The Historical Society of Avon ParkAVON PARK, FL · EST. 1886
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The Lake Verona Sailing Casualty of 1889–1890 and the Archival Search for His Identity

During the inaugural winter season of the Hotel Verona in 1889–1890, a recreational sailboat capsized on Lake Verona, drowning a young man before assistance could reach him.[maxwell-1976] His death was the sole accidental fatality among thirteen casualties recorded in pioneer Avon Park that winter—the other twelve being consumptive health-seekers in the terminal stages of pulmonary tuberculosis.[maxwell-1976] Because the fledgling frontier town had neither an undertaker nor an ordained clergyman, pioneer carpenter-settlers built a heart-pine coffin draped in black cloth, and town founder Oliver Marvin Crosby officiated at the committal service in the newly cleared town cemetery (now Bougainvillea Cemetery).[maxwell-1976] Today, the victim rests in an unmarked grave, and his name remains unrecorded in surviving historical records.[maxwell-1976]

Lake Verona and Pioneer Water Recreation

Lake Verona was the geographical and social focal point around which Oliver Marvin Crosby platted the commercial heart of Avon Park in the late 1880s.[crosby-1888-pamphlet] A solution sinkhole basin typical of the Lake Wales Ridge, the forty-one-acre lake features steeply shelving underwater drop-offs that plunge to depths of eighty feet.

In promotional pamphlets published in New York to attract northern homesteaders and winter visitors, Crosby promoted sailing, rowing, and fishing on Lake Verona as key outdoor recreations.[crosby-1887-book][crosby-1888-pamphlet] When the thirty-two-room Hotel Verona opened on the south lakefront in October 1889, Crosby filled the house to capacity with tourists, land-buyers, and health-seekers, providing small rowboats and sailing skiffs for lake excursions.[maxwell-1976] The small sailboat carrying the young man capsized during the fall or winter of that season in the deep central portion of the sinkhole lake, causing his death.[maxwell-1976]

Mortuary Customs and Unmarked Burial

At the time of the drowning in 1889, Avon Park had no resident mortician, embalmer, or commercial casket stock.[maxwell-1976] When a death occurred:

  1. Carpenter Construction: Local carpenters, headed by Connecticut builder J. H. Nettleton, constructed coffins out of rough native heart-pine lumber as needed.[maxwell-1976]
  2. Community Draping: Settlement women trimmed the pine boxes and lined them in black cloth, the expense of which was generally borne by Crosby himself.[maxwell-1976]
  3. Lay Committal: With no resident minister available—the Union Evangelical Church was not founded until 1892, and the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer was not constructed until 1894—Crosby officiated personally at the graveside, reading the burial office from the Book of Common Prayer.[maxwell-1976]
  4. Interment in Bougainvillea Cemetery: The young casualty was buried in the community burial ground Crosby had donated and platted on the east side of town in 1888.[maxwell-1976]

Surviving cemetery surveys confirm that no permanent marble or granite headstones from 1889, 1890, or 1891 survive in Bougainvillea Cemetery.[maxwell-1976] Like the twelve consumptive patients who died during the same winter, the sailing victim’s grave was likely marked with a simple pine headboard or wooden marker that succumbed to subtropical weathering, insects, and bushfires within a few seasons.

Archival Search of Regional Florida Newspapers

To investigate whether contemporary regional newspapers reported the incident and identified the young man, searches were conducted across surviving Florida press files for 1889–1891:

  • The Florida Agriculturist (DeLand, Volusia County): Extant in full digitized runs at the Library of Congress and the University of Florida Digital Collections for 1889 and 1890.[loc-chronicling-america][fdnl-holdings] While the paper regularly carried news items concerning Crosby’s land excursions—such as a 24 December 1890 dispatch noting that Crosby had brought sixty settlers down from New York and had semi-monthly excursions planned—it carried no dispatch reporting the Lake Verona sailboat capsize or naming the victim.[fla-agric-1890-12-24]
  • The Bartow Courier-Informant (Bartow, Polk County): As the nearest established town and railroad junction twenty miles northwest of Avon Park, Bartow published the primary regional newspaper covering eastern Polk and DeSoto counties. However, archival survey of the Florida Digital Newspaper Library demonstrates that digitized holdings of The Courier-Informant do not begin until 3 May 1893 (Volume 1, Issue 1).[fdnl-holdings] Issues from 1889 through 1892 are non-extant in digitized collections, leaving contemporary local correspondence unpreserved in digital repositories.
  • The De Soto County News and The Arcadian (Arcadia, DeSoto County): Avon Park fell under the civil jurisdiction of DeSoto County (established from Manatee County in May 1887) with Arcadia as the county seat. Digitized issues of The De Soto County News in the Florida Digital Newspaper Library and Chronicling America begin only in 1898 (with continuous runs starting in June 1903).[fdnl-holdings] No digitized issues of The Arcadian from 1889–1890 exist in public digital archives.
  • Other Regional Florida Newspapers: Statewide queries across The Weekly Floridian (Tallahassee), The Ocala Banner, The Fort Myers Press, and contemporary wire reports preserved in the Library of Congress yielded no dispatches referencing the 1889–1890 Lake Verona accident.[loc-chronicling-america]

Later drownings in Lake Verona were covered extensively when regional press coverage matured. For example, on 30 November 1916, The De Soto County News published front-page coverage of a Lake Verona drowning involving homesteader A. J. Smith, including the complete coroner’s inquest proceedings conducted by Avon Park Justice of the Peace A. W. Sargent.[dsc-1916-11-30] The contrast illustrates that while early 20th-century drownings generated detailed press and inquest records, late-1880s pioneer incidents predated continuous local newspaper preservation.

Structural Reasons for Archival Anonymity

The young victim remains unnamed in the historical record as the result of five converging archival factors:

  1. Retrospective Aggregate Reporting: Oliver Marvin Crosby’s primary historical narrative, “Avon Park’s History: 1885–1896” (serialized in The Highlands County Pilot in 1919 and transcribed in Leoma Bradshaw Maxwell’s 1976 history), recorded the mortuary details and total mortality figures (thirteen deaths, twelve from consumption, one from the sailboat accident) without compiling a roster of names.[maxwell-1976]
  2. Destruction of the 1890 Federal Census: Almost all population schedules of the 1890 Federal Population Census were destroyed in the 1921 Department of Commerce fire in Washington, D.C. Furthermore, no 1890 federal mortality schedules survived for Florida, eliminating federal vital enumerations for the settlement that year.
  3. Loss of Pioneer Church Registers: Early ecclesiastical registers that might have recorded graveside committals do not survive. The Union Congregational Church was not incorporated until 1892, and the earliest parish register and altar furnishings of the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer were destroyed on 4 December 1895 when Avon Park’s first wooden schoolhouse burned.[maxwell-1976]
  4. Pre-1893 Regional Newspaper Gap: The destruction or non-digitization of 1889–1890 issues of The Bartow Courier-Informant and early Arcadia newspapers removed the local news columns most likely to have published an account of a boating casualty.
  5. Transient Status of Winter Guests: The winter guests at the Hotel Verona were predominantly seasonal tourists from New England and the Mid-Atlantic. In the event of a death where remains were not repatriated, family records remained in northern home states rather than in Florida county archives.

Consequently, while the occurrence of the drowning and Crosby’s graveside committal are corroborated by pioneer testimonies, the specific personal identity of the young sailing casualty remains one of pioneer Avon Park’s unrecovered names.[maxwell-1976]

References

Where this comes from

Evidence
corroborated — More than one independent source agrees.
Review
unverified — Drafted from sources but not yet checked by a volunteer.
Rights
society

Sources

  1. Leoma Bradshaw Maxwell, The First Hundred Years of Avon Park, Florida (references/the-first-hundred-years-of-avon-park_leoma-bradshaw-maxwell_1976.md) (1976) · book
  2. Oliver Marvin Crosby, Common Sense About Florida: Lake Forest and Avon Park (references/common-sense-about-florida_o-m-crosby_1888.md) (1888) · book
  3. Oliver Marvin Crosby, Florida Facts, Both Bright and Blue: A Guide to Intending Settlers, Tourists, and Investors (references/florida-facts-both-bright-and-blue_oliver-marvin-crosby_1887.md) (1887) · book
  4. E. O. Painter & Co., The Florida Agriculturist (DeLand, Fla.), 24 December 1890, page 15 (1890) · newspaper
  5. A. W. Sargent, Justice of the Peace / The De Soto County News, The De Soto County News (Arcadia, Fla.), 30 November 1916, page 1: 'A. J. Smith Suicides by Drowning Himself In Lake Verona Near Avon Park' (1916) · newspaper
  6. George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida, Florida Digital Newspaper Library Catalog and Title Holdings (2026) · archival
  7. Library of Congress / National Endowment for the Humanities, Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers (2026) · archival

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