97 Central Avenue

The area comprising the Atwood Tract Subdivision is situated between the early 18th century Indian villages of Pocotalaca to the south and Palica to the north. The subdivision corresponds exactly with the 1792 land grant to Martin Hernandez, a Minorcan who was royal carpenter of the fortifications and who converted the property into one of the first commercial orange groves in Florida. The road to the San Sebastian ferry, present-day Kingsferry Street, formed the southern boundary of the tract and led to Hernandez other grant on the west side of the river. [1] Throughout the first half of the 19th century, the groves were owned by Jose Mariano Hernandez, a prominent Territorial period politician and landowner who participated in the capture of Osceola. The property was purchased in 1865 by Anna Atwood, wife of George Atwood, a leader of the Florida Radical Republicans after the Civil War and former county clerk. In 1887, the Atwoods conveyed title to the St. Augustine Improvement Company, a leading local real estate firm headed by William Warden and Heth Canfield, which subdivided the property the following year. Development proceded rapidly to the west of Central Avenue. Some of the first houses along Park Place and DeHaven Street were built by Whites while the rest of the tract was developed as a Black residential area, one of the first of such neighborhoods outside the original Lincolnville community. [2]