Instructions:
1....Print this file.
2....At its end, click on "rules" to see a copy of the trail rules, print it, and then click where indicated at the end of the 3-page rules and patch order form to get back to the list of Florida trails.
3....If you want a hand-drawn map showing the locations of all of the sites, send a self-addressed stamped envelope to Steve Rajtar, 1614 Bimini Dr., Orlando, FL 32806.
4....Hike the trail and order whatever patches you like (optional).
WARNING - This trail may pass through one or more neighborhoods which, although full of history, may now be unsafe for individuals on foot, or which may make you feel unsafe there. Hikers have been approached by individuals who have asked for handouts or who have inquired (not always in a friendly manner) why the hikers are in their neighborhood. Drugs and other inappropriate items have been found by hikers in some neighborhoods. It is suggested that you drive the hike routes first to see if you will feel comfortable walking them and, if you don't think it's a good place for you walk, you might want to consider (1) traveling with a large group, (2) doing the route on bicycles, or (3) choosing another hike route. The degree of comfort will vary with the individual and with the time and season of the hike, so you need to make the determination using your best judgment. If you hike the trail, you accept all risks involved.
Vernon Priest operated a grocery store here. When the post office moved out of the Cook Store, it moved in here.
Here were located some tin buildings. In 1962, Jimmie Lang operated a garage in one of them.
Ralph Harper dismantled a nearby house and used the lumber to build a store and Texaco filling station. It was later sold to Wes Waldron, then Julius Martin, and then Bert Bewley. It later was the site of a Lil' Champ Store.
In the 1980s, Angus Hastings had a real estate office here, next to one managed by Keith Seyler and another by C. Ray Greene and Sons. The business block later included the Ft. McCoy Medical Center.
W.H. Cook built a large wood frame store and a Gulf service station here in 1940-41. He named it the Cook Company, and had his son Charles and daughter Frances as his partners. The bookkeeping was done by daughter Elizabeth.
John S. Grantham served as the postmaster for 38 years, and upon his retirement the post office was moved to the Cook store. While it was here, the postmaster was Alston Priest and then his sister-in-law, Faith Padgett Priest.
The Gulf station was leased to George "Buck" Howell, and during his management it was known as Howell's Service Station.
Charles Cook and his father built a modern brick and block building here during the 1950s, as a store stocked with dry goods, groceries and hardware. The store was later the home of the Alaco Supermarket and the Ft. McCoy Grocery.
This intersection was known as Pleasant Corners because of the quiet and unhurried atmosphere around it. The benches in front of Cook's store and Bewley's service station were popular places to relax. The Greyhound bus came through here daily.
The Cooks also erected a smaller building just north of their store for use as a laundromat and beauty salon. For a time, the post office was housed here, and later it was the home of an auto parts store.
A small one-room building was erected here as a barber shop. Its early operators were Jimmie Waldron and then Percy Dudley.
The present post office opened in 1985, replacing the one in the former laundromat.
James W. Stephens, born in 1821, and his wife Elizabeth settled land along this creek, just north of the cabin of William G. Hall which sat on top of a hill. Stephens dammed the creek and installed a sawmill, cotton gin and grist mill. The mills were operated until well after the Civil War. During 1868-69, there was a postal station in his home.
The family owned a general store at the intersection of CRs 315 and 316.
In August of 1987, the present school was completed at a cost of $11 million. It was designed to accommodate 1,000 elementary and junior high students.
The Wilson family lived here, with children Cronheim, Wilma and Woodrow.
Through the woods and near the lake, the railroad depot was built for the Ocala Northern Railroad. E.P. Rentz was its president and owner, and he built it to tie his sawmill to the Seaboard Air Line Railroad. It was originally set up to haul lumber from Fort McCoy to Ocala, where carload lots were moved to the main railroad line.
The line was extended to Palatka in about 1912 and served the Wilson Cypress Company. The Ocala Northern and other short lines were consolidated, having stops at Peniel, Rodman, Kenwood, Orange Springs, Fort McCoy, Silver Springs and Ocala. At the time, the turpentine and naval stores operations in the area were at their peak, bringing the population of Fort McCoy to about 600.
Rentz filed for bankruptcy on May 17, 1913, and the railroad was taken over by other individuals. It served the lumber industry before World War I. After that time, the lush forests of the Ocklawaha Valley were depleted and the railroad went out of business. By 1924, it had disappeared.
Despite the end of the lumber trade, the production of turpentine lingered on. The last firm involved in the area was Rufus Smith's Marion Turpentine Company. The land was later purchased by large paper companies.
The abandoned depot was purchased by O.A. Harper, who moved it away to be used as a loading platform for raw turpentine.
Across from the depot, on the north side of the tracks, was the Silver City House, a hotel built for those who came to visit or work at the mill or other jobs.
A little to the north, on the east shore of the lake, was the home of merchant Ottis G. Stanbrough. It later was occupied by Winston Stephens Priest and his wife, Lula Marsh.
Priest operated a large general store in Daisy, hauling his merchandise by wagon from Gores Landing at the river where it was brought in by the steamboat The William Howard. Priest also was a partner in the turpentine industry with his brother-in-law, O.A. Harper. By the early 1930s, the firm had gone out of the business.
After Winston and Lula died, son Waldo dismantled the house and built a new one on the same site. Waldo died on January 28, 1986.
The Howell family moved from their home across the lake from the school (east of CR 315), and moved in here. Some of the houses here were built by the South Farm and Home Company, which advertised extensively in northern newspapers. They promised "Ten Acres and Freedom", but many purchasers found that their lots were located in cypress swamps, ponds and low-lying places unsuitable for human habitation.
Later, the house was occupied by Frances Cook and her family. Their next-door neighbors were Thomas Pierce and his family.
In this house was born J. Ollie Edmunds, who became president of Stetson University.
John L. Gerry and Isaac Boring were appointed as circuit riders to the St. Augustine and Alachua Mission, and were likely the first Methodist ministers in Marion County. The Alachua Mission separated from the one in St. Augustine in 1830, and in 1840 was discontinued and replaced by one in Newnansville.
The Baptists moved out of the Union Church in 1887, leaving the Methodists to use it alone. A church was built here by Rentz Lumber Company and it was used by the Methodist congregation until it was moved in the 1920s.
Subsequently, Methodists in Fort McCoy attended the Greenwood Church in Pine, whose membership declined and closed in 1956-57.
The Masonic Lodge, believed to be the second-oldest in Florida, moved here from Silver Springs in July of 1858. It met in the second story of the Union Church. It received a charter as Marston Lodge #49 on February 12, 1859.
After moving several times, the lodge established a permanent home at this site.
Elijah Grantham ran a general store here which included the post office. For a while, the Masons met on the second floor. It was later owned by John Sealey Grantham.
A store was built by Winston Priest near the railroad track. In it, he sold fresh meat.
William H. Cook came to Fort McCoy to work at the Rentz Lumber Company commissary in about 1908. Not long afterward, he established a partnership with Ottis G. Stanbrough and opened a store in a newly-built structure. In addition to merchandise, they had a soda fountain in the rear of the store.
Shortly after the building burned down in 1911, another was built on the same site. When the business reopened, it was known as Moore, Cook and Swain. The Moores also ran a nearby boarding house.
This road follows a part of the old Army Road to Orange Springs and Fort Russell.
This land was donated by the Rufus Smith family, and on it the educational building was dedicated on August 1, 1959. The pastorium was completed in November of 1960, and the auditorium was dedicated on October 2, 1970. The fellowship hall was completed in 1979.
Near here, just east of the railroad spur track, was located a sawmill.
This body of water was used for dumping and washing logs before they were carried by a chain roller to the mill. Sandy or muddy logs would dull the saws.
This bonnet-covered lake was where the mules were fed and watered in the early days.
Elijah Grantham lived here, and served as the deputy tax collector for Marion County.
Grantham's home was used as a stage stop. The heavy, cumbersome stagecoaches required teams of four horses to get them through the sand and swamps. As it was the only contact with the outside world as early as 1850, the arrival of the stage was the highlight of the day.
To the northwest of here was the sawmill of Thomas J. Perry. He owned several yoke of oxen to help haul the logs from the forest to the mill, which was connected to the main railroad line by a spur.
About six miles north of Fort McCoy was Bay Lake, settled by the Matchett, Waldron, Wells, Wilson, Kingsley, Wimberly and Peck families. The community once had a small store, canning plant, two sawmills, a one-teacher school and a post office.
Remaining are the Bay Lake Primitive Baptist Church, founded in 1876 as the New Hope Primitive Baptist Church, and Waldron's Millpond and Mill Creek on land where Dave Waldron once had a grist mill on the edge of a cypress pond.
The land for the cemetery and the nearby Union Church was donated by the Lovett Williams and Carlton families. Some markers in the cemetery:
Rev. Lovett Williams and his wife, Mahalia, settled in the Fort McCoy area soon after 1842. Their children were John W., Martha (Teuton), Emma (Grantham) and Julia (Henderson).
Gabriel Priest (born in 1839) was the son of Gabriel Priest, who served as a state senator in 1846. The son married Mary Milligan, and both died in 1905.
Emily Sherouse was the daughter of Rev. and Mrs. Benjamin Grantham, and was the mother of William Marion Sherouse. She was the second wife of John C. Sherouse of Effingham County, Georgia. Emily died in 1847 and John later married her cousin, Matilda Grantham.
Charles Thomas had no formal education, but made sure all six of his children received their degrees. He died in 1904, and his wife died in 1929.
Rev. Stanley came here from Grahamville and helped organize a church in 1849. The church building was constructed of logs and was used for worship on Sundays by the Baptists and Methodists, and during the week for school classes. Preachers included Rev. D.L. White, Robert H. Howren, Rev. McConnel, E.L.T. Blake, John Penny, George Craft and Thomas W. Cooper.
The log building was replaced in 1875 by a two-story wood frame building used by both congregations. The Masons were located upstairs.
A picket fort was established west of the lake you can see to the south, with blockhouses located amidst pine trees. It was originally called Fort MacKay, and the community which grew up near it took on the name of Fort McCoy.
A post office was established near the fort in 1852 with John C. Stewart in charge. It was discontinued during the Seminole War in 1855-56. After the war, it was re-established with James W. Stephens as postmaster until about 1887.
In 1857, a school serving the children of the area was known as the Orange Grove School, and was located between the fort and the settlement of Eureka. Another was established in a log cabin built near the fort, but it was abandoned during the Seminole War and did not reopen.
In 1913, the Melin family moved here from Minnesota and settled on the edge of the grassy lake near the former site of the fort. Agnes Melin played the piano for silent movies shown in the opera house on Main St.
After sharing the Union Church with the Methodists, the Baptist congregation withdrew and built their own sanctuary here with the help of the Masons. In 1887, it was dedicated as the First Baptist Church of Fort McCoy. The present Oak Grove Missionary Baptist Church was founded in 1908 with Rev. B.C. Clinton as its pastor.
A.M. McQuaig was born in 1824 and first settled in this area between Daisy and Marshville, near the Ocklawaha River. Several branches of the McQuaigs settled the region.
Dr. Benjamin Franklin Lisk lived between Conner and Grahamville during the 1880s. During a severe thunderstorm in 1911, he drowned when he, his horse, and his buggy plunged into the river when the horse became frightened. Shortly thereafter, his son, Percy F. Lisk, moved to Fort McCoy.
He married Ola Howell and bought a house here from one of the McQuaig families. He practiced medicine for many years in a small office he built nearby. He also served as the company doctor for the sawmills and turpentine stills. Dr. Lisk abandoned the office in 1944 and retired in about 1948.
Mr. and Mrs. O.A. Harper built a large boarding house here in the early 1900s. They moved here from Daisy, and previously from Pierson. Mr. Harper was a business partner of A.P. Monroe, who lived in Orange Springs.
In 1910, a church building was erected here under the leadership of Col. R.F. Rodgers. A bell was presented to the church by M.N. Cowart, and later moved to the third sanctuary on CR 316.
Three new rooms and new pews were added by 1951. While Rev. L.E. McRae was pastor from 1951 to 1953, a frame building was acquired on the north side of Silver Lake and used as a pastorium until 1960.
A frame school building was erected behind this site, and burned down in 1935. It was replaced by a small brick house to accommodate all of the students. After the new school opened in 1987, this building was converted into a library.
Rentz Lumber Company timber cruiser Charles R. Howell and his family moved to Silver Springs in 1907. About two years later, they moved to a large two-story home across the lake. It had previously belonged to one of the McQuaig families. The Howells later moved to what is now NE 113th Ave.
Memories of Fort McCoy, by Faye Perry Melton (Typeworld Printing & Typesetting 1987)
Click here for a copy of the hike rules.