In Search of Royallieu
On the origins of Mount Dora’s “original” name
by John Hoechst with David Cohea
The way most people tell it, Mount Dora’s original name was Royellou — named, supposedly, after Roy, Ella and Lou Tremain, children of the city’s first postmaster, Ross Tremain.
But history is always up for revision, each successive draft building a surer and clearer map for succeeding ones.
A closer examination of historic documents reveals that Royellou wasn’t the first name of the city, but rather a misspelling of the location of the area’s first post office in the village of Royallieu, just north of what is now downtown Mount Dora.
In the earliest days of settlement, postal delivery was made by wagon, stopping at a number of small communities on the trail from Fort Mason near Pendryville (now Eustis) down to Royallieu, on to the still-unnamed community next to the shore of Lake Dora, then further south to Tangerine and Zellwood.
With the arrival of steamships into the Harris Chain of Lakes, delivery of the mail and other supplies were re-routed through the waterways. This helped establish one of the first business on the east shore of Lake Dora. A new postal location was called for, and in 1883, Mount Dora officially came into being.
And with Mount Dora growing rapidly from that point, Royellou became a footnote in the history of the area.
But to go back …
* * *
Sometime around 1879 or early 1880, a handful of pioneers began to settle to a small area on the east side of Lake Dora, which at that time was in Orange County, Florida. Their logic holds up to this day: To settle close to an area which provided reasonable access to those necessary goods required for daily living — and maybe earn an income, too.
During this period, the high grounds on the east side of Lake Dora were mostly virgin pine trees and field grass. This area also had a few overgrown wetland areas which surrounded many of the lakes, and several drainage fingers cutting deep up into the high grounds to handle the upland water run-off. One such example of this can be seen today as you enter Mount Dora from the north on Donnelly Street, about one half mile south of US-441.
Because of this, the few roads that did exist in this area in 1879 ran mostly along the upridges of the high ground, about a half mile or so east of the east shore line of Lake Dora.
Evidence of this can be seen on a 1879 map of Orange County depicting a road running from Sorrento heading west toward Lake Dora, then turning north toward Pendryville (now called Eustis). Some other earlier maps note this road as the Mellonville to Fort Mason Road, and later as one of the branches of the Old Dixie Highway (what is now SR-46). The east-west leg would have included small communities like Dublin (along First Avenue, west of the intersection of present intersection of SR-46 and US-441, Indian Springs and Sorrento. The Sorrento post office would have served these communities.
The location of these roads on the 1879 map were probably based on limited survey data and would have been represented and mapped at approximate positions. The east-west road, which passes through the southerly part of Section Thirty-Two appears to mimic the alignment of the present-day railroad right of way. Earliest evidence of the construction of the railroad does not show-up in public records until late 1882.
Other evidence of the original road location shows up in the government survey notes for the township surveys in 1849. Although I believe the best evidence for the location of this road can be determined from a line of historic homes that still exist today running north and south through Sections Thirty-Two and Twenty-Nine. This line runs just to the east of Clayton Street and represents some of the oldest homes in the area. This area would have been the seeding bases for the development of a new town.
The original alignment of this road was created well before the government surveys, either from old Indian trail or trails created by government solders traveling between the different forts of that time. The road would have traveled along a line of least resistance and meandered through the middle of what would later become private property.
As with many of the developing areas of this time, towns generally formed around the areas of growing population and economic growth. The naming of these communities was often related to other nearby geographic landmarks, names of local prominent land owners or developers and original settlers in the area, or for less obvious source.
Whatever Royallieu’s origin was, it is without question that the official name and address assigned by the United States Post Department on August 26, 1880, was Route 16201, Royallieu, Florida. Mail Route 16201 ran from Fort Mason, south through Royallieu and on to Zellwood.
Evidence of this fact is shown on the archived records of the United States Post Office Department, on file at the National Archives in Washington D.C. These records contain a site location map that was filed by the applicant who was requesting the approval of the new post office; it shows the location of the town of Royallieu in Section 29, Township 19 South, Range 27 East.
During this time, not all U.S. Post Offices were operated out of government-owned buildings but rather in the homes and local businesses in the areas close to the general population. Postmasters were not elected; rather they got the job by applying to the U.S. Post Office Department in Washington D.C. It was a means of making additional income in a time when employment opportunities were limited.
Postmasters were appointed for a five-year term and could be re-appointed again after that term. The length of time a person remained as postmaster varied based on personal circumstances and changes in the developing area. Per the United States Post Office Department’s records, Rop (or Ross) C. Tremain was the first listed postmaster for Royallieu. Tremain was postmaster for only thirty-four days, followed by Isaac M. Mabbette, the second postmaster of Royalieu, effective September 29, 1880. Isaac Mabbette remained postmaster for about one and a half years.
Ross Tremain and Isaac Mabbette were neighbors who had originally filed homestead claims in the area around Lake Joanna (across from what is now the Loch Leven development on SR-44). The story has it that when Mabbette first built his home near the southeast shore of Lake Joanna, it was found to have been constructed on someone else’s property due to a miss-interpreted government survey line. Court records document a suit in which Mabbette lost this home. He then moved south to a ten-acre site near Mount Dora.
On file in the public records of Orange County is a deed filed in Deed Book “V”, Page 654, showing where William J. Hill sold to I. M. Mabbette a ten-acre parcel located in the SW ¼ of the SE ¼ of the NE ¼ of Section 29, Township 19 South, Range 27 East, for a total cost of twenty-five dollars.
Mabbette later sold this property to John L. Dodds for four hundred dollars; the deed is for the property “together with all the improvements,” which indicates a structure may had been built on the property.
Contrary to earlier accounts, it was this property — the site of Isaac Mabbette’s second home — that would become the future location the original Royallieu Post Office.
Furthermore, the name “Royellou” or “Royallieu” may not refer to the three children of Ross Tremain, but rather to a local family with the last name of Royal who had a homestead in this area at the time. Another possibility is that the town was been named after French village of Royallieu, located in Compiegne, France, as Mabbette may have had ties there, too.
In a further twist to the story, the structure is still standing today on this property and is called the Witherspoon Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons It’s one of Florida’s oldest African-American lodges, and in 2009 it was added to the National Register of Historic Places. In the early 1920s the building was used for the school for Mount Dora’s black children while the Milner-Rosenwald Academy was being built, and in the years since it served as a meeting place for a variety of community organizations.
The historic plaque mounted in front of the Witherspoon Lodge states “date of construction unknown.” A deed recorded at the Orange County Comptroller’s Office shows the property where the Lodge stands today was previously owned by Isaac Mabbette and sold to the Trustees of Witherspoon Lodge on April 23, 1921. If the Mount Dora area’s first post office was indeed in Mabbette’s house, then the Northeast Community can also add that honor to its own history.
Now back to the other end of the story. The area that is now downtown Mount Dora began to change when mail started to be brought into the area by steamship. One of the delivery points was the steamboat dock at the east end of Lake Dora known as Alexander & Rhodes Store. The store was a two-story building set on piers over the water and was located on what is now the shoreline of the Lakeside Inn property. It allowed docking for the steamships where they could on and off load supplies, mail and visitors. The steamships ran as often as twice a day.
A new post office location called Mount Dora was granted by the U.S. Postal Department on January 12, 1883, and awarded to postmaster George A. Rhodes. Shortly thereafter, on March 15, 1883, John A. Alexander in partnership with John A. MacDonald filed into the public records the plat of “Town of Mt. Dora.” One third of the lands shown on this plat was already owned by Annie Stone and John P. Donnelly. And so Mount Dora’s official history began.
At the same time, MacDonald was looking further around the area and saw an opportunity for developing properties for winter visitors. He created a land-planning map early on and continued to update it for the next six or seven years. He used this map to market the property throughout the Golden Triangle area, mailing copies of of his map to prospective buyers in the northern states showing available properties and their location within his grand plan. One of the final copies of this map can be seen on the back wall of the Eustis Library.
There is no evidence that MacDonald ever lived in Mount Dora, but at one time he did own a good portion of the town, purchased from Annie Stone. The town was carved out of Annie’s original homestead purchased by her husband William M. Stone on April 14,1875.
It should be noted that the first choice of the town’s name wasn’t Mount Dora but Glencoe. That name is recorded in one of the first deeds showing Annie selling a portion of her homestead. The deed, executed on June 30, 1881, references the property as Block 23, Section 30, Town Plat of Glencoe. This property is located on the north side of what is now Eleventh Street, between Annie Street and McDonald.
MacDonald’s plan would have large consequences for the development of Mount Dora. He envisioned a number of small villages connected throughout the Golden Triangle with districts for recreation, business and agriculture (citrus). John Alexander and J.P. Donnelly had larger plans — they envisioned cities — but they used MacDonald’s plan as well. One of the cornerstone properties for both is what is now the Lakeside Inn and Pineapple Point.
(Note: When Pineapple Point sold last year, Mel DeMarco of the Mount Dora Citizen wrote about the property based on her interview with John Hoechst and his knowledge of the its history. You can read it here and here.)
The way a planet will collect satellite moons in its orbit, so Mount Dora absorbed the neighboring villages of Glencoe an Royallieu and Dublin to form the city we know now. Scant traces of these original communities still exist, though you can still find them if you know where to look.
John Hoechst is a semi-retired surveyor and local history buff. David Cohea is director of Live Oak Collective, a Mount Dora-based historic preservation initiative.
