Pine Castle Historical Markers - part 3

MACY HOTEL

William H. Macy (1819-1903) came to this area as a government surveyor in the years immediately following the Civil War, and was elected to the Orlando city council in 1878. An engineer by training, he followed the rail lines south to the Pine Castle area and opened a blacksmith shop west of the tracks. This shop served as the town’s first Sunday School meeting place until it burned in 1884.

His wife Martha J. Macy (1835-1906) acquired 10 acres of Will Wallace Harney’s original homestead lands, which later encompassed the site of the modern First Baptist Church of Pine Castle. Here, Mrs. Macy operated the town’s first hotel, with many of her guests brought from Orlando by “Macy Wagons” built by her stepson George Macy. After the railroad arrived in 1881, visitors also arrived by train at the nearby South Florida Railroad depot.

In 1894, Mrs. Macy deeded a half-acre of the hotel land at what is now the northeast corner of Randolph Avenue and Hoffner Road to the local Baptist congregation. Though now paved over, it is believed that she and other family members were buried there.