avenue, and many other businesses during the 1880s and 1890s. Construction on the resort hotel began in 1883. A newspaper in 1886 reported that Carlos Cushing, a wealthy New England businessman who built a large home on Lake Brantley, bought Henck's largest hotel before it was completed. Henck invested about $15,000 in the three-story hotel before he quit and decided to sell it at a loss.

It was completed in 1886 and opened as The Wal-tham, a name selected from a district of Boston. Cushing was listed as proprietor, but many believe Demens' money paid for the hotel's completion. Cushing's wife had a small chapel built near their home. Known today as the Altamonte Chapel, it was abandoned after the bitter freeze of 1894-95, when many settlers fled to other areas. Later rediscovered, the chapel was moved to its current location on State Road 436 west of Maitland Avenue.

Comparisons of the woodwork detail in the Cushing home and the chapel suggest that Clouser, recognized for his work as a cabinetmaker and stair-builder, might have been involved in the construction of both. Clouser is believed to have performed other work for Demens during the mid-1880s before striking out on his own. Clouser, whose workshop still stands on Wilma Street, later operated a general merchandise store, served as an alderman and completed three terms as mayor. With steamboat and rail access, more settlers came to Longwood. The railroad depot was on Church Avenue.

The original depot was moved in the 1960s to Hilliard for use as a home. Eventually, Henck sold controlling interest in his railroad to the Henry Plant rail system. Still, Henck continued his interest in Longwood politics and real estate sales. He was justice of the peace in 1883 when the town of Longwood was established, and was elected mayor in 1884. About the same time, he built a modest home on east Warren Avenue near the railroad line and began construction of a large resort hotel on east Warren Avenue.

His first Longwood Hotel, a much smaller one, burned in the 1890s but the other survives as professional offices today. Henck owned another home on what today is Freeman Street until his death in 1930, although he moved to New Jersey in the 1890s, where he was a stockbroker and investment adviser. Returning to Longwood in 1915, Henck resumed his real estate promotions. The 1884-85 State Gazetteer and Business Directory lists Longwood's chief industry as the PA Demens Co. sash, door and blind factory.

In those days, it was the major supplier of lumber and building materials for much of the area. The company's owner was Pyotr Alekseyevich Dementyev, whose last name was later shortened to Demens. He was 31 when he came to Florida as an an exile from czarist Russia, in June 1881. Steven Provost's research into Long- In Longwood he bought 30 acres of groves and a 30 percent interest in a sawmill, later buying out his partners. His expansion plans included a contract to build railroad station houses from Lakeland to Dade City.

He also supplied labor and material for buildings at Rollins College. He became owner of a charter for a railroad to run from the community of Lake Monroe to south of Lake Apopka when its owners couldn't pay a debt. He completed the line to the new town of Oakland and later to the Tampa Bay area. The town at the end of the line became St. Petersburg, a name selected by one of his partners to honor Demens.

By 1889, though, Demens sold his railroad to get out of debt and moved to North Carolina. Eventually, he moved to California. Master carpenter Josiah B. Clouser, who brought his wife and two children to Longwood in November 1881 from Sanford's land company, which pro- vided some of the land for Henck's rail- road. Rand was also general freight and passenger agent for the railroad's San-a ford office after Henck and some inves- tors, including another Longwood citrus grower, E.T.

Crafts, organized the South Florida Railroad. Rand was one of Sanford's first mayors and vice presi.