On Friday of last week, I took my intern to the Orange County Regional History Center’s Lunch and Learn on Greenwood Cemetery where I found an informative look into the general public’s interest in the cemetery. The talk was packed and several attendees mentioned wanting to take walking tours, which is very promising for the digital walking tour! I’ll be touching base with Cheyenne Stastyshyn to collaborate with her on her research that she will be publishing next month in an article for The Community Paper.
After the talk, one of the curators gave us a tour of the archive and we got to see ‘behind the scenes’ which was a lot of fun for me. Truth be told, I’ve been itching to see the stacks for the longest time and I certainly wasn’t disappointed. We chatted about the types of objects in the collection and what the weirdest thing is, which sparked a few ideas between the curator and myself for some exhibits. I could certainly see myself working at the History Center in the future!
Now, onto my more exciting news! I’ve solved a 130-year-old mystery; the story of Fred Weeks and the land deal gone bad. While I’m not going to go into my findings here (you'll have to wait to take the tour!), I will share the oft-told story that originated in Karl P. Abbott's Open for the Season (1950), an autobiography of Abbot's life as a hotelier. At the time of the incident with Weeks, Abbott was 4 years old and living at the San Juan Hotel in Orlando where his father worked as a clerk. While Abbott’s narrative about Fred Weeks never specifically named him, is nevertheless the earliest version of the story outside of the primary sources I gathered. Though this version has been repeated many times, and was a particular favorite of former Greenwood Cemetery Sexton, Don Price, the story appeared to have a few holes when I first started researching. However, to my amazement, much of the story is true and in all honesty, parts are even more interesting than Abbott's story made it seem!
Here’s the original narrative. Take a gander and see if you can work out what’s true and what was obscured by the memory of a small boy many years later:
“There were a number of remittance men from England living in Orlando. One, who lived in our hotel, used to take me riding all over the country with a mule and buckboard. There were no bridges, and I had to hold my feet up crossing fords. Once we drove by a twenty-acre tract being cleared of underbrush. We couldn’t see the back half because so many brush fires were going and the smoke was thick. The owners, three “Johnny-come-latelies,” extolled the fertility of the soil and the beauty of the location and my friend bought the place. The next day he drove Father and me back to view his purchase. The fires were out and we could see that most of the back acres were useless swamp. The Englishman didn’t say a word. He just turned the mule around and drove home. A few days later he bought a lot at the entrance to the cemetery and set up a large tombstone which read: “There was a man who came down from Jericho and fell among thieves; their names were…” followed by the names of the real estate sharks who had sold him the land. The gale of merriment that swept Orlando forced the three to give the Englishman back his money, buy his cemetery lot, and take down the tombstone, without a shot being fired- an unusual proceeding in those days.” Karl P. Abbott, Open for the Season (New York: Doubleday & Company, 1950), 44-45.
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