Cornelius Taylor and the Settlement of Enterprise
First settler on the upper St. Johns River, 1841

By Edgar Taylor, Jr., great-great grandson and historian, Pittsburgh, PA

Cornelius Taylor, the founder of Enterprise, was born in the mid-1780s, possibly on the frontier in western Pennsylvania or in what became the Panhandle of West Virginia. He was a big man for the times, well over six feet in height and in his later years, weighing well over 200 pounds. He served in the War of 1812 in Ohio, and at the closure of that war settled in the Indiana - Illinois Territory. There he built a tavern and ran a ferry.

The rough life and disappointments of the western frontier were often reflected in his actions and attitudes in his later years. As a boarder at the Taylor hotel in Enterprise stated, "(he was) fitted by nature and habit to the rough and adventurous life of a pioneer in the wilderness: bold in his speech, fearless in his conduct and not over(ly) scrupulous in his means of action for the accomplishment of his object(ive)."

By 1826 he had settled in Pablo, at the mouth of San Pablo Creek in northern Florida and had married Mary Dewees, the younger daughter of Andrew and Catherine "Chicken" Dewees. Family tradition says that Cornelius came to Florida with the military. Mary Dewees died shortly after her marriage to Cornelius Taylor, and within a few years he married her niece, Catherine Hall, the widow of William Hall.

Catherine Hall was the daughter of the Minorcan Josef Joaneda y Florit
(aka John Floyd) and his wife Elizabeth "Isabella" Dewees, the older daughter of Andrew and Catherine. Catherine’s personality appears to have reflected the refinement of her mother, born and raised in Charleston, and her cooking ability probably reflected her Minorcan heritage. The Minorcans were among the settlers brought to New Smyrna by Dr. Turnbull in 1768.

While living at Pablo on the Grant, Cornelius Taylor built a mill and a wharf on the St. Johns River to saw and ship live oak, much in demand in those years to build naval vessels. There is some evidence that he built a sugar cane mill there as well (Perhaps the one at Enterprise was built under his direction).

Cornelius was relatively well educated for his time, and believed education important for his children, hiring a teacher for them while at Pablo. While living in Texas, he enrolled his son in a boys’ military school in Louisiana.

He was very active in the politics of the day. It was during this period that his friend, Charles Downing, the first representative to the U. S. Congress for the Florida Territory, obtained for Cornelius an appointment as the government timber agent for the public lands in East Florida. His efforts to curtail cutting live oak on public lands lead to many hard feelings with his neighbors. Downing also got Cornelius a postal route from St. Augustine to St. Mary’s, Georgia. Cornelius and Catherine’s only surviving son was named for Charles Downing.

In the fall of 1836, at the second uprising of the Indians, Cornelius volunteered at Pablo as First Lieutenant to organize a militia of mounted scouts or spies. Among the members of this group was John Carrol Houston, the husband of Catherine’ s daughter, Mary Virginia Hall. Before the end of the hostilities, Cornelius had been promoted to captain.

Toward the end of the Second Seminole War, under the Florida Armed Occupation Act of 1842, the U.S. government began to issue land patents or grants in unsettled areas of Florida, south of existing populations. The settlements were to serve as "buffers" between the towns in the Northeast and the Indians.

In late 1841 or early 1842, Cornelius formed a company of single men and families living near the mouth of the St. Johns River, and with them journeyed by government boats to sites on the shore of Lake Monroe. There he and others, in the wilds of Florida, established the settlement of Enterprise on the north shore of Lake Monroe. Among these families was that of John Carrol Houston, the DeMasters, and Simpsons. At one point Cornelius complained in a St. Augustine newspaper that the government, through the US Army, had not supported the settlers as they had promised: for example, not providing ammunition for battles foreseen with the Indians. As a result, many of the settlers, he reported, were leaving to return to their former homes.

In Enterprise he built a two-story hotel on top of the old shell mound, as a winter retreat for northerners. The Niles Weekly Register reported in 1846, "Last winter hundreds of invalids, guests of Maj. Taylor, were cured by drinking from and bathing in (the three springs), near his property."

During the years at Enterprise, Cornelius served at least one term as the representative to the Territorial Legislature for Mosquito County. During his term in office he attempted unsuccessfully several times to get the name of the county changed from Mosquito. He was successful in getting the county site moved from New Smyrna to Enterprise in early February 1843. In August 1843, he went to Washington to fight for the timber rights of his constituents, but the U.S. Attorney General ruled that they could cut only timber to be used for habitation and cultivation of the land. The settlers thus lost a potentially large income.

It was during this period, too, that Cornelius may have been part owner of the steamboat Charles Downing. Built in St. Augustine, this steamship ran between St. Augustine and Charleston, S.C.

Life was hard in mid-Florida, and the children, especially, were hard hit in the summer. In September 1842, Cornelius and Catherine’s eldest daughter, Mary Arabella, died in an epidemic and was buried on a knoll beyond the hotel. Not many years after that, the Taylor family would leave Florida to take up ranching in southern Texas to supply cattle to the US Army. This enterprise proved to be short lived, due to trouble with the Indians in the area.

Sometime during 1849, Cornelius set out alone for California for the Gold Rush. However, on his way to California he was to lose his life when a hurricane sank his ship off the coast of Mexico. Catherine then brought her son, Charles Downing, back to Florida, leaving her married daughter, Elizabeth Carroll, in Texas. It appears that
Catherine first returned to Enterprise, where the family of her daughter Mary Virginia Houston was still living. For some time she may have continued to run the Taylor hotel there. However, by the mid-1860s she and her then-widowed daughter, Carroll, were operating a boarding house in Jacksonville. The property at Enterprise would be sold after several years.

Charles Downing Taylor in his teens went to Arkansas to work for a stepbrother, a captain and pilot of a steamship on the Arkansas River. Charles served in the War Between the States from Arkansas, rising from enlisted ranks to that of captain. Following the war, he returned to Jacksonville to take up the profession of steamboat captain on the St. Johns River. In later years he was, first, Customs Officer at the mouth of the St. Johns River, and then, secretary to the health department of Jacksonville.

Catherine, Carroll, and Charles all died in Jacksonville and are buried there. The Houstons are buried in a cemetery in Eau Gallie, Florida. There are many in Florida and elsewhere who are their descendants.

 

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