It was nearly Christmas in 1894 before Clay County residents experienced their first cold weather and it was a doozy. A hard freeze slipped in and ruined most of the fruit but the trees seemed fine and unseasonably warmer temperatures returned.

Most settlers breathed a sigh of relief, cleaned up the rotten fruit and even bragged a bit when new growth began to appear. Orange growing was the main occupation of many settlers and their primary sometimes only source of income.

The timber and turpentine industry and the hospitality industry were also thriving but tourists went home once the fierce northern winters ended and making a living from the woods was only for the very hardy.

Most of the settlers were new themselves and had no memory of the freeze 10 years before when temperatures reached 15 degrees and tropical fish, imported to impress in fancy hotels and the new-rich middle class, froze solid in their ornate shallow ponds.

Fewer still, only a handful of pioneers, remembered the 1835 freeze when thermometers dropped from 70 to 7 degrees in hours. One old-timer along Black Creek claimed he heard the mercury fall and went out on the porch to see what the thump was. There he listened to the creaking and cracking death of his orange trees.

On January 8, 1995, a chatty goings and doings column in The Florida Times-Union described groves as looking burned with black leaves and shriveled fruit still clinging and quoted W.E. Parmenter who predicted that severe pruning would be required but the trees appeared to have been saved.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief and went about cautiously enjoying the benefits of the unusual cold spell. The Westcott family invited friends to ice skating parties in the frozen shallows on the banks of their St. Johns Riverfront home. Merchants and professionals, less immediately affected by the freeze than farmers, complained about the cost for plumbers to repair broken pipes.

Mrs. Eldridge, hostess for the New Year’s party of the Orange Park Social Club, complained at the lack of oysters for her event – they had been frozen in their beds. Elite society of the times considered an opening course of oysters a requirement for a successful celebration. W.E. Parmenter was proud of his newly-finished hennery (chicken coop).

The cold weather generated a miniature crime wave in Orange Park with the appearance of sneak thieves and chicken snatchers. Mrs. Crocker had a load of wash stolen from her clothes line one night.

By February, most of the mess was cleaned up and folks were adjusting to the losses and then it happened again. Another hard freeze descended and this one sounded the death knell for the citrus industry in Clay County. Branches of trees that stretched 10 to 15 feet in the air were split to the ground destroying the original grafts at the base.

Successful farmers in Clay County were more sophisticated than 10 years before. They employed scientific methods of agriculture, diversified crops and formed co-operatives to share costs of packing and shipping. But... oranges were still their main cash crop and recovery was slow.

Others who had put all their hopes and assets into the golden money trees were destitute and forced to simply leave and return home to the charity of family.