Editor’s note: This is the latest installment of our feature Better Country Beyond, with excerpts from DeLandite Karen Ryder’s book about the early days of the founding of the city of DeLand.

The Beacon is indebted to Donna Jean Flood, a DeLand financial adviser with Edward Jones, for the idea for this series, part of our ongoing West Volusia Memories series by community writers.

Clara Rich’s account of her trip to Florida with her 2-year-old son in January 1876 includes an especially detailed description of what happened after her steamboat arrived at the Cabbage Bluff landing. The travel plans called for her to then take a buggy from Alexander’s Landing on Lake Beresford to the Rich cabin in Persimmon Hollow. 

Since the river waters near Beresford are too shallow for any steamboats to make it all the way into the lake, passengers with a Beresford destination first had to travel overland to the east for approximately 1 mile to get to the west shore of the lake.

Clara was met at Cabbage Bluff by her husband, John, and they set out overland through the woods — John carrying their 2-year-old son and Clara carrying a suitcase. 

The landing was on the east side of the lake, so when the Rich family got to the western lakeshore, they attracted the attention of a young man who came over in a rowboat and carried them across the lake to the Landing on the opposite shore. (Other pioneers told of shooting off their guns to summon an oxcart that would come around the north end of the lake and take them back to the landing.)  

For the final leg of Clara’s journey, Capt. Alexander himself drove the buggy that took the Rich family “through the absolutely trackless forest” to her newly completed log cabin where, very quickly, she dryly noted, she began to experience the “inconveniences” of the pioneer life.   

Clara’s journal also includes a description of the ordeals some of the other women encountered when they made their maiden voyages to the new settlement near Persimmon Hollow.  

“Mrs. Allen had to stay all night at Beresford because the oxen that were to take her on had been turned out before the boat landed. Mrs. Voorhis and her six-month-old baby jogged along in the heat to get from Cabbage Bluff to their cabin. Mrs. Lancaster and her daughter rode in their cart from the river to Lake Gertie in the early morning, half laughing and half weeping until the dim loveliness of the dawn dried their tears.”

As Clara Rich noted, once newcomers to the area became better acquainted with other members of the community, they found that their mutual struggles bound them together.  

“Here neighbors were far apart yet so close together…while in the city they were close together yet so far apart.”  

The long distances between homesteads that could have isolated a family were overcome by a determined spirit. Clara described the first time she went calling with her 2-year-old son, navigating through the woods by keeping sight of “the old government blazes (surveyor’s section markings) on the trees.”  

After traveling by this method for over a mile, she spotted the neighbor’s house in the distance and headed straight for it. When she had completed her visit and was ready to go back home, “the man of the house” walked her out to the section line where she then followed the blazes back home again.

Another milestone occurred in that already historic month of December 1876, when Mrs. Rich gave birth to a daughter. Clara Belle Rich, who arrived in her parents’ cabin, was the first child born in the city of DeLand.  

From 1875 onward and for at least another decade, the Rich cabin could be regarded as the “The Cradle of DeLand” because of the many “firsts” associated with it. Besides being the location of the first birth, the first home built within the new town’s boundaries, and the place where Henry DeLand first dreamed of a city in the forest, it also was the venue for what probably was the first wedding in town. Soon it would also be the site of the swearing in of the city’s first mayor and the other city officials when the town was incorporated in 1882.

Eliza Wright, wife of Mayor Cyrenius Wright and mother of Clara Rich, died at the Rich cabin at the age of 62. Secretary Hettie Austin’s poetic memorial for her expressed the sentiments many were feeling about this loss: 

“The first link is broken in our circle of pioneers.  Peace to her ashes and a tear to her memory.”

— Contact the West Volusia Historical Society at 386-740-6813, or email delandhouse@msn.com to order a copy of Ryder’s book Better Country Beyond. Proceeds from the sale benefit the Historical Society.