Pre-Crosby Land Entries and Patent Claims in Township 33 South, Range 28 East

In his 1888 prospectus Common Sense About Florida: Lake Forest and Avon Park, founder Oliver Marvin Crosby accounted for the land tenure of Township 33 South, Range 28 East:

“The township is six miles square, or thirty-six square miles, containing over 23,000 acres… A few hundred acres in the township in question were entered by private parties previous to our purchase. All the rest is owned or controlled by ourselves, which, deducting the clear-water lakes, leaves about 20,000 acres.”[crosby-1888-pamphlet]

An examination of the federal General Land Office (GLO) tract books and patent registers confirms the composition of these pre-existing and concurrent private entries[glo-tract-book].

Federal Homestead and Cash Entries

Federal tract books for Township 33 South, Range 28 East reveal that private entries were concentrated on agricultural and pine lands outside the central townsite, predominantly north of Lake Verona in Section 10[glo-tract-book]:

1. James H. Thompson: Entered land under the federal homestead laws, receiving Patent No. 5621 on 29 June 1891[glo-tract-book].
2. Charles J. Williams: Perfected an entry in Section 10, receiving federal patent on 13 October 1893[glo-tract-book].
3. Albert E. Bennett: Proved up a homestead entry in Section 10, receiving federal patent on 15 August 1895[glo-tract-book].
4. Outlying Entries: Subsequent entries in Section 10 were patented to Katie Wilson (1910) and Edwin D. Putney (1910)[glo-tract-book].

These homestead and cash claims accounted for the “few hundred acres” of private entries that had been filed before or during Crosby’s acquisition of the township[crosby-1888-pamphlet][glo-tract-book].

Statutory Reservations: School Lands (Section 16)

Under federal public land laws, Section 16 (640 acres) in every surveyed thirty-six-section township was granted to the State of Florida as School Lands for the support of public education[crosby-1888-pamphlet]. Crosby acknowledged this reservation directly in 1888, stating that Section 16 was “reserved for school purposes, and is not for sale or controlled by us”[crosby-1888-pamphlet].

State Swamp Lands and the Disston Chain of Title

The remaining core of the township—including Section 22 where the central townsite of Avon Park was platted—was selected under the Swamp and Overflowed Lands Act of 1850 and approved to the State of Florida on 8 November 1879[glo-tract-book].

Title passed from the state’s Internal Improvement Fund to Philadelphia industrialist Hamilton Disston through his landmark 1881 four-million-acre purchase[davis-disston]. Crosby and his associates contracted directly with Disston’s land agency for approximately 20,000 acres across Township 33 South, Range 28 East, uniting the state swamp land selections into the Florida Development Company’s holdings while leaving Section 16 and the Section 10 homestead entries in their separate legal status[crosby-1888-pamphlet][davis-disston].

References

• crosby-1888-pamphlet — Oliver Marvin Crosby. Common Sense About Florida: Lake Forest and Avon Park. 1888. common-sense-about-florida_o-m-crosby_1888.md
• glo-tract-book — Bureau of Land Management. General Land Office Tract Book and Survey Plat for Township 33 South, Range 28 East, Tallahassee Meridian. 31 August 2026. https://glorecords.blm.gov/s/
• davis-disston — T. Frederick Davis. The Disston Land Purchase, Florida Historical Quarterly (1939). 1939. https://stars.library.ucf.edu/fhq/

Related

• Entity: Oliver Marvin Crosby
• Finding: Section 22 Left Federal Ownership as Swamp Land in 1879
• Finding: The Avon Park Townsite Passed Through No Federal Land Patent
• Finding: Avon Park in 1888, by the Numbers
• Report: The Original Town Plat, the Land Title, and the Shape of Avon Park
• Report: The Founding of Avon Park

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. Oliver Marvin Crosby, Common Sense About Florida: Lake Forest and Avon Park (references/common-sense-about-florida_o-m-crosby_1888.md) (1888)
2. Bureau of Land Management, General Land Office Tract Book and Survey Plat for Township 33 South, Range 28 East, Tallahassee Meridian (2026)
3. T. Frederick Davis, The Disston Land Purchase, Florida Historical Quarterly (1939) (1939) · secondary

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