The Historical Society of Avon ParkAVON PARK, FL · EST. 1886
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The Pioneer Historiography of Avon Park: Crosby, Lee, Fenton, and Maxwell

The written history of Avon Park rests on a distinct four-stage historiographical lineage: founder Oliver M. Crosby’s retrospective narrative (1919), pioneer settler Samuel D. Lee’s serial (1919), Horace J. Fenton’s mid-century book (1956/1958), and Leoma Bradshaw Maxwell’s centenary synthesis (1976/1986).[maxwell-1976][nrhp-avon-park-district]

While twentieth-century bibliographies—most notably the 1990 National Register of Historic Places nomination for the Avon Park Historic District—cited Crosby and Lee to elusive or misdated issues of The Highlands Pilot, both foundational texts were physically preserved by community archivists and form the documentary bedrock of modern local history.[maxwell-1976][nrhp-avon-park-district]

1. The 1919 Highlands Pilot Serials: Crosby and Lee

In 1919, George W. Adams moved his printing plant from the Manatee Banner to Avon Park, establishing the weekly Highlands County Pilot in late November 1919.[loc-pilot] During the newspaper’s inaugural year, Adams solicited and serialized two comprehensive first-person historical accounts:

  1. “Avon Park’s History: 1885 to 1896” by Oliver Marvin Crosby: Written from Ben Avon (Pittsburgh), Pennsylvania, where Crosby was residing with his daughter Sarah Crosby Findlay.[maxwell-1976] Crosby documented the founding from his first exploration in May 1885 to his departure following the collapse of the Florida Development Company in 1896.[maxwell-1976]
  2. “Avon Park’s Pioneer Days” by Samuel D. Lee: Written from the perspective of an early settler who lived through the town’s initial boom and subsequent freezes.[maxwell-1976]

Preservation in the Society Archives

Original copies of the Highlands Pilot from 1919–1920 are uncataloged on microfilm and unheld by national library repositories.[loc-pilot] However, complete Xerox copies of both serials were made directly from surviving local newspaper files by Dr. Dan Davis, Highlands County School Superintendent, and Mary Garrett, vice president of the Avon Citrus Bank.[maxwell-1976] These copies were placed into the permanent archival collections of the Historical Society of the Old Settlers Association (now the Avon Park Historical Society Depot Museum).[maxwell-1976]

The 1990 National Register nomination’s bibliographic entry citing both works to “August 1919” represents a minor dating error by the nomination’s preparers; the paper was launched in late November 1919, and the serials ran in installments over the succeeding months into 1920.[maxwell-1976][nrhp-avon-park-district]

The Crosby-Lee Historical Dialogue

Crosby and Lee engaged in an active, published dialogue across their installments, settling key details of Avon Park’s founding geography, nomenclature, and finance:

  • Naming of the Lakes: Samuel D. Lee asserted that Crosby named the lakes surrounding the settlement. Crosby explicitly refuted this in his installments, explaining that surveyor Obadiah A. Clough penciled the names onto their prospective survey map as they explored the region:

    “I did not name the lakes as Mr. Lee states in his history, but Mr. Clough wrote the names, as they occurred to him, on the new map we were later to publish.”[maxwell-1976]

  • The Initial Exploration (May 1885): Crosby recounted leaving Kissimmee on 25 May 1885, traveling through Bartow and Fort Meade with a Disston guide, camping in a deserted cabin, and riding horses past Red Hill on 26 May 1885 into Township 33 South, Range 28 East. Crosby recognized Tiger Lake (renamed Lake Tulane) and Carter Lake (renamed Lake Lotela) using Captain C. F. Adams’s survey map. Crosby explained that he did not see Lake Verona on this first journey because it did not intersect any section or quarter-section lines on the government survey.[maxwell-1976]
  • The Disston Contract: Crosby clarified that on 14 January 1886, he executed a contract in Clough’s name at the Philadelphia office of the Disston Company for 20,000 acres at $50,000, retaining a one-fourth profit interest.[maxwell-1976] Lee identified the four specific tracts reserved by Disston’s agent: 160 acres in section 6, ~160 acres south of Lake Damon, ~80 acres at the east end of Lake Pythias, and school section 16.[maxwell-1976]
  • Financial Capital and Clough’s Debt: In response to Lee’s assertion that Crosby was “always short of capital” and suffered failure through “careless methods,” Crosby detailed that Clough failed financially in 1887 owing Crosby $4,600 in back salary and commissions.[maxwell-1976] When Disston canceled Clough’s contract in June 1887 and renewed with Crosby alone, Crosby assumed Clough’s debts and subsequently expended more than $25,000 in advertising and development.[maxwell-1976]
  • The Great Freezes and the Tax Deed Crisis: Crosby provided an eyewitness chronicle of the December 1894 freeze (mercury falling 17 degrees below freezing, Lake Verona steaming like a kettle) and the 14 February 1895 freeze (citrus bark splitting top to bottom, 600 acres of groves and 500,000 pineapple plants destroyed).[maxwell-1976] Crosby documented borrowing against his life insurance in 1895 to buy 2,000 acres of delinquent tax lands signed by Governor Henry L. Mitchell, only to have the state invalidate the title without refunding his payment.[maxwell-1976] Highlands Pilot editor George W. Adams concluded Crosby’s series with an editorial urging the Florida Legislature to right this injustice.[maxwell-1976]

2. Horace J. Fenton’s Mid-Century History (1956/1958)

In 1956, the Florida Power Corporation sponsored a Community Development project in Avon Park. As part of this initiative, the corporation commissioned Horace J. Fenton, a newcomer to the community, to prepare a town history.[maxwell-1976]

  • Publication: Published in 1958 as History of Avon Park, Florida: 1886–1956 by Vantage Press in New York.[fenton-1958] (Fenton also authored the 1958 tenth-anniversary institutional history The Story of Walker Memorial Sanitarium and Hospital).[fenton-1958]
  • Sources and Methodology: Fenton relied upon Samuel D. Lee’s 1919 Highlands Pilot installments, surviving files of Crosby’s 1886–1893 promotional periodical The Florida Homeseeker, and oral interviews with surviving elderly pioneers.[maxwell-1976]
  • Pioneer Critique: Longtime residents and members of the Old Settlers Association took sharp exception to Fenton’s interpretation. Fenton adopted Lee’s skeptical perspective on Crosby’s finances, characterizing the founder as a “pious rascal” and blaming Crosby’s business acumen rather than the back-to-back freezes of 1894–1895 and national depression for the collapse of the Florida Development Company.[maxwell-1976]

3. Leoma Bradshaw Maxwell’s Centenary History (1976/1986)

To provide an authoritative, evidence-based rebuttal to Fenton and establish a comprehensive factual record, the Historical Society of the Old Settlers Association appointed a dedicated Bicentennial Historical Committee in the early 1970s, consisting of Mildred Waddell, Grace Boney, Eunice Haynie, Katie Davis, and Leoma Bradshaw Maxwell.[maxwell-1976]

  • The Author: Leoma Bradshaw Maxwell, who moved to Avon Park in 1931 as the bride of T. Hayes Maxwell (whose family had hauled the clay for the Lake Anoka road improvements in 1927), spent years gathering primary documents, court records, family scrapbooks, and oral histories.[maxwell-1976]
  • Primary Archival Base: Maxwell based The First Hundred Years of Avon Park, Florida (published in 1976 and reissued in 1986 for the town’s centennial) on:
    1. The Davis-Garrett Xeroxes of Crosby’s and Lee’s 1919 Highlands Pilot installments.[maxwell-1976]
    2. Crosby’s original published books located at the State Archives in Tallahassee: Common Sense About Florida (1888) and Florida Facts, Both Bright and Blue (1887).[maxwell-1976][crosby-common-sense-1888]
    3. The manuscript memoirs and writings of first permanent settler William A. King and pioneer Byrum Shockley.[maxwell-1976]
    4. The museum collections and photographic scrapbooks preserved by pioneer historian Cora M. Wray, Lillian Hood, and Peggy Mandis Caraberis (granddaughter of early settler Margaret Woodruff Mandis and custodian of Mary Ann King’s scrapbooks).[maxwell-1976]
    5. Personal acquaintance with surviving first-generation settlers, including Mary Ann Chinn King (who lived in Avon Park until 1938).[maxwell-1976]
  • Sponsorship: The volume was financed and published with the active support of Ed Carter, editor and publisher of the Avon Park Sun, and the Rev. H. D. Graetz, president of the Old Settlers Historical Society.[maxwell-1976]
  • Historiographical Verdict: Maxwell concluded that Crosby was neither careless nor fraudulent, but an energetic visionary who invested his personal fortune into Avon Park, whose plans were thwarted by the global panic of 1893 and the catastrophic 1894–1895 freezes. On 4 July 1976, Maxwell and the Bicentennial Committee erected a permanent granite monument over Crosby’s grave in Bougainvillea Cemetery designating him “Founder of Avon Park.”[maxwell-1976]

4. Complementary Pioneer Compilations

Two additional mid-century compilations complete the pioneer historiography:

  • Barbara Berry Darsey’s Avon Park Guide (1936–1938): A 220-page typescript compiled under the Works Progress Administration Federal Writers’ Project, held by the University of Florida.[darsey-1937] Darsey copied early municipal minute books, transcribed Highlands County deed transcriptions, and preserved extended excerpts from an 1895 issue of The Florida Home Seeker borrowed from Mary Ann King.[darsey-1937]
  • The 1964 Diamond Jubilee Booklet: Issued by community organizations in 1964 to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the town’s initial founding era (reckoned from the 1889 opening of the Verona Hotel).[nrhp-avon-park-district]

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 (the-first-hundred-years-of-avon-park_leoma-bradshaw-maxwell_1976.md) (1976)
  2. Florida Bureau of Historic Preservation / National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, Avon Park Historic District (ref. 90000486) (1990)
  3. Horace J. Fenton, History of Avon Park, Florida: 1886–1956 (Avon Park Historical Society Depot Museum Archives) (1958)
  4. Oliver Marvin Crosby, Common Sense About Florida and Information Regarding Lake Forest and Avon Park (common-sense-about-florida_o-m-crosby_1888.md) (1888)
  5. Barbara Berry Darsey, Avon Park Guide (Federal Writers' Project Typescript) (avon-park-guide-federal-writers-project-1937.md) (1938)
  6. Library of Congress, U.S. Newspaper Directory, Highlands County Pilot (Avon Park, Fla.), LCCN sn95026910 (2026)

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