Glorianne Fahs, curator of the Leesburg Heritage Society, called the other day to tell me that someone had dropped off some documents that involved G. C. Stapylton and would I like to peruse them. So this past Monday morning I did just that.
It seems that one J. M. Sams of Wild Wood [sic] mortgaged $2000.00 from Earl Geary, one of the colonists, for property in Rutland (Citrus County) about 1886. Although Geary operated a livery stable in Leesburg, that was a lot of money to be lending at that time. Morrison, Stapylton & Co. serviced the mortgage for Geary, the mortgagor. That meant that the “service company” paid all the bills, including taxes and expenses, for the grove that had been established. Over a period of five years or so Sams had trouble paying off the mortgage, not to mention expenses incurred.
Stapylton was clearly frustrated about the whole ordeal in a note that appears to have been written either to himself or inner-office: “Geary has no more to loan, but that I thought if Sams wld [sic] clear the record, he wld [sic] agree not to foreclose under say 6 mos [sic] of some time like that. Sams cld [sic] arrange a fresh loan from someone else, get it settled somehow and encourage the idea that Sams could arrange a fresh loan; perhaps Hollinshed [probably George Hollinshed, Sumter County, Florida Land Company] wld [sic] make it. Let us get it finally fixed. G. C. S.” Ah, an impatient facet of Stapylton’s personality.
As an aside, invoices sent to the bank for labor, etc. at the Sams Grove, are interesting. In 1890 a $14.00 charge for 14 days work burning logs and brush; two shovels, $2.00, $.25 for reframing tools, and $24.45 for 163 orange trees at $.15 each.
The Chetwynd Chronicles 