Fort Wacasassa was in the north of the county.
The Army created an extensive network of roads in Florida, which
opened up the territory for settlers to move in. This is a road called
a "corduroy," which was where logs were placed side-by-side in areas that
were otherwise too swampy to travel on. As you could imagine, riding on
a corduroy would not be a smooth ride.
Other Second Seminole War forts: Jennings, and Wekiwa.
No far from Cedar Key in the Lower Suwannee National Wildlife Refuge is this spectacular mound. This mound is huge, covering 5 acres and being 28 feet at the highest point. A Timucuan village was here, and the mound was probably built and inhabited from 2500 B.C. to 1000 A.D. Early Floridians lived here long enough and ate plenty of shellfish to create one big hum-dinger of a mound.
The foliage is so thick that it is hard to get a good view of the mound, or even be able to tell how big it is when you are standing on top. There is a nature trail that goes around and over the mound that you can enjoy.
Manatee Springs State Park:
Manatee Springs State Park was the home of Weedon Island culture Indians, who had a large pottery manufacturing trade established here. (Not sure what these early Floridians called themselves. Weedon Island is a name for people who were gone before their name could have been written down for us to remember.) The Seminoles also lived here for a time, and William Bartram visited the spring and a nearby Seminole village.
Cedar Key State Museum:
The Cedar Keys are not the Keys in southern Florida, but a series of marsh islands where the Suwannee River runs into the Gulf of Mexico in northern Florida. If you drive around this quiet village and want to visit the Cedar Key museum, you will notice that the road takes a steep climb around the high school. This is because you are driving over a mound built by ancient Floridians. There are many other mounds in the marshes of Levy county, but this mound at Cedar Key and the one at Shell Mound are the only few that you can see these days.
Part of the museum exhibit includes information about the early Floridians in the area that built mounds and fished in the marsh. Also exhibits telling about the military posts here during the Second Seminole War and the Civil War.
General Zachary Taylor, war hero of the Battle of Lake Okeechobee, became commander of forces in Florida in 1839. One of the changes that he made was to establish a depot at the Cedar Keys. From this new post the forces could quickly go from Middle Florida, and up the rivers that emptied into the Gulf of Mexico: The Withlacoochee, the Suwannee, the Wacasassa, and other major waterways. The river access could easily provide troop movement into the heart of northern Florida. At this time the Army and Florida Militia were having little success driving roving bands of warriors into south Florida. With such a strategic location, it is a wonder that the Cedar Keys were not recognized for their importance earlier in the war. The islands were virtually uninhabited, and easy for the government to establish a large military facility.
Taylor divided up north Florida into 20-mile squares, guarded by a fort that sent out constant patrols against the Florida Indians. Cedar Key was in Grid Square 4, so a post established here was known as Fort Number 4. By mid 1839, Taylor had created 53 new posts, 848 miles of roads, and 3,643 feet of causeways and bridges.
In 1840 General Walker K. Armistead took over the Florida command from Taylor. He established a hospital on Cedar Key, and the post became a place of refuge for soldiers to escape the summer sicknesses.
The heavy campaign against the Florida Indians took a heavy toll on them. The Seminoles faced starvation and constantly being chased and raided by the Army. The next commander in Florida, Colonel William J. Worth, continued Jesup's idea of capturing Indians during peace talks and under a white flag; only this time nobody complained in the newspapers. One of the last big war chiefs in Florida was Halleck Tustenuggee (Miccosukee), and he was kept prisoner with his people on Cedar Key. Finally, Colonel Worth was pleased with the success against the Indians, and gave the order to end the Second Seminole War from Cedar Key in August 1842. During the rest of the year, more Creeks and Seminoles were captured or surrendered in northern Florida; many of them held prisoner at Cedar Key until transportation arrived to carry them to the west.
In October 1842, the military post on Cedar Key was destroyed by a hurricane. It briefly became a base during the Civil War, but did not play as big a role as during the Second Seminole War.
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© 1998, 2002 Chris Kimball
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from the author.