The Florida Secretary of State’s charter ledgers, 1917-1924

Summary

Every company incorporated in Florida was entered in a ledger kept by the Secretary of State, and every two years the state printed the ledger. Each entry gives the charter’s serial number, the company’s name, its principal place of business, its capital stock, the date the charter was filed, the date letters patent were issued, and afterwards any change of name, any increase of capital and any dissolution. The volumes are the state speaking about its own act of chartering a company, and they settle dates that no other surviving source gives.

The whole run is free and searchable, and it had not been used for Avon Park before. It is the place to begin on any Avon Park business of the period whose founding date is in doubt.[sos-1917-1918][sos-1919-1920]

What an entry looks like

The entries are terse and complete. This is the Flint Lumber Company’s, printed among the corporations chartered in the two years ending 31 December 1918:

8778. The Flint Lumber Company. Principal place of business, Avon Park, Fla. Capital stock, $75,000.00. Filed November 9, 1918. Letters Patent issued December 12, 1918. Affidavit of Treasurer that ten per cent of the capital stock has been subscribed and paid. Filed December 28, 1918.[sos-1917-1918]

Two dates matter and they are not the same. The charter was filed on 9 November 1918; the letters patent — the certificate that actually brought the company into existence — were issued five weeks later, on 12 December. A company described loosely as “organised in November 1918” was in law incorporated in December.

The Avon Park mill companies

Four charters together account for the industrial corner of Avon Park described on the Sanborn map of November 1920.

No.	Company	Principal place of business	Capital	Filed	Letters patent
8647	Highlands Crate Company	Bartow	$50,000	25 May 1918	28 June 1918
8778	The Flint Lumber Company	Avon Park	$75,000	9 November 1918	12 December 1918
8958	Mutual Crate Company	Avon Park	$50,000	28 April 1919	2 June 1919
9248	Avon Manufacturing Company	Avon Park	$75,000	17 September 1919	22 November 1919

[sos-1917-1918][sos-1919-1920]

Both crate companies then doubled and trebled their capital within the year, which is the ledger’s way of recording a boom. Mutual Crate filed a return “increasing the capital stock to $100,000.00” on 27 May 1920; Avon Manufacturing increased its own “to $200,000.00” on 1 November 1920.[sos-1919-1920] Highlands Crate amended its charter by a resolution filed 3 July 1920, with letters patent issued 6 August.[sos-1919-1920]

The ledger also carries the company that later bought the Avon Park mills’ standing timber: the Russ Lumber Company, no. 9729, of Arcadia, capital $225,000, filed 27 May 1920, letters patent 30 June 1920.[sos-1919-1920]

The entries do not name incorporators, so the men behind a company have to be found elsewhere. What they do give, exactly, is when it began and how much it was worth on paper.

Other Avon Park companies in the ledgers

The same volumes chartered the Avon Golf and Country Club (no. 10329, Avon Park, $75,000, filed 14 April 1921), the Avon Citrus Company of Florida (no. 10680, Avon Park, $100,000, filed 17 October 1921), the Eagle Bay Cattle Company (no. 10876, Avon Park, $25,000, filed 23 January 1922), the Avon Park Printing Company (no. 9402) and the Highland Orange Groves Company (no. 9693, Avon Park, $100,000, filed 26 April 1920).[sos-1919-1920][sos-1921-1922]

Two charters from the 1919–1920 volume document the wider syndicate of Philadelphia capitalists operating the Flint Lumber Company:

• 9498. Penn-Florida Cattle Company: Principal place of business Avon Park, Fla.; capital stock $300,000.00; filed 16 February 1920; letters patent issued 17 March 1920; affidavit of treasurer filed 23 April 1920. Chartered by George Flint’s syndicate to hold and pasture the cutover timberlands around Avon Park.[sos-1919-1920]
• 9039. Penn-Jarratt Lumber Company: Principal place of business Marianna, Fla.; capital stock $500,000.00; filed 12 June 1919; letters patent issued 17 July 1919; affidavit of treasurer filed 27 August 1919. Directed by Flint Lumber’s vice president and general manager, L. F. DeBordenave, pairing Pennsylvania investment with north Florida logging.[sos-1919-1920]

A note for anyone searching them

The scanned text of these volumes separates words with two spaces. A search for “Mutual Crate” returns nothing; a search for “Mutual Crate” finds the entry. Every one of the companies above was reported missing from these volumes on a first search for exactly this reason.

References

• sos-1917-1918 — Secretary of State of the State of Florida. Report of the Secretary of State of the State of Florida, for the period beginning January 1, 1917, and ending December 31, 1918: list of corporations chartered. 31 December 1918. https://archive.org/details/reportofsecr19171918flor
• sos-1919-1920 — Secretary of State of the State of Florida. Report of the Secretary of State of the State of Florida, for the period beginning January 1, 1919, and ending December 31, 1920: list of corporations chartered. 31 December 1920. https://archive.org/details/reportofsecr19191920flor
• sos-1921-1922 — Secretary of State of the State of Florida. Report of the Secretary of State of the State of Florida, for the period beginning January 1, 1921, and ending December 31, 1922: list of corporations chartered. 31 December 1922. https://archive.org/details/reportofsecr19211922flor

Related

• Corporate Identity and Origins of the Flint Lumber Company and the Penn-Florida Syndicate
• Flint Lumber Company
• The Avon Park crate mills and the Polk County Sub-Exchange
• Sanborn Fire Insurance Map, Avon Park, November 1920

Where this comes from

Evidence

single-source — One source. Treat as reported, not established.

Review

unverified — Drafted from sources but not yet checked by a volunteer.

Rights

public-domain

Sources

1. Secretary of State of the State of Florida, Report of the Secretary of State of the State of Florida, for the period beginning January 1, 1917, and ending December 31, 1918: list of corporations chartered (1918) · official
2. Secretary of State of the State of Florida, Report of the Secretary of State of the State of Florida, for the period beginning January 1, 1919, and ending December 31, 1920: list of corporations chartered (1920) · official
3. Secretary of State of the State of Florida, Report of the Secretary of State of the State of Florida, for the period beginning January 1, 1921, and ending December 31, 1922: list of corporations chartered (1922) · official

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