In 1889 the Benedictines established the monastery of St. Leo and St. Leo College on Judge Edmund F. Dunne's former homestead and farm land east of San Antonio, Florida on the shores of Lake Jovita, later incorporating the area as part of a new town called St. Leo [REF].
Dunne was a legal counsel involved in the Disston Land Purchase of 1881, and as his commission, received 100,000 choice acres (400 km2) of land out of the 4,000,000 acre (16,000 km²) purchase.