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History
 On August 15, 1887, 22 years out of slavery, a group of 27 black men, including Joseph E. Clark, met in the Oddfellows Hall, a building donated to the new community by Lewis Lawrence, and voted on the question of incorporation the Town of Eatonville in Orange County, Florida in response to a legal notice advertised in the "Maitland Courier." These men, all residing within the boundaries of the proposed town, voted unanimously to incorporate the municipality. Eatonville, name for Captain Josiah Eaton of Maitland, is recognized today as the oldest incorporated all-black town in the United States.
Josiah C. Eaton was Incorporated Maitland's first mayor, but it soon became apparent that the voting power of the whites was being diluted with too many black voters. Shortly after the Civil War, recently freed slaves moved to Central Florida in search if work. They cleared land and planted vegetables and citrus groves, built houses, worked on Central Florida's first railroad, and were domestic servant in wealthy families' households.
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