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 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.
Area Methodists attended church in Barberville until 1887, when they received permission to hold worship services, Sunday school and prayer meetings in the Burmeister-Smith Building near the railroad on Third Ave. In 1888, the Pierson Methodist Church, South, officially organized with charter members Nels Pierson, J.B. Bradshaw, Sr., Carter Jones, "Grandpa" A.J. Baker, John L. Cade, Israel Hughes and their families.
Nels Pierson donated a five-acre tract for a parsonage just south of Third Ave., between the railroad and US 17. Tue Pierson donated lumber from his sawmill to build the two-story residence, with a large room upstairs for Sunday school and services. On April 8, 1892, it burned down.
The church trustees then bought the Farmers' Alliance Building on Second Ave., just east of Tue Pierson's sawmill. That building is still part of the church.
Consolidation of the seven Volusia County Methodist churches into four in October of 1895 brought to Pierson the former members of the Emporia and Midway churches, along with some from Astor, Volusia and Barberville.
Tue Pierson moved here with his cousin, Nils L. Pierson, in about 1877 and married Amelia Bennett. They lived here and established a sawmill in the middle of town. He also served as the second postmaster, from October 15, 1889, until May 8, 1893. While he was postmaster, the post office was located in the store owned by John McBride and Jim Cade, located west of the railroad and south of Short St. After the freezes in 1894 and 1895, he moved back to Connecticut.
A building was erected here in 1926 by John D. Peterson, who served as the postmaster for 35 years. As trains went by on the way to the depot, the mail bag was thrown into the doorway. This was previously the site of a packing house operated by the owners of the Randolph Grove.
In the early 1880s, Herman Gunter arrived in this area and opened a store. With the railroad coming soon, he moved it west of the railbed to this spot. On April 19, 1886, he established a post office in the southeast corner of the store and he became Pierson's first postmaster. The post office moved to another location in 1889, and moved back to this store from 1893 until 1926.
Herman died from an accidental gunshot wound in 1900 or 1901, and his widow Anna Palen Gunter modified a portion of the store into a boarding house. She operated it for several years. By 1924, it was the residence of Bryant B. Minshew with Dave Jones running a store in the same building.
A.C.M. Anderson bought the building in the late 1920s.
Before 1885, the settlers in Pierson had to rely on Bill Turner's store on Volusia Ave. for their supplies. In 1885, the railroad arrived and tied the settlement to the outside world.
The Jacksonville, Tampa & Key West Railroad's first passenger train came through the town on November 22, 1885. They needed something to print on their schedules, as the town was previously unnamed. The name of Piersonville was selected, and later shortened to Pierson. A depot was built on the east side of the tracks and became the social gathering spot, with Pierson life revolving around the arrivals and departures of the trains. In the 1900s, the depot was moved to the west side of the tracks.
The railroad became the Jacksonville and St. Johns River Railroad in 1899, and part of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad in 1902. Later, it was part of the Seaboard Coast Line.
This was the route of the old Black Bear Trail, which ran from Canada to Florida. It was generally followed by the Dixie Highway. It was paved in about 1920, increasing tourism.
On January 23, 1884, the Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Association of Pierson was established under the supervision of pastor Anders Kinnell, thereby creating the Ebenezer Lutheran Church. Nils L. and cousin Nels Pierson donated land for the construction of a church, with plans drawn up in 1889. H. Gunter donated land on Volusia Ave. for construction of a parsonage, which was completed in September of 1894. A grove planted in 1886 continued to be productive until the freeze of 1983.
Across the street and slightly to the north was the packing house established by Per Eckman in the mid-1880s. He had the first home in Pierson with glass windows.
The sanctuary was finished and dedicated on October 17, 1897. During the construction period, services were held in the Eckman Packing House and in the Randolph Packing House. The church was expanded by 25 feet on each side in 1923.
This large parsonage was in use by 1900, and later became the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Noll.
This church organized on June 17, 1874, with charter members Zachariah Bennett, Zachariah Henderson Bennett, Eliza Bennett, Keziah Bennett, and "Weltha" A. Rushing. Services were held in a brush arbor at the present church site, and D.B. Sheffield served as pastor until February 2, 1878.
This land was purchased from Nels Pierson in 1877 for $10. Not long after, they built a meeting house. Many members were baptized in Moore's Lake, called the "baptizing pond". School classes began in the church in 1886 with Mr. Thomas as the first teacher.
This church was organized in the home of Bryant B. Minshew, which had previously been Gunter's Boarding House. At the time, there were 18 prospective members led by J.H. Bennett, Sr. Field missionary W.C. Armstrong was sent from Jacksonville on October 6, 1925, to help with its establishment. A tract of land was donated by Minshew.
In 1926, they acquired a minister when Rev. E.W. Holland of the Black Memorial Baptist Church in Lake Helen agreed to serve as pastor of both churches. Early services were held in the Woodmen of the World Hall and then in the Methodist Church building.
The Baptist Church building, designed by J.H. Bennett, Sr., was dedicated on November 20, 1926. Incorporated into it were stained glass windows and other materials formerly in the First Baptist Church of DeLand. When the building was complete, Rev. Holland became its full-time pastor.
Nels Pierson moved from Sweden to the U.S. in 1869, and to Volusia County in 1876. As his brothers did, he homesteaded 160 acres and built a one-room log cabin. In 1878, he married Arabella Cone and they lived here.
A Texaco filling station was built and operated here in the late 1920s or early 1930s by George Loucakis. His "Golden Eagle" gas station was unusual, as there were few along the Black Bear Trail in rural areas. It was eventually torn down.
This is the northern boundary of the homestead of William H. Stone and his wife, Jane Emmaline Richardson. In about 1873, they built a log house in an oak grove on this property. In the cemetery adjacent to Mount Zion Primitive Baptist Church are the graves of Stone and his three wives.
Robert J. Bishop of South Carolina moved here in about 1900 and acquired about 12,000 acres. He had a sawmill which produced the timbers for his double-chimneyed home located at this intersection, long considered the landmark of the town. When US 17 was constructed, it cut through his front yard. The home burned down on September 12, 1979, but the chimneys stood for years afterward.
When the plat of Astor Junction was drawn up by S.B. Wilson, the Volusia County Surveyor, in 1886, here was located the store of Louis H. Richardson. He had arrived in Volusia County with his parents from Bulloch County, Georgia, in about 1857. In the late 1860s, he served as a tax collector.
The store was later owned and operated by the Bishop family, including Robert J. Bishop, after whom the post office was named in about 1911.
In 1927, the two-story wood frame schoolhouse in Emporia was replaced by a stucco building. The lumber from the old building was brought here by B.C. Collins and used to construct a one-story residence.
The Jacksonville, Tampa and Key West Railroad in 1884-85 established a stop here and called it Astor Junction. Within two years, it was renamed Eldridge after Lewis Henry Eldridge, who served as the station agent in the depot. Although the town was renamed Bishopville, the train station remained Eldridge until it was torn down in 1966-67.
In 1886, this was approximately the site of Albert Turner's farmhouse. He called it Snow Hill because of is poor, white, sandy soil.
In about 1900, this was the grove and home of William Richardson and his wife, Linnie Kirby Jordan.
A school was established near the grove by September of 1886, known as Richardson's School. At the time, the community was known as Astor Junction.
John E. Parrott, Sr. and his wife, America Ann Richardson, married in 1881 and lived in a house located here. The Black Bear Trail (now CR 3) ran to the west of their property. The present Twin Gables lounge was built by George Loucakis. He sold it and moved back to Greece. The building later became the J&F Restaurant and Lounge.
In 1914, US 17 was a sand road with oak trees growing between the northbound and southbound wagon wheel ruts.
Here was located the home of the Edward Swanson family, built in about 1910 by Carl Johnson. The Lutheran Sewing Society held its meetings here in 1915. It was also used for a time as a boarding house. It burned down in October of 1984.
Peter Andersen moved here from Brooklyn with his family prior to 1884. They built a home on the southwest corner of this intersection.
By 1915, he and his wife had moved to the two-story house on this corner. One of the front doors leads to the living room and the other to the kitchen.
Where the cedar tree now stands was in 1915 the site of the home of Sven Peterson and his family. The house was two stories tall and had double front doors with a frosted design in the glass panes. The property was purchased in the late 1920s by A.C.M. Andersen.
In 1911, a new house on this corner became the residence of S.P.A. Lindahl and his wife, Hannah. By 1915, Mr. Lindahl had died and Mrs. Lindahl lived here with their daughter, Alberta. She later lived here with her husband, Rudolph D. Peterson. In 1980, it was torn down to make room for the Ellis National Bank of Volusia County.
In the 1910s, this home of John David Peterson was known by the local children as a friendly place to visit. They knew they could cut through the yard on the way home from school and get cookies from Mrs. Peterson. Peterson erected the building used as the post office from 1926 until 1935.
This was the residence of Carl Hagstrom in 1915. Its architectural style is a California Bungalow.
In 1915, his neighbors across the street were Hans and Adele Anderson. Second Ave., formerly known as Pierson Ave., was a shell road with palm trees planted along each side.
Peter and Roxie Alice Pierson moved into this house when it was new in 1911. He chose the name of Killarney Farms from the name of a rose blossom which he raised.
Peter's brother, Andrew, sent him 10,000 asparagus fern plants from Connecticut, and they were planted in low, rich soil near the edge of a lake in 1904. Many were killed by cold weather. In 1906, they tried again on higher, sandy ground and were successful. Pierson soon became the center of the fern industry.
This was later the home of Eugene and Ursula Pierson.
John Van Horne homesteaded on the shore of what came to be known as Horne Lake and donated the land for the one-room Horneville School, built of lumber supplied by the county. The school opened in the winter of 1884 with the sole teacher being John L. Cade, who had moved here from Kentucky with his family earlier that year. The school year was three months long and Cade was paid $30 per month.
A two-story schoolhouse was erected by 1892. Edna Willicombe taught grades one through eight. Grades nine and ten were added in 1917, and soon after it became Pierson Junior High School. Central High School of Northwest Volusia County was built in Barberville, and Pierson's older students went there until the early 1920s. That school building was expanded from four rooms to six in 1924, and was torn down in 1964.
In 1926, a new high school with stuccoed walls and a clay tile roof was constructed. High school students were gradually shifted from Barberville, at the rate of one grade per year.
This facility is dedicated to Northwest Volusia County veterans from wars beginning with World War I.
Mr. and Mrs. Moulton-Woods of London owned a South American rubber plantation and wintered here. Their home in Pierson was styled after a typical English country manor with ornate trim on the porches and balconies. They had this ditch dug for drainage from their property into Kinney Lake. After the house burned in the mid-1930s, a small one was built to replace it.
Lake Pierson was formerly known as Lake Echo and then Lake Kinney, named for J. Park Kinney, a Chicago perfume manufacturer who was one of the wealthy northerners seeking warmer winters here. He had a magnificent estate established on the west side of the lake and planted large pineapple and orange groves. The 1895 freeze wiped out all of the citrus, causing Kinney to sustain a $1 million loss in one night.
A portion of the property was later acquired by Florence Vannote. The house was purchased by Drs. Underwood, and was later owned by Eugene Pierson, then Clair Strockman, and then Vincent Hallman.
Today's library, formerly the city hall, sits on a portion of what was known as the Randolph Grove, owned by Maj. W.F. Randolph of Greenville, Mississippi. The present Fountain Dr. runs through what once was the grove. Randolph had a cottage near the later site of James Muller's home.
In 1926, the Town of Pierson incorporated, and soon after Second Ave. was paved. Shortly after incorporation, A.C.M. Anderson bought the grove, and opened Fountain Dr. through it.
The brick post office was built by A.C.M. Anderson, who lived in a house he built on the former Gunter Grove.
In the late 1920s, A.C.M. Anderson built a store here. Previously, he had built the Pleasing Store, a grocery on the former site of the Randolph Packing House. The Pleasing Store was later owned by A.J.V. Johnson.
A Pictorial History of West Volusia County 1870-1970, by William J. Dreggors, Jr. and John Stephen Hess (E.O. Painter Printing Co. 1989)
Reflections: West Volusia County, by M.E. Ross et al. (1976)
Volusia: The West Side, by Arthur E. Francke, Jr., Alyce Hockaday Gillingham, and Maxine Carey Turner (West Volusia Historical Society 1986)
Click here for a copy of the trail rules.