AARON JERNIGAN: POSTMASTER, LEGISLATOR – MURDER SUSPECT

It would be nice if all of Orange County’s founding fathers had been solid, upstanding citizens – the kind of people for whom we gratefully build statues and name streets. But that wasn’t always the case.

One of the most enigmatic figures of Orange County’s pioneer days was Aaron Jernigan, the first American settler to record a homestead claim inside the county’s current boundaries.

Jernigan unquestionably was a community leader: He was Orange County’s first representative in the Legislature, a leading cattleman, the area’s first postmaster and a captain in the Florida Mounted Militia who repeatedly led troops to defend settlers from Seminoles.

On the other hand, Jernigan had a dark side. As Flashback has reported previously, he was in trouble with the law frequently in the early 1850s – sued often by neighbors to whom he owed money, convicted of assault and battery after being indicted on an attempted murder charge and investigated by the governor for alleged mistreatment of Seminoles while leading the militia (he was exonerated).

But undoubtedly the most serious trouble Jernigan faced was a murder charge in 1859. Jernigan, three of his sons and three other men were indicted by an Orange County grand jury in the slaying of William H. Wright outside the Orlando post office.

But Jernigan and five of the others never faced trial – escaping from jail in Ocala. Jernigan was recaptured but broke out of the same jail again, then caught up with his eldest son in 1861 and made his way to Texas.

Jernigan spent nearly the next 25 years in Texas, technically a fugitive, before returning to Orlando in the mid-1880s where he quietly lived out his years.

Perhaps all this is why there is no Aaron Jernigan High School here.

The circumstances that led to Wright’s death are unclear. (Some researchers say he was shot; others think he was stabbed.) An account taken from old Florida newspapers in James M. Denham’s book, A Rogue’s Paradise, which is about crime and punish- ment in antebellum Florida, says only that Wright was killed during “a general fight” at the post office. At that time, Orlando’s “post office” was in John Worthington’s general store.

In any case, the seven men might have considered the slaying to have been in self-defense or otherwise justifiable because they turned themselves in before “unexpectedly” being indicted for murder by the grand jury, Denham’s account says. Jernigan also was charged with carrying arms secretly, according to Orange County Circuit Court records.

Bail was denied for six of the seven. Because Orange County had no jail, Circuit Judge Benjamin A. Putnam ordered Sheriff Jonathan Stewart to have the prisoners taken under guard to the nearest jail, which was in Ocala, and held there until their trial that fall.

They arrived at the Marion County Jail on April 9, 1859. Jail records unearthed by Jernigan researcher Kay Stone of Lakeland show the men were fed at a cost of 40 cents per day each until their escape on April 22.

There is no record of four of the escapees ever being recaptured. Jernigan’s eldest son, Aaron Jr., fled to Texas. An account he gave many years later says he lived in Port Lavaca near Indianola on the Gulf for about a year.

But Jernigan was caught along with a second defendant in the case, William M. Tyler, who was married to Jernigan’s daughter, Martha. They were returned to the Marion County Jail in mid-January 1860.

An account in Tampa’s Florida Peninsular newspaper said that a month later, on Feb. 16, 1860, Jernigan “again became weary of confinement.” When jailer E.J. Harris brought his dinner, Jernigan “made a hard struggle” to get Harris’ gun and the key to his cell. He got onto a horse that was right outside and fled before anyone could respond to Harris’ call for help. Tyler remained in jail.

On April 19, 1860, Tyler was tried in Orlando on the murder charge and found guilty of involuntary manslaughter. He was sentenced to 30 days in jail and fined $200. But several weeks after being returned to the jail in Ocala to serve his time, he, too, escaped a second time.

During the court session that April, Putnam issued a warrant for the arrest of all those at large in the case. When the circuit court convened again that November, the murder case was transferred to the absentee docket and another arrest warrant for the fugitives was issued.

Jernigan apparently hid out in Central Florida until Aaron Jr. returned from Texas and met him in Sumter County the next year. The two of them, along with others in Jernigan’s family, then went to Tampa where they took a steamer to New Orleans. From there, they all went to Texas, which historians say was a popular hiding place for Floridians on the run. Aaron Sr. and most of his family settled in Bonham, Texas. Aaron Jr. separated from the rest and eventually served with the Confederate Army in the Civil War.

Next week, details on the Jernigans’ first homestead claims and a disability pension request for injuries suffered during the Third Seminole War.

Originally Published: June 14, 1998 at 4:00 AM EDT