The Historical Society of Avon ParkAVON PARK, FL · EST. 1886
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Erving Leander Richardson

Erving Leander Richardson (April 1849 – 25 July 1911), universally known in Avon Park and DeSoto County records as Prof. E. L. Richardson, was a Connecticut-born educator and Dartmouth College alumnus (Class of 1873) who settled at Avon Park in 1897, served as principal of the rebuilt South Forest Avenue public schoolhouse, held office as one of the settlement’s mayors during its 1897–1899 municipal incorporation, and presided over the Avon Park Horticultural Society.[dartmouth-alumni-1912-03][willimantic-1898-05-06][maxwell-1976]

Connecticut Origins, Dartmouth College, and Northern Principalships

Richardson was born at Columbia, Tolland County, Connecticut, in April 1849 (recorded as 21 April 1849 in his class secretary’s obituary in the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine and 27 April 1849 in the Dartmouth College Necrology), the son of Leander Richardson and Mary Ann (Fuller) Richardson.[dartmouth-alumni-1912-03][dartmouth-necrology-1911] He prepared for college at Willimantic High School in neighboring Windham County and at Williston Seminary in Easthampton, Massachusetts.[dartmouth-alumni-1912-03]

Entering Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in the Class of 1873 (later receiving the Master of Arts degree) and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and the Psi Upsilon fraternity.[dartmouth-alumni-1912-03][dartmouth-necrology-1911] On 27 November 1873, he married Sara F. Tucker of Columbia, Connecticut.[dartmouth-alumni-1912-03]

Over the next two decades, Richardson served as principal of a succession of northern academies and public schools:[dartmouth-alumni-1912-03][willimantic-chronicle-1884]

  • 1873–1874: Principal of the English and Classical Boarding School at Norwich, Vermont.
  • 1874–1879: Principal of the graded school at Addison, Steuben County, New York.
  • 1880–1882: Principal of the McElwain Institute at New Lebanon, Mercer County, Pennsylvania.
  • 1882–c. 1890: Principal of the public schools at Windsor and Windsor Locks, New Hartford, and Lebanon, Connecticut.

After retiring from his Connecticut school principalships, he farmed for several years at Liberty Hill, a village in the town of Lebanon bordering Columbia and Windham County, and served as president of the Windham County Christian Endeavor Union.[dartmouth-alumni-1912-03][willimantic-1898-05-06]

Principal of the Avon Park Public School (1897–1911)

Following the 4 December 1895 fire that destroyed Avon Park’s two-story wooden schoolhouse at South Forest Avenue and West Walnut Street, DeSoto County School Sub-District No. 3 rebuilt on the same site. According to Leoma Bradshaw Maxwell’s The First Hundred Years of Avon Park, Florida (1976), classes opened in the replacement two-story frame building on 4 October 1897 with an enrollment of fifty-eight pupils under “Prof. E. L. Richardson, a graduate of Dartmouth College,” who served as principal teacher for the next nine years.[maxwell-1976]

Contemporary Connecticut and Florida records corroborate his arrival by 1897–1898 and his continuing teacher certification through 1911:

  • On 6 May 1898, The Willimantic Journal reported that at a Christian Endeavor convention at Liberty Hill, Connecticut, the secretary read a letter of greeting “from Mr. E. L. Richardson, of Avon Park, Florida, ex-president of the union and a former resident of Liberty Hill.”[willimantic-1898-05-06]
  • The biennial reports of the Florida Superintendent of Public Instruction list E. L. Richardson on the official statewide teacher-certificate roll with an Avon Park post-office address across the 1904–1906, 1908–1910, and 1910–1912 biennia.[dpi-1904-1906][dpi-1910-1912]
  • In The De Soto County News, he appears in the May 1906 Avon Park columns as “Prof. E. L. Richardson”, head of the town school during the term in which the DeSoto County Board of Public Instruction granted Avon Park its matching-fund sixty-volume school library.[dsc-1906-05-11][dpi-1904-1906]

Municipal, Civic, and Religious Leadership

Alongside his classroom work, Richardson took an active role in the governance and civic institutions of post-freeze Avon Park:

  • Mayor during the First Incorporation (1897–1898): After Avon Park incorporated as a town in January 1897 and elected Clark D. Knapp as its first mayor, the 1898 promotional publication The Avon Park Idea recorded that both Knapp and E. L. Richardson served terms as mayor during 1897 and 1898 prior to the May 1899 vote dissolving the municipal corporation.[maxwell-1976]
  • Special Tax School District Petition (1906): In February 1906, Richardson was one of the thirty-one patrons and citizens of Special Tax School District No. 3 who signed the public petition asking the DeSoto County Board of Public Instruction to call an election extending the Avon Park school tax district east to the Kissimmee River.[dsc-1906-02-02]
  • President of the Avon Park Horticultural Society (1906): On 12 May 1906, Richardson presided as president of the Avon Park Horticultural Society at Sargent’s Hall when the town’s growers debated competing proposals from W. H. Salmon of Elkton and Major Harlan Page Davidson to operate steam-powered motor vehicles for freight and passengers across the sandy flatwoods to the Wauchula railhead.[dsc-1906-05-18]
  • Union Congregational Church and Community Ceremonies: A lifelong Congregationalist, Richardson was an active lay leader and benefactor of Avon Park’s Union Congregational Church.[home-missionary-1907][dartmouth-alumni-1912-03] On 30 April 1906, when Dr. and Mrs. J. H. McCartney hosted the entire town at the Hotel Verona for the twenty-fifth wedding anniversary of William and Mary King, Richardson presented the townspeople’s gift of twenty-five silver dollars, remarking that “a dollar a year” was “about right for their services to the community.”[maxwell-1976]

Death

Erving Leander Richardson died at Avon Park on 25 July 1911 “of a fever and complications” at the age of sixty-two.[dartmouth-alumni-1912-03][dartmouth-necrology-1911] He was survived by his widow, Sara F. (Tucker) Richardson, with whom he had no children.[dartmouth-alumni-1912-03]

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. Rev. S. Winchester Adriance, Class Secretary, Class of 1873: Erving Leander Richardson — Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, Vol. IV, No. 5 (March 1912) (1912) · official
  2. Dartmouth College, Dartmouth College Necrology, 1910-1911 (Hanover, N.H.): Erving Leander Richardson, Class of 1873 (1911) · official
  3. The Willimantic Journal, The Willimantic Journal (Willimantic, Conn.), 6 May 1898, page 8: Liberty Hill Christian Endeavor Union convention (1898) · newspaper
  4. The Willimantic Chronicle, The Willimantic Chronicle, 5 December 1883, 9 April 1884, and 4 June 1884: Columbia column, Prof. E. L. Richardson (1884) · newspaper
  5. Florida Superintendent of Public Instruction, Biennial Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, Florida, 1904-1906: Teacher Certificate Roll (1906) · official
  6. Florida Superintendent of Public Instruction, Biennial Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, Florida, 1910-1912: Teacher Certificate Roll (1912) · official
  7. The De Soto County News, Arcadia, Fla., The De Soto County News, 2 February 1906, page 1: Notice, petition of the patrons and citizens of Special Tax School District No. 3 (Avon Park) (1906) · newspaper
  8. The De Soto County News, Arcadia, Fla., The De Soto County News, 11 May 1906, page 8: Avon Park Locals, Prof. E. L. Richardson (1906) · newspaper
  9. O. R. Thacher (department editor), The De Soto County News, Arcadia, Fla., The De Soto County News, 18 May 1906, page 8: Department of The South Florida Sun, Horticultural Meeting (1906) · newspaper
  10. Congregational Home Missionary Society, The Home Missionary, Vol. 80 (1907) · archival
  11. Leoma Bradshaw Maxwell, The First Hundred Years of Avon Park, Florida (documents/the-first-hundred-years-of-avon-park_leoma-bradshaw-maxwell_1976.md) (1976) · book

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