The Historical Society of Avon ParkAVON PARK, FL · EST. 1886
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The Naming of Avon Park and the Question of the English Settlers

Summary

The origin of the name “Avon Park” has circulated in multiple conflicting versions, ranging from an invented British colony to an erroneous wire obituary linking the town to Pennsylvania. Historical records and pioneer family papers resolve these contradictions:

  1. The Name Originated with Mary Ann (Chinn) King (Single-source attribution). According to twentieth-century historical society accounts, the suggestion to name the settlement “Avon Park” after Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, England, was made by Mary Ann King, wife of William A. King, the town’s acknowledged first permanent settler[maxwell-1976]. Born in Solihull, Warwickshire—eighteen miles northwest of Stratford—Mrs. King arrived in the pine woods on 6 May 1886 and reportedly noted that the rolling sandhills, lakes, and open forest reminded her of the Warwickshire countryside[maxwell-1976]. Exhaustive archival searches have not yet located a pre-1920 primary source explicitly naming her as the proposer, making this a single-source attribution based on later pioneer memoirs and scrapbooks.
  2. The “Ben Avon, Pennsylvania” Account Was a Wire Obituary Error. Following Crosby’s death in March 1932, an Associated Press dispatch claimed that Crosby had named the town after “his home town, Ben Avon, Pa.”[tampa-tribune-1932-03-09] This was an error of journalistic conflation. Crosby was born and raised in Danbury, Connecticut, where his family had resided for generations[bailey-danbury-1896]. He moved to western Pennsylvania only in the 1910s and 1920s to reside near his married daughter Sara Crosby Findlay in Ben Avon borough, decades after the founding of Avon Park.
  3. “Lake Forest” Was a Plat Subdivision, Not the Town’s Former Name. Modern retellings frequently state that the settlement was incorporated or initially named “Lake Forest” and subsequently renamed. Contemporary land records and Crosby’s own 1888 promotional book, Common Sense About Florida: Lake Forest and Avon Park, demonstrate that Lake Forest was the name of a specific residential plat in Section 22 at the center of the broader 20,000-acre township designated as Avon Park[crosby-1888-pamphlet]. United States postal records confirm that the post office was established on 12 December 1887 under the name “Avon Park,” with Crosby as first postmaster; no post office named Lake Forest ever existed in the region[usps-postmaster-finder][forte-postal].
  4. English Settlers Existed, But No Organized English Colony. Avon Park was never an organized English colony comparable to Chetwynd in Lake County or Narcoossee in Osceola County, which were backed by British investment syndicates, English immigration agencies, and formal gentry sporting clubs[chetwynd][narcoossee]. Avon Park was developed by an American corporation, Crosby’s Florida Development Company, financed by Connecticut hat manufacturers and northern investors[bailey-danbury-1896]. However, its earliest permanent residents were indeed an English family: William A. King of Birmingham and Mary Ann Chinn of Solihull, recruited by Crosby in England in late 1885[maxwell-1976].

The Competing Naming Accounts

Six distinct versions of the town’s naming have circulated in local traditions, reference works, and media:

Version Alleged Origin Historical Status
Mary Ann King’s Suggestion Proposed by Mary Ann (Chinn) King to reflect her home county of Warwickshire (Stratford-upon-Avon) Single-source. Relies on later historical society accounts and pioneer memoirs; no pre-1920 primary source explicitly names her as the proposer[maxwell-1976].
Ben Avon, Pennsylvania Named for founder Oliver M. Crosby’s “home town” Refuted. 1932 AP wire obituary conflation; Crosby was born in Danbury, CT and lived in Ben Avon, PA only decades later[bailey-danbury-1896][tampa-tribune-1932-03-09].
Lake Forest Renaming Town was originally founded and incorporated as “Lake Forest” and later renamed Refuted. Lake Forest was an internal subdivision plat; the town and post office were officially Avon Park from 1887[crosby-1888-pamphlet][usps-postmaster-finder].
Organized English Colony Scheme Named collectively by a large body of English gentry colonists who settled the town Refuted. No British land syndicate, promotional agency, or collective colony existed at Avon Park, unlike Chetwynd or Narcoossee[chetwynd][narcoossee].
Crosby’s Promotional Selection Chose independently by Crosby as a pastoral, cultured name to attract northern homeseekers Partially true in practice. Crosby adopted and popularized the name in northern advertising, but credited Mary King with suggesting it[crosby-1887-book][maxwell-1976].
Anonymous Englishwoman Suggested by an unnamed English woman residing in the settlement Degraded retelling. A simplified popular variant of the Mary Ann King account that omitted her specific identity[aphs-verona][maxwell-1976].

Provenance of the Mary Ann King Account

The identification of Mary Ann (Chinn) King as the source of the name “Avon Park” rests upon documentary evidence compiled by the Historical Society of the Old Settlers Association and published by Leoma Bradshaw Maxwell in The First Hundred Years of Avon Park, Florida (1976)[maxwell-1976].

Maxwell lived in Avon Park from 1929 onward and was personally acquainted with Mary Ann King, who resided in the town until her death on 25 August 1938[maxwell-1976]. In preparing the town’s centennial history, Maxwell and the Historical Committee accessed:

  • The private scrapbooks, family albums, and personal clippings preserved by Mrs. Mary Ann King, made available by Peggy Mandis Caraberis (daughter of early settler Margaret Woodruff Mandis)[maxwell-1976].
  • The historical archive of pioneer charter member Cora M. Wray[maxwell-1976].
  • The handwritten memoirs of William A. King, detailing his arrival on 9 February 1886 and his wife’s arrival on 6 May 1886 with Scottish cousins Johnstone and MacGregor[maxwell-1976].
  • Oliver M. Crosby’s historical serialization, “Avon Park’s History: 1885 to 1896,” published in The Highlands Pilot in 1919[maxwell-1976].

Maxwell recorded the naming decision across two chapters of the history:

“Because the rustic beauty of Florida reminded Mrs. King of her English homeland, she suggested that the name of this new settlement be Avon Park, instead of Lake Forest, which name Crosby had been using in his advertisements.”[maxwell-1976]

“The name of Avon Park was suggested by Mrs. William A. King, who had come from England, and thought this area reminded her of the English village, Stratford-on-Avon.”[maxwell-1976]

Mary Ann Chinn was born in Solihull, Warwickshire, in April 1858, and married William A. King there on 10 April 1881[findagrave-king]. Solihull lies directly in the historic orbit of Stratford-upon-Avon, situated eighteen miles to the south along the River Avon corridor. The landscape of central Florida’s ridge—characterized by clear spring-fed lakes, sandy knolls, and tall longleaf pine savannahs—offered a picturesque park-like setting that prompted her comparison.

The “Ben Avon, Pennsylvania” Wire Conflation

On 8 March 1932, Oliver Marvin Crosby died at the Pinellas County Home in Largo, Florida, at the age of eighty[findagrave-crosby]. The following day, an Associated Press wire dispatch printed in The Tampa Tribune and regional newspapers stated:

“O. M. Crosby, 84, founder of Avon Park, died at a hospital here last night… Avon Park was named after his home town, Ben Avon, Pa.”[tampa-tribune-1932-03-09]

This wire statement was an error of biographical conflation. Crosby was not a Pennsylvanian by birth or early residence. He was born on 12 January 1852 in Danbury, Fairfield County, Connecticut, the son of wool hat manufacturer Major Judah Paddock Crosby (1814–1871) and Catherine Stevens (1815–1898)[bailey-danbury-1896]. He grew up in Danbury, operated a 1,500-tree commercial peach orchard at Lake Kenosia in western Danbury in the early 1880s, and lived in Danbury and New York until the founding of Avon Park in 1886.

Following the financial collapse of the Florida Development Company in the freezes of 1894–1895, Crosby left Florida in the summer of 1897. He worked in life insurance in New York and subsequently moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he taught salesmanship and psychology[findagrave-crosby]. His daughter, Sara Marvin (Crosby) Findlay, established her home in Ben Avon, a residential borough on the Ohio River in Allegheny County, northwest of Pittsburgh. Crosby resided with or near his daughter in Ben Avon during parts of the 1910s and 1920s before returning to Florida. The wire reporter in 1932 erroneously assumed that Crosby’s late-life Pennsylvania residence was his ancestral home town and retroactively projected it onto the 1886 Florida settlement.

Plats vs. Municipalities: The “Lake Forest” Confusion

A pervasive assertion in twentieth-century regional histories is that Avon Park was initially founded and incorporated under the name “Lake Forest” and subsequently renamed[aphs-verona].

This claim confuses an internal subdivision plat with a municipality. In 1886–1888, Crosby acquired promotional control of Township 33 South, Range 28 East (a six-mile-square tract of approximately 23,000 acres)[crosby-1888-pamphlet]. Within this vast area, Crosby platted several distinct subdivisions:

  • Lake Forest was laid out as an exclusive residential tract of villa lots surrounding Lake Verona and Lake Tulane in Section 22, described by Crosby in 1888 as situated “about the center” of the township[crosby-1888-pamphlet].
  • Avon Park was the designated name for the entire township colony, the townsite center, and the commercial core.

Crosby’s 1888 promotional brochure carried both names on its cover: Common Sense About Florida: Lake Forest and Avon Park[crosby-1888-pamphlet]. When formal postal service was established by the United States Post Office Department on 12 December 1887, the office was officially commissioned as Avon Park, with Oliver M. Crosby appointed as its inaugural postmaster[usps-postmaster-finder]. Federal postal records contain no entry for a post office named Lake Forest in Manatee, DeSoto, or Highlands counties[forte-postal]. The town was known as Avon Park in all external correspondence and railway guides from 1887 forward.

English Settlers vs. The “English Colony” Legend

Popular histories frequently claim that Avon Park was established as an “English colony.” This tradition gained wide national circulation through the Works Progress Administration’s 1939 state guide, Florida: A Guide to the Southernmost State, which claimed that Crosby “visited England, returned with many settlers, and named the town for Stratford-on-Avon”[wpa-florida-guide-1939]. Barbara Berry Darsey’s Federal Writers’ Project typescript of 1936–1938 similarly repeated elements of the English tradition[darsey-1937].

A comparison with documented nineteenth-century English colonies in central Florida illustrates why Avon Park does not fit that category:

  • Chetwynd (Lake County): Founded in 1883 by Granville Bryan Chetwynd-Stapylton, Chetwynd was an organized colony populated by second sons of English gentry sent out to learn citrus horticulture. It maintained formal English social structures, published prospectuses in London, and was documented in British and American records until destroyed by the 1894–1895 freezes[chetwynd].
  • Narcoossee (Osceola County): Established in 1883–1884 by English solicitor Arthur Fell and his brother Edward Nelson Fell, Narcoossee was heavily advertised across Great Britain, drew dozens of English families, and featured a cricket pitch and lawn tennis club before dispersing after repeated freezes[narcoossee].

Avon Park had no British land syndicate, no English investment board, no recruitment agency in London, and no English sporting clubs. Crosby’s Florida Development Company was incorporated in Florida with capital drawn from Connecticut hatters (Beckerle, Schuldice & Fay) and northern merchants[bailey-danbury-1896].

However, Avon Park’s founding pioneers were an English family. In late 1885, Crosby visited England to promote Florida real estate. There he met William A. King, a Birmingham native with horticultural training[maxwell-1976]. King agreed to emigrate, sailing with Crosby on the same vessel to America. After a brief period managing orange groves for Crosby in Belleview, Marion County, King was sent south to the Lake Wales Ridge in early February 1886 to superintend the clearing of land and erection of pioneer cabins on Lake Tulane[maxwell-1976]. His wife Mary Ann joined him in May 1886.

The Kings remained permanent pillars of the community for over four decades:

  • In August 1893, the Pabor Lake Pineapple acknowledged William King in print as “the first settler of Avon Park”[pineapple].
  • William King planted the town’s first pineapple patch in August 1887, established the settlement’s pioneer well-drilling works, and co-founded the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer in 1894[redeemer-church][maxwell-1976].
  • King served as an inaugural town alderman under the 1913 municipal charter, chairman of the DeSoto County Commission, inaugural Highlands County Commissioner in 1921, and mayor of Avon Park (1919–1922 and 1925–1929)[maxwell-1976].
  • Mary Ann King served as the first hostess of the Verona Hotel (opened 1889) and was the first woman to register to vote in Avon Park following the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920[maxwell-1976].

The existence of this prominent English couple at the head of local civic life, combined with their leadership in establishing the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer in 1894, provided the historical foundation from which the expanded legend of an “English colony” evolved. Federal census returns in 1900 recorded 225 total residents in the Avon Park precinct, confirming that the early population remained small and domestic[census-1900].

The legal standing of Avon Park progressed through several distinct statutory phases:

  1. 1886: Pioneer settlement established on Lake Tulane by Oliver M. Crosby, William A. King, and associates[maxwell-1976].
  2. 12 December 1887: United States Post Office established as “Avon Park” in Manatee County (transferred to newly created DeSoto County in 1887)[usps-postmaster-finder].
  3. 1888–1889: Construction of the thirty-five-room Hotel Verona on Lake Verona, cementing the name in regional transportation and tourism directories[crosby-1888-pamphlet].
  4. 1892: Formal platting of the central business district along Main Street and construction of the Union Congregational Church[nrhp-avon-park-district].
  5. 1894: Founding and erection of the Carpenter Gothic Episcopal Church of the Redeemer by the King family and fellow communicants[redeemer-church].
  6. 23 May 1913: Incorporation of the Town of Avon Park under Special Acts of the Florida Legislature (Chapter 6662, Laws of Florida 1913)[nrhp-avon-park-district].
  7. 8 June 1925 (effective 1 January 1926): Re-chartering as the City of Avon Park under Chapter 10320, Laws of Florida 1925[nrhp-avon-park-district].

Throughout each statutory milestone, the name remained fixed as Avon Park. The historical record confirms that the name originated in May 1886 through Mary Ann King’s nostalgic tribute to Shakespeare’s home country on the River Avon, was adopted by Oliver M. Crosby, and has identified the community ever since.

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. Florida Bureau of Historic Preservation / National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, Avon Park Historic District (ref. 90000486, listed 22 March 1990) (1990) · official
  2. Leoma Bradshaw Maxwell, The First Hundred Years of Avon Park, Florida (Held at the Avon Park Historical Society Depot Museum, Avon Park, Florida) (1976) · book
  3. W. E. Pabor and E. A. Pabor, editors and publishers, Pabor Lake Pineapple (Pabor Lake, Avon Park, DeSoto County, Florida), October 1892 to September 1897 (1897) · newspaper
  4. United States Postal Service, Postmaster Finder: Florida Post Offices (2026) · official
  5. Jim Forte Postal History, Post Offices by county, Florida (2026) · secondary
  6. O. M. Crosby, Common Sense About Florida: Lake Forest and Avon Park (1888) · book
  7. Oliver Marvin Crosby, Florida Facts, Both Bright and Blue (1887) · book
  8. Wikipedia, Chetwynd, Florida (2026) · secondary
  9. Wikipedia, Narcoossee, Florida (2026) · secondary
  10. Florida Bureau of Historic Preservation, Episcopal Church of the Redeemer, 20 East Pleasant Street, built 1894, Avon Park Historic District nomination (1990) · official
  11. Avon Park Historical Society, The Verona Hotel: The early years of Avon Park (2026) · secondary
  12. Find a Grave, William A. King and Mary Ann (Chinn) King memorials, Bougainvillea Cemetery, Avon Park (2026) · secondary
  13. Find a Grave, Oliver Marvin Crosby memorial, Bougainvillea Cemetery, Avon Park, with transcribed press material (2026) · secondary
  14. U.S. Census Office, Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900, Volume 1, Population, Part 1, Table 5, page 92 (1901) · official
  15. Federal Writers' Project, Florida: A Guide to the Southernmost State (1939) · book
  16. Barbara Berry Darsey, Avon Park Guide (Federal Writers' Project typescript, 1936-1938) (1938) · archival
  17. Associated Press / The Tampa Tribune, The Tampa Tribune, 9 March 1932, page 2: O. M. Crosby, Founder Of Avon Park, Dies in St. Petersburg (1932) · newspaper
  18. James Montgomery Bailey and Susan Benedict Hill, History of Danbury, Conn., 1684-1896 (1896) · book

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