CHAPTER X.

THE SANFOKD GEANT AND ORANGE COUNTY.

The Sanford grant is probably the most extensive land
enterprise in the State, and is very likely to become the
center of a most flourishing region, unlike anything else of
the kind attempted in the United States ; for nowhere else
is there any tract of land with a situation so peculiarly
advantageous for commercial enterprises, for settlement,
and for variety of products.

In 1870 General Henry S. Sanford, of Connecticut,
made an extensive tour through Florida, closely examining
her many resources and most advantageous localities, and
was so impressed with the tract which now bears his name
that he effected a purchase of it. It was one of the Span¬
ish grants, so frequent wherever Spanish authority existed,
and so famous for uncertain surveying and legal complica¬
tions.

The tract embraces twenty-two square miles, compris¬
ing about thirteen thousand acres, nearly all of good qual¬
ity and susceptible of profitable cultivation. It lies on the
south shore of Lake Monroe, a pretty little inland sea,
about ten miles long by five miles wide, into which the
upper St. John's empties, and out of which the larger St.
John's flows. It is practically at the head of the river nav¬
igation—that is, for the larger and better class of steamers.
It is one hundred and sixty-five miles from Jacksonville by
water route, as shown by the United States Coast Survey,
or about one hundred and ten miles on an air-line.    The