The Wilmott Mausoleum

The Wilmott mausoleum is the final resting place of Fred Wilmott Sr, his three children, Mildred, Ralph, and Fred Jr, and his second wife, Eleanor Hutchinson Wilmott. The strikingly beautiful mausoleum was built after the untimely death of Eleanor in 1926.  

Frederick Walle Wilmott was born in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia on March 5, 1876, to merchant sea captain, James Walle Wilmott and his wife Sophia Cann Wilmott.¹ Frederick’s birth was soon followed by the birth of his sister Blanche in 1877.² The young family initially sailed the world with Captain Wilmott, but after a few years, they settled in Florida, where they built the Tremont Hotel; moving and combining parts of several existing structures to create a grand property on the corner of Church Street and Main Street (present day Magnolia Street).³ After moving to Orlando, Wilmott’s younger sister Lillian was born in 1883.⁴  Captain Wilmott served in the United States Navy during the Spanish-American War.⁵

The family enjoyed great success as hoteliers in Central Florida and expanded their enterprise to hold properties all over town as well as in cities to the north—including one property in Georgia where “Fred,” as he was called, met his first wife, Catherine Cavanaugh. The couple wed on September 16, 1902.⁶ The pair moved to a home off Summerlin Avenue near the shore of Lake Olive where a daughter, Mildred Heloise, was born on August 25, 1903.⁷ Tragically, baby Mildred died at the age of eighteen months and was the first of the family buried in Greenwood Cemetery.⁸ In 1907, a son, Fred Jr, was born.⁹ Fred and Catherine Wilmott’s third and final child, another son, Ralph, was born in December 1908.¹⁰ However, any happiness brought by Ralph’s birth was short-lived. A mere six months later, Ralph succumbed to a fever and “bowel trouble” on June 4, 1909.¹¹ He was buried with his sister Mildred in Greenwood Cemetery¹² Little Ralph’s death proved to be a tipping point for Fred and Catherine Wilmott. Three weeks later, a young man, named Ollie Sweet, was shot in their Sanford home.¹³ At first, Catherine claimed to have shot him by accident or in a fit of madness.¹⁴ However, over the course of several months, Catherine was exonerated, and Fred admitted to shooting Sweet.¹⁵ The jury was split on whether Fred’s actions were justified, as he claimed, but Catherine’s testimony did not compel them to return a guilty verdict.¹⁶ This trial and three subsequent trials over the next four years were all dismissed as mistrials.¹⁷ 

After all that had happened, the Willmott’s marriage broke down. They divorced sometime after the first trial ended in 1910, and Fred’s parents adopted Fred Jr.¹⁸ Catherine married Police Officer William Smith on May 10^th, 1911, but sadly, she died of tuberculosis less than two years later on March 22, 1913.¹⁹ She was buried in the Old Catholic Cemetery in College Park, and later reinterred in Woodlawn Cemetery in Gotha, Florida, far away from the children who predeceased her.²⁰ 

Tragedy was not finished with the Wilmott family, however. On June 2, 1913, Grandmother Sophia Wilmott took Fred Jr and a playmate, Frank Pounds Jr, to play at Lake Lucerne, where both boys, aged just six and five years old, waded out too far in the water and drowned.²¹ The community was devastated by the loss of these two little lives. Fred Jr joined his older sister and younger brother in the family plot in Greenwood Cemetery just two days later.²² Young Frank Pounds Jr is buried close by the Wilmott plot, as close in death as the young boys were in life.²³ 

In 1918, Fred Wilmott was ready to start again. He married for a second time to Eleanor Hutchinson, a divorcée with two teenaged children.²⁴ It seemed for a little while that he had finally found happiness, but in 1926, Eleanor died unexpectedly at the age of thirty-eight.²⁵ Wilmott was overcome by her loss. Upon her death, he commissioned a splendid mausoleum on a plot at the top of the hill in Greenwood Cemetery and moved his three children from his first marriage to rest for eternity with the stepmother they never knew in life.²⁶  

Wilmott married for a third time, to Kathleen Campbell, who he later divorced for cruelty.²⁷ In his final years, he worked to make a local impact in Orlando, serving on the Chamber of Commerce and as a member of fraternal organizations like the Elks Lodge.²⁸ After the deaths of his parents, who are buried in a separate family plot across from the mausoleum, he stepped back from running the hotel empire built by his father due to failing health due to Parkinson’s Disease.²⁹ He died on November 30, 1949, and was entombed with his beloved children and second wife in the shining mausoleum on the hill in Greenwood Cemetery.³⁰  

The Wilmott mausoleum is the site of frequent local pilgrimages due to its imposing location and eerie beauty. Locals are fascinated by the story of the Wilmott family, the drama and intrigue of Fred Wilmott’s life, and the many tragedies experienced by this pioneering family. Some claim to have experienced a ghostly presence near the mausoleum, dressed in an old military uniform such as the one Captain Wilmott may have once worn.³¹ The Wilmott family led particularly interesting lives in early Orlando and their presence is not soon to be forgotten. 

1. “1881 Census of Canada”, database with images, Ancestry.com, entry for Fred. W. Wilmott, accessed March 20, 2024, https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/2348099:1577 

1. “1881 Census of Canada,” Ancestry, entry for Fred. W. Wilmott.

3. Genuine Curteich-Chicago, “Tremont Hotel Postcard,” RICHES, accessed March 20, 2024, https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/items/show/1371. 

4. “1900 United States Federal Census,” database with images, Ancestry.com, entry for Lillian S Wilmott, accessed March 20, 2024, https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/455443:7602 

5. “US, List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900,” database with images, Fold3, entry for James Walle Wilmott, accessed March 20, 2024, https://www.fold3.com/image/310754448/navy-and-marine-corps-officers-1775-1900-page-593-us-navy-and-marine-corps-officers-1775-1900

6. “Kept It a Secret,” The Savannah Morning News, October 19, 1902, 18. 

7. “Florida Deaths, 1877-1939,” database with images, FamilySearch, entry for Mildred Wilmot, accessed March 20, 2024, https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FP48-L9V 

8. “Florida Deaths,” FamilySearch, entry for Mildred Wilmot. 

9. Carey Hand Funeral Home, “Wilmott, Frederick Walle” (1913). Carey Hand Undertaker's Memoranda 1913, 39, accessed March 20, 2024, https://stars.library.ucf.edu/cfm-ch-memoranda-1913/39

10. Carey Hand Funeral Home, “Wilmott, Ralph” (1909). Carey Hand Undertaker's Memoranda 1909, 62, accessed March 20, 2024, https://stars.library.ucf.edu/cfm-ch-memoranda-1909/62

11. “Wilmott, Ralph” Undertaker's Memoranda 1909.

12. Ralph Wilmott, Burial Record, Greenwood Cemetery.

13. Carey Hand Funeral Home, “Sweet, Oliver C.” (1909). Carey Hand Undertaker's Memoranda 1909, 68, accessed March 20, 2024, https://stars.library.ucf.edu/cfm-ch-memoranda-1909/68 

14. “Sanford Woman Shoots Man with Gun,” Tampa Tribune, June 26, 1909, 1.  

15. “Sensational is Wilmott’s Story,” Tampa Tribune, December 17, 1909, 8.

16. “Wilmott Gets Mistrial,” Tampa Tribune, December 19, 1909, 1.

17. “Seminole Holds First Term of Circuit Court,” Orlando Morning Sentinel, January 14, 1914, 1.

18. “In the Matter of the Adoption of Fred W. Wilmott Jr.” Sanford Herald, December 30, 1910, 6.

19. “Florida, County Marriages, 1830-1957,” database with images, FamilySearch, entry for William H. Smith and Kathryn T. Wilmott, 10 May 1911, accessed March 20, 2024, https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q244-HVC9; “Register of Deaths: 1910-1922 Orlando, Florida,” Central Florida Genealogical Society, 2007, entry for Catherine Smith, 22.

20. “Wife of City Marshall Buried Sunday Afternoon,” Orlando Evening Star, March 27, 1913, 12.; “Skeletons of 50 Years Removed,” Orlando Evening Star, May 14, 1938, 1. 

21. “Two Little Boys Drown in Lucerne,” Orlando Daily Sentinel, 3, 1913, 1.

22. "Wilmott, Frederick Walle” Undertaker's Memoranda 1913. 

23. “Funeral of Two Little Boys,” Orlando Daily Sentinel, June 4, 1913, 5.

24. “U.S., World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918,” database with images, Ancestry.com, entry for Fred Wilmott, https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/9608974:6482  

25. "Florida Deaths Certificates,” database with images, FamilySearch, entry for Eleanor G. Wilmott, accessed on March 20, 2024, https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FP9Z-FG6 

26. Wilmont, Eleanor G., “Funeral Register,” Vol. 10. Carey Hand Funeral Home Records (SC 41), Special Collections & University Archives, University of Central Florida Libraries, Orlando, Florida, https://stars.library.ucf.edu/cfm-ch-register-vol10/207/

27. “South Carolina, U.S., County Marriage Records, 1907-2000,” database with images, Ancestry.com, entry for Kathleen Campbell and Fred W. Wilmott, accessed March 20, 2024, https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/61450/images/47667_553214-00191 

28. “Mr. F. W. Wilmott,” Orlando Evening Star, December 1, 1949, 2.

29. “Florida Death Index, 1877-1998,” database with images, FamilySearch, entry for Fred W. Wilmott, accessed March 20. 2024, https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VVS4-NPP 

30. Fred Wilmott, Burial Record, Greenwood Cemetery.

31. Thomas Cook, Orlando’s Historic Haunts (Sarasota: Pineapple Press, 2012), 35-6.