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Frank E. Sperring

Summary

Frank E. Sperring was one of the four men who incorporated the Florida Development Company in November 1891, the concern that owned Avon Park and sold its land.[fdc-entity] He was a Connecticut man, from Sharon Valley in the town of Salisbury, and his home village paper followed him closely enough that his movements can be traced for a year and a half before the company existed on paper.[cwn-sharon-valley]

Sharon Valley and Avon Park

The Connecticut Western News of Salisbury ran a Sharon Valley column of neighborhood notes. On 20 March 1889 it reported that “Frank E. Sperring is expected home from Florida about April 1st,” and on 3 April that “F. E. Sperring arrived home from Avon Park Florida, the last of the week.”[cwn-sharon-valley] He had wintered in the new settlement.

Three weeks later the column recorded what he did next: “F. E. Sperring left us on Monday for an extended trip through the country selling Florida land.”[cwn-sharon-valley] That is April 1889 — two and a half years before the Florida Development Company was incorporated, and the earliest dated evidence yet found of Crosby’s Avon Park land being sold in the North by a named agent.

By the autumn of 1889 Sperring’s own base had moved to New York, where the company would later keep its American office: the column has him as “F. E. Sperring, of New York” spending a Sunday with his family in October, and among the Thanksgiving visitors that December as “Frank E. Sperring, New York city,” while his wife and children stayed on in Sharon Valley.[cwn-sharon-valley] He was still keeping up the Connecticut household in June 1890.[cwn-sharon-valley]

Agent for Avon Park at New York

By the end of 1892 he was the man to ask for at the company’s New York office. The Pabor Lake Pineapple’s Bureau of Information for November and December 1892 lists the colony’s agents — at Denver, at Chicago — and for New York gives “the office of the Florida Development Company, room 99, Franklin street… Ask for F. E. Sperring, agent for Avon Park.”[plp-1892-11] That is the same address printed on Crosby’s own pamphlet and on the Hotel Verona’s advertisements in The Sun, and it confirms what the Connecticut notices imply: Sperring had gone from wintering at Avon Park to selling it full time.

The company

In November 1891 the Florida Development Company was incorporated with Sperring named alongside Oliver M. Crosby, Charles H. Smith and Robert B. Archibald, and offices at London, New York, Jacksonville and Avon Park.[fdc-entity] Nothing further is known of what he did in it, of when he left it, or of where he went after the company failed in 1897.

Related

• Entity: The Florida Development Company
• Entity: Oliver Marvin Crosby
• Entity: Charles H. Smith
• Entity: Robert B. Archibald
• Entity: George W. Bacon
• Reference: Avon Park in the out-of-town press, 1889–1900

References

• plp-1892-11 — W. E. Pabor, editor and publisher. The Pabor Lake Pineapple, November–December 1892, page 4: the ‘no negro’ proviso at Avon Park. 15 December 1892. pabor-lake-pineapple.md
• cwn-sharon-valley — Connecticut Western News (Salisbury, Conn.). Connecticut Western News, Salisbury, Connecticut, Sharon Valley column, 20 March, 3 April, 24 April, 2 October, 23 October and 4 December 1889, and 11 June 1890, page 2. 11 June 1890. https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn84027718/1889-04-24/ed-1/?sp=2
• fdc-entity — Avon Park Historical Society. The Florida Development Company: incorporated November 1891 by O. M. Crosby, Frank E. Sperring, Charles H. Smith and Robert B. Archibald. 9 September 2026. florida-development-company.md

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

society

Sources

1. W. E. Pabor, editor and publisher, The Pabor Lake Pineapple, November–December 1892, page 4: the 'no negro' proviso at Avon Park (references/pabor-lake-pineapple.md) (1892) · newspaper
2. Connecticut Western News (Salisbury, Conn.), Connecticut Western News, Salisbury, Connecticut, Sharon Valley column, 20 March, 3 April, 24 April, 2 October, 23 October and 4 December 1889, and 11 June 1890, page 2 (1890) · newspaper
3. Avon Park Historical Society, The Florida Development Company: incorporated November 1891 by O. M. Crosby, Frank E. Sperring, Charles H. Smith and Robert B. Archibald (entities/florida-development-company.md) (2026) · secondary

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