Samuel Frederick de Bary

Among the prominent guests at Brock’s hotel were Samuel Frederick de Bary and Henry A. DeLand. DeBary, an agent for Mum’s Champagne in New York, purchased 5,000 acres to the west of Enterprise in 1871 and built DeBary Hall, a grand 20-room mansion/hunting lodge, as a winter retreat for his family and friends. Over the next decade, he cultivated thousands of acres of orange trees in the area, shipping the fruit north on his steamboat line.

All Saints Episcopal Church

Frederick de Bary (spelled with a small “d”) was interested in establishing a church in Enterprise. Most church services had been conducted at the Brock House or outside on the lawn. Together with Arthur Benson of Montauk, New York, de Bary donated funds for the construction of All Saints Episcopal Church, completed in 1883. Donations were also made by guests at the Brock House and visitors to DeBary Hall. Today the church is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Second Enterprise Courthouse

Enterprise remained the county seat until 1888 when the growing population in DeLand voted to make that town the new seat. The old Enterprise courthouse had been sold in 1891 to the Board of Instruction for a Normal School. It continued to be used as a school until torn down in 1917 for a new school on the site. The present two-story structure (the second oldest building) was built in 1936 for the older grades. In 1964 a fire started by lightning completely destroyed the older building.

But the courthouse building was not the oldest school in Enterprise. That honor goes to a freedmen’s school formed by Charles Chipman in 1869. “I am now teaching about fifteen scholars by the light of pine knots in front of my shanty, after working through the day trying to get a potato crop growing.” Chipman asked the freedmen’s bureau to build a schoolhouse for students here and for the 25 waiting for a teacher at Sauls, but the bureau ceased operation, and his request went unfilled.

St. Paul’s African Methodist Episcopal Church

In the 1880s, black residents held fairs and potluck suppers to raise funds for their own church. Finally, in the late 1880s, St. Paul’s African Methodist Episcopal Church was built. Originally located off Old Titusville Road, it is one of the earliest AME churches in Central Florida. The Rev. A. A. Fleming also supervised the congregation in the construction of a schoolhouse around 1890.

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