Rooster Tracks: Ever wonder how Lake Charm got its name? 

A monthly series exploring Greater Oviedo and Winter Springs history in an effort to provide a shared sense of place, foster local pride, underscore the critical role local news and history plays in shaping a community, and to deepen connections among neighbors.

In the mid 1850’s Walter Meade Gwynn (1828 – 1897), a surveyor who served as Comptroller of Florida both before and throughout the Civil War, bought land south of Lake Jessup. He had also noted, and remembered, choice properties near what became known as Lake Charm, so named because his daughter, upon first seeing the lake, exclaimed what a charming lake it was. 

Gwynn and his first wife, Helen Meade Gwynn, had five children before Helen died in 1863. Walter then married Mattie Lawton, stepdaughter of Narcissa Lawton, matriarch of the pioneering Lawton family in Oviedo. 

The Lawton and Gwynn families moved from Georgia to the Oviedo area in the late 1860s, settling in what was then called the Lake Jessup Community in the northern area of present-day Oviedo. The Gwynns settled on their land at Lake Charm shortly after. 

Walter continued his career as surveyor in the post war period, including his work with the Freedman’s Bureau, laying out lands and homesteads for displaced ex-slaves. Walter died at the age of 69 while surveying in the wilds of the Kissimmee River basin and is buried in Tallahassee.

The linked video, featuring local historian Bob Putnam, was created for the Oviedo Historical Society’s “History at Home” series. This column was produced in partnership with the Oviedo Historical Society and written by Putnam.