William Henry Gleason, Founder of Eau Gallie in Melbourne, Florida

William Henry Gleason, born around 1830 and died in 1902, was the land developer and Reconstruction politician who founded Eau Gallie, the Indian River town incorporated into Melbourne in 1969.

The Florida Department of State historical marker placed in 2013 at 1736 Pineapple Avenue records that he bought a 16,000-acre Brevard County tract in 1870, named it Eau Gallie and served as Florida's first elected Lieutenant Governor, under Governor Harrison Reed, in 1868.

The fullest account of his life is the National Register of Historic Places nomination for the William H. Gleason House, prepared for the National Park Service. It says Gleason was born in New York and, during the Civil War, traveled through the South selling supplies to army sutlers. In 1866 he moved his wife Sarah and their two small sons, William H. H. and George G., from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, to the Biscayne Bay area of south Florida, where he and William H. Hunt hoped to establish a colony for the cultivation of tropical fruit. The marker describes the same move as a settlement in Dade County.

The nomination calls the future founder of Eau Gallie primarily a land developer, although many labeled him a carpetbagger politician. It reports that he traveled the state extensively for the federal government, surveying land for a topographical map meant to support a plan for Black colonization, and that those travels convinced him Florida was a new frontier waiting to be developed by private enterprise.

Before founding Eau Gallie, Gleason helped frame Florida's 1868 constitution and became its first elected Lieutenant Governor that year, a post he lost within months.

The nomination says he entered politics mainly to promote his development ideas, years before he settled in Eau Gallie. He was instrumental in framing the 1868 state constitution, and when elections were held at the close of the constitutional convention that year he became Florida's first elected Lieutenant Governor under Governor Harrison Reed. The marker on Pineapple Avenue records the same office and year.

The office did not last long enough to help the future Eau Gallie founder. The nomination explains that Reed's enemies urged him to resign and, when he refused, began impeachment proceedings. Gleason then claimed the legal right to take over the governor's duties and set up his own governor's office. In January 1869 the Florida Supreme Court ruled that he was not entitled to act as governor and disqualified him as Lieutenant Governor because he had not been a citizen of Florida for three years before his election.

He remained in public life in south Florida before moving north to Eau Gallie. The nomination records that he represented Dade County in the state House of Representatives from 1871 to 1874, was defeated for reelection in 1875, and at various times was Clerk of the Court, Tax Assessor of Dade County and Supervisor of Elections. In 1875 he claimed 640 acres in what is now the business district of Miami, a claim he eventually lost because he had accepted a fraudulent deed.

Gleason bought 16,000 acres in 1870 and named the area Eau Gallie, according to both the marker and the nomination.

Both sources give the same origin for the name Eau Gallie: Eau from his hometown of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, meaning water, and Gallie from a derivative of a Seminole word meaning rocky.

He was not the area's first settler. The nomination names John C. Houston, who arrived in 1859 and acquired 80 acres beside the Indian River by government patent for his services as an Indian scout. Houston was appointed the first postmaster of Eau Gallie in 1871, and the Civil War had delayed further settlement.

Gleason used his influence to bring a state college to his land. The nomination records that Eau Gallie was selected in 1872 as the site of the Florida Agricultural College and that several buildings were constructed, but the school never opened there because state legislators decided the area was too remote and inaccessible and placed it at Lake City instead. The University of Florida history page records that Florida Agricultural College in Lake City became the state's first land-grant college in 1884 and counts the college among the university's nineteenth century predecessors.

The young settlement briefly held county government. Eau Gallie became the Brevard County seat in 1874, and in 1879 the seat moved to Titusville, when the county was sparsely populated and Eau Gallie had only 35 registered voters, the nomination says.

Gleason moved his family to Eau Gallie in 1882, according to the marker, while the nomination dates the move to the winter of 1882 to 1883.

The nomination adds that he first sold most of his Dade County property. The two sources do not agree on the exact year. Both say he practiced law, was a partner in a sawmill business and was a director of the town's first bank, the State Bank of Eau Gallie.

He laid out the Eau Gallie town plat in 1884. The nomination records that most lots measured 66 feet by 132 feet, that north and south avenues were 66 feet wide and that east and west streets were 50 feet wide. A stroke in October 1885 left him partially paralyzed, but he continued in business with help from his sons.

His most consequential deal was the railroad. In 1887, the marker records, Gleason convinced Henry Flagler to extend his railroad to Eau Gallie by offering right of way through the area. The nomination adds that the offer included several hundred town lots and was meant to win a station on the line toward West Palm Beach, and that a port was also built at what is now the Eau Gallie Causeway. Little growth followed until a railroad reached the community in the early 1890s, which let growers and fishermen ship citrus and iced fish to northern markets.

Not every Eau Gallie plan worked. The nomination lists an attempt to build an inland waterway linking Lake Washington and Lake Poinsett to lakes farther inland, along with major drainage projects meant to open more land; none materialized during his lifetime.

The house he built still stands at 1736 Pineapple Avenue, on a corner lot at Law Street. The marker says it was built around 1884 by Gleason and his wife Sarah Griffin Gleason, and the nomination says it went up between 1883 and 1885 while the family lived on the property. It is a two-story frame house on a foundation of coquina and brick piers, with a polygonal tower under a conical roof, and the marker calls it an outstanding example of Queen Anne style architecture. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997. The City of Melbourne historic preservation page lists National Register designation among the criteria a property can meet for the city's own Melbourne Register of Historic Places, which City Council approves by resolution.

Gleason died in May 1902, according to the nomination, and his family stayed prominent in Eau Gallie for decades.

His son William H. H. continued to live in the house and carried on his father's work as a developer, serving as postmaster for ten years, bank president and trustee of the public school, and sitting on the City Council for about 30 years, several times as mayor of Eau Gallie. His other son, George, was a real estate broker.

The town he founded kept growing after him. The nomination records nearly 200 residents by 1900 and nearly 1,000 by 1930, the 1928 closing of the State Bank of Eau Gallie, and Eau Gallie's incorporation into Melbourne in 1969. Its account credits several later forces: the Kentucky Military Institute, which from 1907 spent its winter term in Eau Gallie and spurred a residential district near the Eau Gallie River, the dredging of the Melbourne-Tillman canal about 1915, and in the 1950s the NASA program at nearby Cape Canaveral.

A piece of the Eau Gallie shoreline also sits on a Melbourne campus. Florida Tech's 2020 history of its Little Red Schoolhouse says the coquina rock foundation under the schoolhouse was given to the university by Lansing Gleason and his daughter, Jean Madry, and identifies Lansing as William Gleason's grandson. The schoolhouse was moved in 1970 to its present spot at the entry to the university's botanical garden.

Last verified: October 15, 2026, against the Department of State marker for the Gleason House, its National Register nomination, the University of Florida history page, Florida Tech's Little Red Schoolhouse history and the City of Melbourne historic preservation page.