SO life goes on and I’m still walking in the morning—with my wonderful neighbor–who like you all are willing to put up with an aging old lady who thinks she can tell a story—and I still don’t have any adventure stores from you all.

 

Click here to hear your reading music for today–yeah more Scottish…getting into my roots lately

History will be kind to me for I intend to write it. Winston Churchill

See if you agree with this review (A-) for Episode 2/3:  http://www.indiewire.com/article/review-outlander-season-2-episode-3-useful-occupations-and-deceptions-recap-spoilers-20160422

and from bad ass fashion to nipple piercing–Outlander’s costume designer tells you about her move to 18th century France. http://www.indiewire.com/article/review-outlander-season-2-episode-3-useful-occupations-and-deceptions-recap-spoilers-20160422

Most of us spend too much time on the last twenty-four hours and too little on the last six thousand years. Will Durant

 

 

Now from my long (yes I’m fully aware of how long winded I can be) discussion so far this week, I do not want to give you the idea that you have to run away from home to find the past (and your past is strewn about from birthplace, to college—in the church or city hall where you were married–where you first held your children and their children..).your history is a fine fabric of all history and is important too and it’s often just around the physical corner.

But if you’re like me and wish for a bit larger picture you don’t have to go far to find it:  Let’s look at Seminole County for instance—and it’s oldest city–LONGWOOD.

History is a vast early warning system. Norman Cousins

In fact in the 1880s Longwood was the third largest city in Orange Co.  Seminole would eventually move into it’s own existence leaving Orlando behind, but keeping Sanford with it —but at that time they were the top three.

One of the two men who are held as the town founders, E.W. Henck (the other a Russian named Demens), served with the honor guard that accompanied President Abraham Lincoln’s body on it’s last train trip from Washington, D.C. to Illinois.

Downtown Longwood, which most people traveling on 434  never see, is the site of the Bradlee-McIntyre House (Queen Anne Style http://www.longwoodfl.org/content/1115/151/163/default.aspx) from the golden days of steamships—but it isn’t a native–built in Altamonte Springs in 1885, it only moved to it’s present location in the early 1970s. 

The house by the way was used as the model for the mansion in Patricia Muse’s book:  Eight Candle Glowing, a novel set in the Florida Keys no less.   http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14174658.Patricia_Muse

Longwood was a mill town during the 1880’s and 90’s.  Residents were mostly mill workers and farmer, local merchants and even a sea captain or two.

It was also the home of two authors:

Robert Newton Peck, who moved here in 1977 and still resides in Longwood and who says of himself that he  write books, poetry, songs, TV specials, and won the Mark Twain Award.  His most famous book is A Day No Pigs Would Die (1972).   http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Robert_Newton_Peck.aspx

and Philip Deavers who came here in 1984 (but couldn’t find where he lives now–though he is still in Central Florida especially Rollins College in Winter Park),  he wrote Silent Retreats, a short story collection and won the 1986 Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Stories.                     http://www.rollins.edu/winter-with-the-writers/events/2016/philip-f-deaver.html

Difficulty is the excuse history never accepts. Edward R. Murrow

In the 1920’s Longwood had a gambling house named the Orange and Black. 

In the 1950’s a an Umpire School (George Barr’s)

and in the 1960’s a movie was filmed here:  Johnny Tiger–with Chad Everett as a half-breed Seminole influenced by a schoolteacher (Robert Taylor)

then in the 1980’s there was a hotel operation school here as well

Finally and the most interesting part about all that is that it all took place in one building:

the NOW Longwood Inn   now and office complex that’s reportedly haunted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longwood_Hotel

History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce. Karl Marx

CHURCH STREET the traditional main street of the town is now bricked, but in the 1870’s farmer’s wagons used it to bring in produce to be shipped out on the South Florida Railroad.

Church Street got its name from the Episcopal Church, which still stands by the street. 

http://christchurchlongwood.com/Welcome/History.html

According to the church’s current web site (I can’t find the one for the 1880’s) most of the people living in Longwood during the 1880s were Episcopalians and Congregationalists.

Those who invoke history will certainly be heard by history. And they will have to accept its verdict. Dag Hammarskjold

Longwood built a school in 1885, it had two rooms and was used until 1924.

When it then became the Longwood City Hall and Fire House until the 1950’s.

It was renovated to its original form in the 1980’s

Sorry no pictures available but it’s still there at 390 Wilma Street

Time will inevitably uncover dishonesty and lies; history has no place for them. Norodom Sihanouk

Much of the historic Longwood you see today was built by Josiah Clouser

Clouser a resident of Pennsylvannia was a master carpenter when he saw the ad to build the Longwood Hotel.  He arrived here in 1881.

In addition to the hotel he also built two homes (among several) for himself and his family one when he arrived and a second, larger one, in 1883.  he and his son -in-law Frederick Niemeyer built a home on  192 West Warren (1889)for Niemyer and his wife (married to Clouser’s daughter Frances).

Niemeyer went on to serve on Longwood’s city council during the 1890s and was the postmaster until 1924.

The lovers of romance can go elsewhere for satisfaction but where can the lovers of truth turn if not to history? Katharine Anthony