Florida:

U.S. Territory and State

1821-1861

Part One

Depiction of Fort St. Marks not long after the U.S. acquired Florida 

The U.S. Acquisition of Florida

Although Jackson’s invasion of Florida, and the taking of Fort San Marcos and Pensacola, ultimately led to the U.S. acquisition of the Floridas, there were international repercussions to his actions. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams had started negotiations with Spanish Minister to the United Sates Luis de Onis for the purchase of Florida, before the First Seminole War. Spain protested the invasion and seizure of the forts in West Florida and suspended the negotiations. Spain did not have the means to retaliate against the United States, or regain West Florida by force, so Adams let the Spanish official protest, and then he issued a letter blaming the British, the Creeks, the Seminoles, and the Spanish for the war. In the letter, Adams also apologized for the 1818 seizure of West Florida, stating that it was not United States policy to seize Spanish territory, and offered to give Spain back Fort San Marcos and Pensacola, which they did in 1819.

Secretary of State John Quincy Adams

Spain accepted the apology and eventually resumed negotiations with Secretary of State Adams for the sale of Florida. Defending Jackson’s actions as necessary for American security, and sensing that this strengthened his diplomatic standing, Adams demanded Spain either control its inhabitants, or cede Florida to the United States. An agreement was then reached, whereby Spain ceded East Florida to the United States and renounced any and all claim to West Florida, this became known as the Adams-Onis Treaty. The United States took formal control of Florida on July 17, 1821, after Governor Jose Callava finally transferred command. However, an effective government was slow to follow. General Andrew Jackson was appointed military governor of the Territory of Florida in March of 1821 by President Monroe, but did not arrive to the capital at Pensacola until July.

Second U.S. Military Occupation of Fort St. Marks

Now that Florida was a United States territory, settlers, mostly from the Carolinas, Virginia,  and Georgia, and a few from Europe, slowly began to trickle southward and settled in Florida, including present-day Wakulla County. Most people purchased land around rivers and creeks, such as the St. Marks River in the eastern section, the Sopchoppy and Ochlocknee River area in the western section of the county, and Lost Creek in the center of present-day Wakulla County. American troops once again occupied Fort San Marcos, which they renamed Fort St. Marks. Unfortunately for the Americans destined to garrison the fort, conditions were the same as they were two years earlier, during the first American military occupation of St. Marks.

Once again, Brevet Major A.C.W. Fanning was named the fort’s commander. In a letter that he wrote to General Thomas Sidney Jessup, Fanning explained that, “On receiving this post from the Spanish, we find it destitute of every comfort and convenience with regard to quarters, stockhouses, and the platforms of this work are in a total state of decay and must be replaced by new. The service of the solider in this country is a continual course of fatigue, sickness and privation.” He continues to write that “the labors to be performed here immediately are barracks to be built for two companies, officers’ quarters, a hospital and a guard house, and if possible, a road to be opened direct to Fort Hawkins, (Macon, GA) on account of our communications. This last would be of great public utility in the settlement of this country…Our heavy timbers for building is procured three miles up the St. Marks River. It is first cut and carried by men through an extensive swamp and then floated down to the fort. But the severest labor is the sawing of the boards by hand, particularly for those who saw them for their own coffins.”[1]

Artist interpretation of Fort St. Marks, c.1822. Sketch done by the author.

In 1821, a physical description of Fort St. Marks was printed in a newspaper of the times. It stated that “the fort is situated at the point of junction of two small rivers, called the St. Marks or Apalache, and the Wakulla. It is composed of a large stone building, made bomb proof, 150 feet south, (from) where it forms a right angle and runs west 250 feet, till it joins the wall extending from the gorge of the bastion. In this bastion are some irregular stone buildings for officers’ quarters. The soldiers’ barracks are bomb proof, and some smaller buildings near. The works are more than one hundred years old, and the masonry is now consolidated into solid masses.”[2] The fort remained in the possession of the U.S. military until they abandoned it in 1825, leaving it in the hands of the Territorial government of Florida. A military cemetery was discovered in the 1960s, and it is believed that it dates back to the first American occupation of Fort St. Marks, 1818-1819. It is perhaps just one of the several European military cemeteries that most likely existed in the Fort St. Marks area, because the place has been occupied by Europeans for over two-hundred years.

Establishing a Government and a New Capital City

As the Provincial Governor of the Territory of Florida, Andrew Jackson established an effective governing structure within only a couple of weeks, working long, hot, nights. Jackson created two large administrative units, Escambia and St. Johns County, and was allowed to choose the office holders for those. As soon as the provisional government was functioning, Jackson resigned as governor on October 5, 1821, and returned to Nashville. William Pope Duval, a U.S. judge in Pensacola, succeeded Jackson as governor of the territory. In March 1822, Congress replaced the provisional structure of the government with a single territorial government, converting East Florida and West Florida into one Territory of Florida. Executive and legislative leadership would come from a governor, a secretary, and a legislative council, all appointed by the President of the United States. Federal courts were established in Pensacola and St. Augustine, their judges were also appointed by the President. Only the territorial delegate to Congress was elected.

First Territorial Governor William Pope Duval

The first Legislative Council of the Territory of Florida was called into session on June 10, 1822, in Pensacola. The ship carrying the delegates from St. Johns County left St. Augustine on May 30, expecting to arrive at Pensacola by June 10. They experienced a terrible storm, shipwrecked, and a council member was drowned. Traveling from St. Augustine to Pensacola, and vice versa, was a very long and hazardous trip. The councilmen arrived late to Pensacola on June 22. To make matters worse, a yellow fever epidemic hit Pensacola, killing the chairman of the council, Dr. James C. Bronaugh (whom Bronough Street in Tallahassee is named for). The session was then held a bit north of Pensacola, further away from the Gulf to avoid yellow fever. Despite all the negatives and setbacks, the First Legislative Council established the territory’s civil offices, courts, militia, and revenue measures. Also, two new counties were carved out of the enormous St. Johns and Escambia Counties, which were Duval and Jackson Counties.     

The United States Congress ordered that Florida’s annual legislative sessions alternate each year between Pensacola and St. Augustine, the territory’s most populated cities. Traveling to attend the Second Legislative Council in 1823 proved just as difficult for the delegates from Escambia County as it did for the delegates from St. Johns County the year before. During this session, held in St. Augustine, Governor Duval commissioned Dr. William H. Simmons and John Lee Williams to select a centralized site for a new capital, somewhere between the Ochlocknee and Suwannee rivers, midway between Pensacola and St. Augustine.

On September 26, 1823, Simmons left St. Augustine for Fort St. Marks on horseback, the only place in the area with a sizable white population, mostly military personnel. At a rate of about three miles an hour, Simmons navigated through the country, swimming across rivers and swamps, and spending nights in Indian camps who were friendly towards Americans. He reached St. Marks on October 10, but had to wait nearly two weeks for the arrival of Williams. Instead of spending his time at the fort, which was probably uncomfortable and boring, Simmons, along with the commander of Fort St. Marks, Captain McClintock, stayed at the plantation house of a Mr. Ellis located on the Ochlocknee River.

John Lee Williams departed from Pensacola by boat on September 30, but his voyage was delayed several times by unfavorable weather. Williams finally arrived at St. Marks on October 23, and was received by the acting commander of the fort, Lieutenant Hutten. After resting for a day, Williams explored the vicinity of Apalachee Bay. Along with the fort’s staff surgeon, Williams then traveled from St. Marks to the home of Mr. Ellis on the Ochlocknee River, where Simmons was waiting for him. 

The Cascades by Comte Francis de Castelnau

The two met on October 26, and with Mr. Ellis as a guide they set out towards the Seminole town of Tallahassee north of St. Marks.[3] Simmons and Williams selected Tallahassee as the perfect place for a capitol. After surveying the land that the Seminoles called Tallahassee, Williams wrote that, “a more beautiful country can scarcely be imagined, it is high, rolling, and well watered, the richness of the soil renders it so perfectly adapted to farming, that living must ultimately be cheap and abundant.” The location of the capitol building was to be northwest of a beautiful waterfall and stream that, “after running about a mile south, pitches about 20 or 30 feet into an immense chasm, in which it runs 60 or 70 rods to the base of a high hill which it enters.” This was called the Cascades, which today the area has been revitalized into Cascades Park. While surveying the land, they met Seminole chiefs Neamathla and Chefixico, who were not excited to see the Americans there, but did not resist them at this time.

On March 4, 1824, four months after Williams and Simmons selected Tallahassee to be the location of the capital of the Florida territory, Governor Duval issued a proclamation that Williams and Simmons had chosen a location, “about a mile southwest from the old deserted fields of Tallahassee, (and) about a half mile south of the Ochlocknee and Tallahassee trail, at the point where the old Spanish road is intersected by a small trail running southwardly.”[4] The U.S. Congress set aside a quarter section of land for government buildings, and reserved three more quarter sections to be sold, so that the territorial government could have the funds to build. Governor Duval left Pensacola for the new capital on June 21, 1824. In the meantime, settlers eager to start planting crops in the fertile soil did not waste any time moving into the Tallahassee area, including the present-day Wakulla County area as well.

By April 9, 1824, a group of settlers from North Carolina, lived in tents near the Cascades while their houses were being built. Judge Jonathan Robinson and Sharrod McCall brought their slaves to Tallahassee and begun clearing the land and building log cabins in time for the Third Legislative Council for the Territory of Florida. Later in the year, the Legislative Council met in the two-story log cabin, and formally named the new capitol “Tallahassee”.  The name “Tallahassee” is either taken from the Tallahassee Seminole’s word for “old fields” or one of their villages.[5] Section I from an 1824 law states, “Be it enacted by the Governor and legislative council of the Territory of Florida, that the site selected for the seat of government shall be laid off in a town, and that said town be known by the name of Tallahassee.”

Richard Keith Call

Richard Keith Call was elected territorial delegate to Congress and he actively promoted Tallahassee while in Washington D.C. His description of Tallahassee caused many well-to-do planters to move to the area. In 1824, the United States Congress elected to give $200,000 and a parcel of land to the Marquis de Lafayette, the famous French hero who helped General George Washington during the Revolutionary War. Because of Call’s description of Tallahassee, Lafayette chose land just north of town. He invited French farmers to his land to grow vineyards, olives, mulberry trees, and raise silkworms. His experiment failed and the land was sold off, but some of the French stayed. This area of Tallahassee is now called Frenchtown. One of Lafayette’s nephews was Prince Archille Joachim Murat; he came to Tallahassee during the first wave of settlement in 1824 and lived in a log cabin on Monroe Street.[6]

Section II of that 1824 law states that, “Be it further enacted, that the said town shall be laid off in conformity with a plan hereafter to be approved by the legislative council, signed by the President thereof, and deposited in the office of the Secretary of the Territory.” Governor DuVal appointed surveyors to plat the property surrounding the capital building. With Capitol Square at the town’s center, Tallahassee was laid out symmetrically with four other public squares. They were Washington Square, where the Leon County Courthouse sits; Wayne Square, where City Hall sits; Jackson Square, which was home of the now demolished Whitfield Building; and Green Square, now home to the Holland Building. The town was bounded by very wide streets. The north boundary was McCarty Street, now Park Avenue. The east was bounded by Meridian Street. The west boundary was Bolivard Street, now called Martin Luther King Boulevard. The south was bounded by Doyle Street, now Bloxham.[7]

The town was growing rather slowly through 1824, as there were only six private homes. But, in 1825, there was a population explosion and around one-hundred homes sprang up. Prince Archille Murat wrote, at the end of 1825, that, “a year ago, this was but a forest; now there are more than a hundred houses, two hundred inhabitants, and a newspaper…Is not this magic? In place of their log-houses, elegant houses made of boards and timberworks, painted all sorts of colors, are erected as if by enchantment in the very heart of the wood, which now assumes the name of city.”[8]

Several wealthy planters began to arrive in the Tallahassee area throughout 1825 and 1826. Francis Eppes, grandson of Thomas Jefferson, arrived from Virginia and purchased a little over a square mile of land and named his plantation L’Eau Noir, meaning “black water.” Another man of wealth that moved to Tallahassee was Benjamin Chaires. Chaires purchased over 7,000 acres and became Tallahassee’s first millionaire.[9] His city home was a beautiful house called the Columns. “The Columns is the two-story red brick structure with four giant white columns” in the front on the northeast corner of Park and Adams, which is now the James Madison Institute.[10] Richard Keith Call, who would later be twice appointed as governor of the Territory of Florida, moved to Tallahassee in 1825 and built his city home, the Grove, just north of what is now downtown Tallahassee, next to the governor’s mansion.



Sources used:

Dailey, R. C., Morrell, L. R., & Cockrell, W. (n.d.). The St. Marks Cemetery.

Kilgore, J. (19--). Old St. Marks in Florida: An Historical Work.

Groene, B. H. (1971). Ante-Bellum Tallahassee. Tallahassee: Rose Printing Company.

Morris, A. (1999). The Florida Handbook: 1999-2000. Tallahassee: The Peninsular Publishing Company.

Hare, J. (2002). Tallahassee: A Capitol History. Charleston: Arcadia Publishing.

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[1] Dailey, Morrell, and Cockrell, p.8-9

[2] Ibid, p.9

[3] Kilgore, John Old St. Marks in Florida, An Historical Work, p.23

[4] Groene, Ante-Bellum Tallahassee, p.16

[5] Morris, Allen. The Florida Handbook: 1999-2000, p.247

[6] Hare, Julianne; Tallahassee: A Capitol History, p.38

[7] Morris, p.248                                                                                                          

[8] Groene, p.23

[9] Hare, p.31

[10] Groene, p47