BROOKSVILLE

Fort DeSoto, a military fort established about 1840 to protect settlers from the Seminoles, was located at the northeastern edge of present day Brooksville on Croom Road about one-half mile east of U.S. Highway 41. Fort DeSoto was also a trading post a regular stop on the Concord Stage Coach Line which ran from Palatka to Tampa, and later the Hart Florida Stage Line.

The fort was built on top of a heavy bed of limestone, a fact which they were unaware. This made it exceedingly difficult to obtain water, thus causing this location to be abandoned as a community site in the early 1840s. The population shifted about three miles south where a settlement first formed by the Hope and Saxon families became known as Pierceville. About this same time, another community named Melendez formed about two miles northwest of Pierceville.

In 1850 a post office was established at Melendez, and was replaced in 1854 by one in Pierceville. Mrs. Amanda Mann served as Postmaster when the mail was transferred to what would become Brooksville.

The county seat of Hernando County became in 1856, the newly named town of Brooksville. The name was chosen to honor Preston Brooks. Brooks, a congressman who nearly caned abolitionist Senator Charles Sumner to death in 1856 on the floor of the Senate after Sumner gave a speech which disparaged Brooks’ uncle, Senator Andrew Butler. The Pierceville post office was not renamed Brooksville until 1871 with Henry Rowntree as the first postmaster.

The City of Brooksville was settled by four pioneer families: the Howells which settled the northern part of town; the Jon L. Mays which settled the eastern part of town; the Hales on the west; and the Parsons on the south. The city was incorporated on October 13, 1880.

See “Independent and Confederate State Covers, Florida Covers by Town Postmark 1851 to date, and Hotel Covers” for Brooksville under the Postal Covers Category.

Source: Wikipedia

Main Street Looking North, Brooksville, Fla.

Hernando County

Hernando County began issuing scrip in 1862, with notes signed by Anderson Mayo, Treasurer and Perry Green Wall, Judge of Probate. Mayo was a wealthy plantation owner, who moved from South Carolina in 1851. Wall served in the Second Seminole War then settled west of Brooksville, the county seat, in 1845. After the war Wall became a judge and postmaster in Tampa.

1862 25 Cent Note Sailboat Design. Harley L. Freeman Collection

1862 25 Cent Note Gunboat Design. Harley L. Freeman Collection

1862 50 Cent Note Gunboat Design

1862 $1 Note Gunboat Design. Harley L. Freeman Collection

C.L. Friebele

Brooksville scrip was issued in 1862 by C.L. Friebele, who had been born in Karlsruhe, Germany, in 1815, and immigrated to Tampa in 1848. He operated a general store until February 1862, when he became a blockade runner during the war, was captured in 1864, and imprisoned for the remainder of the war.

1862 25 Cent Note Schooner Design

1862 50 Cent Note Tiny Schooner Design

1862 50 Cent Note Large Schooner Design

1862 $1 Note

First National Bank Of Brooksville (9891)

First National Bank of Brooksville in 1915.

First National Bank of Brooksville as it looks today

BillYoungerman standing in front of First National Bank

1902 $20 Plain Back
Charter #9891 Signed by Beulah McIntosh, a.cashier and Charles M. Price, president

1902 Three $10 Date Back and one $20 Date Back
Uncut Sheet Of Four Serial #1 notes Charter 9891

1902 Three $10 and one $20 Plain Back Uncut sheet of four notes. Charter 9891 signed by B.H. Robinson, cashier and F.B. Coogler, president

The First National Bank of Brooksville was organized October 10, 1910 and chartered little more than a month later November 21, 1910. When Florida Banking fell on hard times in March of 1929 Charles M. Price resigned, the bank was reorganized before its collapse and the new First National Bank in Brooksville, Charter #13320 was created.

Only 4 notes plus 2 uncut sheets are known on this rare bank.

First National Bank In Brooksville (13320)

1929 $5 Type 1 (only 2 known) Charter #13320 Signed by John Patterson, cashier and F.B. Coogler, president

1929 $10 Type 1
Charter #13320 Signed by John Patterson, cashier and F.B.. Coogler, president

1929 $20 Type 1
Charter #13320 Signed by W. Swank, cashier and F.B. Coogler, president

1932 $25 “pay to the order of” Note

Blank First National Bank Check

1929 $10 Type 2 Uncut Sheet Of (6) $10 Notes. Charter #13320

1929 $10 Type 2
Uncut Sheet Of (6) $10 Notes. Serial #1-6 Charter #13320 Signed by John Patterson, cashier and F.B. Coogler, pres.

First National Bank in Brooksville was chartered on May 14, 1929 after the original bank fell on hard times. March 6, 1939 the bank merged into the Hernando State Bank. Only 11 notes and 2 uncut sheets of notes are known on this bank.

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