Southern Oaks Beginning
I received the following paragraphs from William S. Morgan, V:
Southern Oaks has been considered prime real estate since the earliest days of American settlement. It lays just north of the old homestead of Judge William Randolph (father-in-law of both clerk of courts Benjamin Robinson and the well-known writer Will Wallace Harney of Pine Castle) and just east of the homestead of Dr. Ouachita Pushmataha Preston (whose wife Jennie Preston was the namesake of Lake Jennie Jewel). The Eppes family, descendants of President Thomas Jefferson, also lived in the vicinity.
In the 1880s, the South Florida Railroad pushed thru Orange County with the financial backing of Boston capitalists. They encouraged their fellow New Englanders to follow the new line and acquire some of the fertile grove land along its route. One of these was William Henry Odiorne, who acquired the site of what would become Southern Oaks.
Mr. Odiorne was born in Boston on 7 September 1833, and was educated at Harvard University. As a young man, he worked as a surveyor and lived for a time in Chicago, Illinois. On his new property in Orlando, he established an orange grove. But, he and his wife were not year-round residents, entrusting management of the grove to local superintendents.
Mrs. Odiorne was a faithful member of the First Baptist Church of Gloucester, Massachusetts, and contributed the following recipe for orange marmalade to a fundraising cookbook published by the church in 1900:
“Wash the oranges and slice very thin, rejecting the seeds. To each pound of the fruit add three pints of cold water and let it stand twenty-four hours, then boil until the skin is tender. Allow them to stand until next day, then weigh, and to every pound add one-and-one-half pounds of sugar. Boil until the syrup jellies and the chips are tender. Six oranges take three quarts of water and seven pounds of sugar.”
She probably perfected this recipe during the winter months the Odiorne family spent on their grove land.
Mr. Odiorne died on his Orlando property on 31 January 1905, after which his widow and children began selling off parcels of the grove. The portion that became the site of Southern Oaks was acquired by John and Elnora Caplinger in 1916, but they only held it for a short time before reselling it to Rev. Robert Campbell Anderson, Jr.
Rev. Anderson eventually acquired most of the parcels that formerly belonged to the Odiornes, consolidating them as Anderson Grove, Inc. But, like the Odiornes, he was primarily an absentee landlord.
Rev. Anderson was the son of Robert Campbell Anderson, Sr., pioneer Presbyterian minister of Martinsville, Virginia. He followed in his father’s footsteps and pastored a church in Charlotte, North Carolina. He later became president of Montreat College, and wrote a history of that institution in 1949.
Rev. Anderson died 20 February 1955. His wife Sadie Gaither Anderson survived him until 3 October 1962, after which the grove was deeded to a trust that developed Southern Oaks as a residential subdivision. The Andersons are buried in Charlotte.
I extracted the following information from our “Abstract Of Title”, which we received when we purchased our property in Southern Oaks:
Rev. Anderson acquired individual parcels of what is now Southern Oaks as early as 1913, 1917, 1921, and 1934. I believe there was an old “grove house” on this land near 3224 Wald Road (Edgecliffe to Wald Road somewhere at the first bend where Wald Road changes from West/East to North/South).
In 1952 R. C. Anderson transferred parcels 4, 5, and 6 to Anderson Grove, Inc.
R. C. Anderson acquired parcels 1 and 2 in 1925 by means of a tax sale. He diligently kept paying the taxes on this property, when in 1965 he was sued by the heirs of Frances Foster who wanted to reclaim the property. He finally won the suit and now possessed parcels 1-6 of the land, which eventually became Southern Oaks.
In 1967 Anderson Grove, Inc. secured a mortgage with the Orlando Bank & Trust Company for $400,000 to start to develop the land. Anderson also granted a trust, Southern Oaks, to Austin A Caruso, John J. Walsh and W. Russell Anderson. The trust granted the City of Orlando easements to construct sewers, drainage, and roads and thus was granted permission to start the development of the Southern Oaks Subdivision.
The covenants for Southern Oaks were recorded in 1968 and the Southern Oaks Declaration of Restrictions were recorded in 1969.
The first house built in Southern Oaks was 1201 Montcalm Street, built in 1969. The second floor railing used to be New Orleans style wrought iron:
The first family to move into Southern Oaks was the Victor Smith Family, which still lives here:
The last house built in Southern Oaks was 1041 Ridgecrest Road, built in 2010:
