Researching William Gleason

He was the son of William Henry Hunt Gleason, who was also mayor, and Flora Belle Lansing Gleason. His grandfather was William Henry Gleason, the founder of Eau Gallie, Florida, and 2nd Lieutenant Governor of Florida.

He was involved in the local community including donating a coquina rock slab that the first school house in Brevard County now sits on at the Florida Institute of Technology. The auditorium on the campus of Florida Institute of Technology is named for him. Gleason Park was named for him. Lansing Island was also named for him.

William Lansing Gleason also co-founded Indian Harbour Beach, Florida on June 6, 1955.

He was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of William Henry Gleason, founder of Eau Gallie, and 2nd Lieutenant Governor of Florida and Sarah Griffin Gleason. He married Flora Belle Lansing in 1897 in Eau Gallie, where he was a real estate agent.

William H. H. and his brother George G. Gleason incorporated a land development company, Gleason Brothers in 1899. The Gleason brothers also opened an intracoastal shipping business and operated steamships, and dry dock facilities. Both of the brothers were licensed pilots. William also became a lawyer, and took over his father's law practice.

His mother, Sarah, left the William H. Gleason House to him in 1912.

He was the father of William Lansing Gleason, who also served as mayor of Eau Gallie.

Along with William Jackson Creel, he served as a trustee of Eau Gallie Schools.

Gleason, eldest son of the Rev. Gleason and Cynthia S. (VanDervoort) Gleason, was born on September 28, 1833, in Durham, Connecticut, where his father (who died in 1839) was pastor of the Congregational Church. He entered Yale College from Sag Harbor, New York. He graduated in 1853 and was a member of Skull and Bones.

He studied law in Sag Harbor, where he was admitted to the bar and practiced law until 1870, by which date he had acquired one of the largest legal practices on Long Island. In 1864 and '65 he was a Republican member of the New York Assembly, and in 1868 was a candidate for US Congress. From 1868 to 1870 he served as Register in Bankruptcy.

He then exchanged thelegal for the clerical profession, and having been ordained accepted the pastorate of the Reformed (Dutch) Church in Newburgh, N. Y. He resigned this charge in 1876, and was next settled (in 1877) over the First Reformed Church in Newark, New Jersey. The degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred upon him by Rutgers College in 1881. In 1887 he removed to the Reformed Church in Hudson, N.Y., but his health compelled him to resign in 1889, and his death occurred at his residence in New York City on February 21, 1892, in his 59th year.

He was married to Ellen A. Gladwin, of Deep River, in the township of Saybrook, Conn., on November 11, 1857. She died on July 23, 1875, having borne him three daughters and three sons, of whom two sons and a daughter died in infancy. He was next married, on December 27, 1876, to Leila E., daughter of the Rev. Dr. Dwight M. Seward of New York City, who survived him with one son, besides the children of his former marriage.