Frank Elmore Saxon

By DAN DEWITT, Published Sep. 30, 2005

Frank Elmore Saxon is probably the best example of the early kind of leader in Hernando County. Having moved to Hernando with two of his brothers and his father in 1856, he was far from the county's first settler. But Saxon's career showed that, as the county's government was first developing, one person could have a presence in almost every arm of it. It also demonstrates that early leaders were likely to feel comfortable with a gun in their hands.

Frank Elmore Saxon was born in 1841 in Alabama, Georgia. His family moved to Florida prior to the War Between the States, initially settling in Tallahassee.

When his brother, Walter Terry Saxon, formed a company of Hernando County residents to fight in the Civil War, Frank Saxon signed up. During the war, Saxon was a member of the Hernando Wild Cats, (part of the Florida Third Regiment) and was wounded near Jacksonville in 1862. He was taken prisoner and released to fight some more. At the end of the war, he walked more than 1,000 miles to get back to Brooksville.

The county he returned to, which then included what is now Citrus and Pasco counties, had fewer than 3,000 residents. Before 1885, most of what are now elected positions were appointed by the governor, and Saxon racked a large number of them. He served as both county tax assessor and collector in the 1870s as well as clerk of court for two separate terms in the 1880s. He helped incorporate the City of Brooksville in 1880 and simultaneously served as both its first chief of police and postmaster. He was a state representative and a delegate at the convention that named William Jennings, also of Hernando County, the Democratic candidate for governor in 1900.  He also served as an officer for the The Brooksville Telegraph Company. 

Saxon is also associated with two buildings in the city that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. That he lived in two homes rather than one is mostly a testament to the hardship of 19th century life. His first wife, Mrs. Marina H. May, had watched her husband, John May, die at a young age. While living at the home the Mays had built, now the Hernando Heritage Museum, the Saxons' first son died only a month after birth. Mrs. Saxon then died after giving birth to a daughter, Jessie May Saxon, in 1869. Jessie May, in turn, died three years later. 

After remarrying, Saxon and his new wife were understandably eager to move, and built a home on Jefferson Street just east of Rogers' Christmas House Village.