Founders Week was recently held to celebrate 160 years of Brooksville. There are three dates that could be used for the start of Brooksville. In 1845, the town of Melendez was first settled. In 1856, the towns of Melendez and Pierceville were combined under the new name of Brooksville. The City of Brooksville was incorporated on October 13, 1880.
The year 1856 was the best choice for the founding of Brooksville. That was the date that the Florida Legislature passed legislation rescinding Bayport as the county seat of Hernando County (at the time this county was comprised of most of Pasco, Hernando, and Citrus). Bayport was more than a day's trip from some areas of the county and some of those citizens petitioned the legislature to move the county seat to a more centrally located town. The legislature also set Pierceville as the interim county seat until the voters had a chance to choose the new county seat. The legislature recommended that the county seat be located within 5 miles of the center of the county. The voters must have chosen Brooksville, since on December 27, 1856, the Governor of Florida signed legislation moving the courthouse to the newly constituted Brooksville.
The city of Brooksville had several land owners that owned large tracts around the city and many people with smaller holdings. Some of these prominent families were: the Howell family on the north of town near Howell Avenue, the May family to the East of town (John L May built a four room house that was expanded to become the May Stringer house), the Hale family to the West where Joseph Obida Hale operated a sawmill, and the Parsons family to the south.
Joseph Hale was a millwright which is a person who builds mills. He came to the area under the employ of David Levy Yulee (Levy County is named after him) to build the Yulee Sugar Mill in Homosassa. The ruins of which can still be seen today. After Hale finished the Yulee Mill, he moved to Pierceville and erected a steam powered sawmill in 1852.
David Levy Yulee met and became friends with John Parsons in the 1830s. In 1855, John Parsons joined the board of directors of Yulee's business: the Florida Railroad Co. running from Fernandina to Cedar Key. This was the first railroad to connect the east and west coasts of Florida.
The land for the courthouse was donated on October 15, 1856, by John L. May and the estate of Joseph Hale. Each transferred fifteen acres a piece for a county seat.
These families and many others helped to found Brooksville, creating cultural and economic opportunities that were not found in the small towns or on the rural homesteads in other parts of the county. This is what we celebrate during Founders Week.