Lake Charm

Lake Charm. . , Walter and Mattie Gwynn settled here in 1868. Gwynn served as comptroller of Florida from 1861-1865 and state treasurer from 1877-1881. Their daughter, Martha, named the lake. She said the lake and its beautiful surroundings provided her with healing properties found nowhere else thus it was “charmed.” , , In the early 1870’s Dr. Henry Foster, from Clifton Springs, New York, began to plant groves in the area and to persuade friends to build winter homes on Lake Charm. In 1880 Dr. Foster built the Lake Charm Memorial Chapel, which still stands today as a private residence at 6007 Lake Charm Circle. For more than 20 years eminent clergymen were invited to preach at the chapel during the winter. , , The adjacent parsonage later became the home of James H. and Laura Lee, early pioneers who arrived in 1874 at Lake Jesup and then at Lake Charm. Many of their descendants still live around the lake today. , (Continued on other side) . , (Continued from other side) . There are three other homes from that era that stand today. M.E. Owens built at 6179 Lake Charm Circle in 1882. Calvin Whitney, president of Chase Piano Company, New York, built at 6297 Lake Charm Circle in 1886 and Methodist Bishop Ninde at 6235 Lake Charm Circle about 1880. , , This resort area flourished in the 1880’s. For a few months in 1886 Lake Charm even had its own post office at Thomas Lawton’s store in “Lawtonville,” about a quarter mile south. O.H. Brewster had a large hotel on the northeast shore about 1887. In 1888 the landowners, organized as the Lake Charm Improvement Company, encircled the lake with one of the first paved sidewalks in Central Florida. , , However, the great freeze of January 1895, coming in the wake of the national panic of 1893, ended Lake Charm’s time as a resort.