East Florida

“ The government of East Florida was declared to be bounded, west by the Appalachicola and the Gulf of Mexico, north by a line drawn from the junction of the Chattahoochie and Flint rivers to the source of the St Mary's river, and by the course of that river to the Atlantic ocean, and to the east and south by the Atlantic ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, including all islands within six leagues of the sea coast. 6 Laws 444. Under the British government then, the governor of East Florida had express power to make grants of lands in the possession of the Indians. ”

“ Persons who visit Florida with a view to farming or gardening, should not expect to find it a land of exhuberant fertility, that will yield immense crops with little labor. East Florida is as a whole not a fertile country in comparison with South Carolina or Illinois, and probably never will be highly cultivated. On the other hand, they must not be discouraged by the first impressions they form on seeing its soil. Labor can do wonders there. The climate favors the growth of vegetables and some staples, but labor, hard work, is just as necessary as in Massachusetts. ”

“ Florida has the advantage over Italy, in having no mountain ranges covered during winter with snows; the cold blasts from the Apennines and the Jura mountains, rendering a large portion of Italy and southern France unfit for invalids unable to bear a sudden and great increase of temperature.”
Dr. Bernard Byrne thus writes of the climate of Florida (see the National Intelligencer of May 18th, 1843) :{51} “Taking it the year round, the climate of East Florida is much more agreeable than any other in the United States, or even than that of Italy. ”

“ The sea coast of south-east Florida, therefore, fulfils the four conditions which make up the best climate for a consumptive. I have other testimony about it well worth presenting. It, too, comes from the same unimpeachable source,—the medical statistics of the United States Army. I preface it by a fact of general interest about the whole of Florida. All know how terribly arduous must be campaigning through the swamps and everglades of that State. Yet the yearly mortality from disease of the regular army there, was only twenty-six per thousand men. ”

“ All Volunteers who may have been engaged in the Revolution with the people of East Florida, shall at the fall or surrender of St. Augustine be entitled to all the privileges of free Citizens of the Territory. ”

“ The English evacuation of Savannah in 1782, followed by their withdrawal from Charleston, caused Loyalists to pour into East Florida and St. Augustine by the thousands. Housing was inadequate. Many of the unfortunate refugees lived in mere huts of thatched palmetto leaves. Plays were given in the statehouse for their benefit. One of the newcomers set up a print shop and began publishing Florida’s first newspaper, the East Florida Gazette. The population of East Florida soared to 17,000 including slaves.
In 1781 Governor Tonyn finally called East Florida’s first Legislative Assembly. ”

“ Pedro Miranda and others, on the 9th of May 1829, presented a petition to the superior court of East Florida, asking for the confirmation of a grant from the Spanish government of Florida, for eight leagues square, equal to 368,640 acres of land, situate on the waters of Hillsborough and Tampa bays, in the eastern district of the territory of Florida. ”

“ He states the number of inhabitants of East Florida, which in those days meant mostly St. Augustine, from 1663 to 1771, as follows: householders, besides women, &c., two hundred and eighty-eight; imported by Mr. Turnbull from Minorca, &c., one thousand four hundred; negroes, upwards of nine hundred. Of these, white heads of families, one hundred and forty-four were married, which is just one-half; thirty-one are storekeepers and traders ”

“ Every free white man of twenty one years of age and every soldier who has taken an active part in our Revolution, and shall have been a resident in the Territory one year previous to the first day of April last, and will swear or affirm that he considered East Florida his only and actual place of residence at the commencement of the Revolution shall be duly qualified to vote agreeable to this Constitution for the Legislative Council and Director. ”

“ Liberal grants of land were offered by the British to attract colonists to East Florida. Glowing accounts of its 45 agricultural possibilities were published and circulated. Titled English gentlemen and wealthy Carolina planters secured grants of land in the vicinity of the capital and along the St. Johns River. The eccentric Denys Rolle established a colony called Rollestown near the present site of East Palatka, where he planned to rehabilitate derelicts from the streets of London. ”

“ Here the Florida railway connects for Fernandina, Cedar Keys, Gainesville, and other points in East Florida.
Beyond Baldwin the train passes over a swampy country intersected by numerous creeks flowing northward into the St. Mary’s river, which near here makes its South Prong far to the south. Sanderson, (eighteen miles) is an insignificant station. Olustee (ten miles) is a rising village in the midst of a wide level tract, (no hotel; board at private houses $1.50 to $2.00 a day.) ”

“ So far then as respects East Florida, the term 'lawful authorities' designates the governor as certainly as if he had been expressly named in the eighth article of the treaty. He is the officer who was empowered by his sovereign to make grants of lands in that province, and in ceding the province to the United States, his sovereign has stipulated that grants made by him shall be as valid as if the province had remained under his dominion. ”

“ On April 21, 1783, Governor Tonyn announced what had already become generally known, that England had ceded the Floridas and Minorca back to Spain in exchange for the retention of Gibraltar and other territories. British subjects were given eighteen months in which to dispose of their property and evacuate Florida.
This trend of events was a crushing blow to East Florida’s numerous English residents. Many had just recently moved to the province, purchased or built new homes, and cleared land for cultivation. New towns had grown up, such as St. ”

“ On the east coast of South Florida the lands are productive, and healthy in location. On the St. Lucie River and Sound, the banks are high shell bluff, and exceedingly fertile for high lands. Though north of the tropical latitude, yet the climate is so genial, that it nourishes with luxuriance, in the open air, most of the fruits of tropical climes. ”

“ A settlement called Astoria was formed in 1811 at the mouth of Oregon or Columbia river, by a number of American citizens. The number of Indian inhabitants is 140,000.
Florida Territory is bounded north by Georgia and Alabama; south and west by the gulf of Mexico, and east by the Atlantic. It extends from twenty-five to thirty-one degrees north latitude; and from eighty degrees thirty minutes to eighty-seven degrees twenty minutes west longitude; its length is three hundred and fifty, and its breadth one hundred and fifty miles. Its area includes about fifty thousand square miles. ”

“ Accordingly, on February 22, 1819, Adams negotiated a treaty by which the Floridas were ceded, [140] and the western boundary of Louisiana was settled along the Sabine, Red, and Arkansas rivers to the forty-second parallel, and then along that to the Pacific. This treaty strengthened American claims to the Oregon region, and also helped to settle various Indian and slave troubles connected with East Florida, which had served as a place of refuge for runaway negroes and other bad characters. ”

“ For those who would like a home in a more genial clime, where they can, by patient industry, within from two to six years, lay the sure foundation for a permanent income, where the expenses of living are not more than about one-fourth as great as in the north, these pages will surely be of interest and will repay them for the time consumed in their perusal. The peninsula of Florida extends abruptly from the main land of the continent, in a direction a little east of south. ”

“ On account of its sand reefs, the east coast has not so many harbours as the west coast. The most important harbours are at Fernandina, St Augustine, and Miami on the E. coast, and at Tampa, Key West and Pensacola on the W. coast.
The soils of Florida have sand as a common ingredient. [1] They may be divided into three classes: the pine lands, which often have a surface of dark vegetable mould, under which is a sandy loam resting on a substratum of clay, marl or limestone—areas of such soil are found throughout the state ”

“ In the following year, Spain having declared war against Great Britain, Don Bernardo de Galvez (1756–1794) , the Spanish governor at New Orleans, seized most of the English forts in West Florida, and in 1781 captured Pensacola.
By the treaty of Paris (1783) Florida reverted to Spain, and, no religious liberty being promised, many of the English inhabitants left East and West Florida. A dispute with the United States concerning the northern boundary was settled by the treaty of 1795, the line 31° N. lat. being established. ”

“ The bank swallows are of the ten that take up this route, and the air is often full of their whirling flocks.
Here at White City we are about two-thirds the way down the Florida peninsula, about east of the northern end of Lake Okeechobee, which sits at the northern end of the Everglades. The southeast trade winds, blowing across the Gulf Stream and over the Bahamas, bringing fresh sea odors to Florida, here pass a long line of the islands which bar off the Indian River from the ocean. ”

“ The British divided the territory into two provinces—East Florida, with St. Augustine as its capital, and West Florida, with Pensacola as its capital.
New Orleans Mississippi River GEORGIA 1764 BOUNDARY 1763 BOUNDARY WEST FLORIDA ★Pensacola Mobile Apalachicola River EAST FLORIDA Chattahoochee ★St. Augustine New Smyrna
Records show that St. Augustine at the time of the Spanish evacuation had a population of 3,096—961 men, chiefly soldiers and officials; 798 women, and 1,337 children. The majority went to Cuba and the West Indies to find new homes. The English flag with its cross of St. ”

“ A road now in use known as Flamingo Road commencing at a point between Sections 11 and 12, Township 50 South, Range 40 East, on State Road 26, in Broward County, Florida, thence running about 8.2 miles in a southerly direction and intersecting with a paved road known as Hollywood Boulevard, said road being located on the quarter section line, Section 13, Township 51 South, Range 40 East, and wholly within Broward County, Florida. ”

“ The Isthmus connecting the Peninsula to the main is on the north, and is strengthened by a stone causeway. The ruins of a suburb, called the North City, are visible near it. Most of the streets are narrow, without sidewalks, and shaded by projecting balconies.
On the east is the harbor, a sheet of water about eight fathoms in depth, known as the Matanzas river. It is separated from the ocean by Anastasia, or Fish Island, a narrow tract of land about fourteen miles long. The inlet is variable in depth, but rarely averages over five feet. ”

“ Beyond these, it enters the low pine lands of Nassau county. They are unproductive, thinly inhabited, and to the traveler extremely monotonous. The first station is Callahan (27 miles) ; the next Baldwin (Florida House) , where a connection is made with the Pensacola and Georgia Railway for Tallahassee, Jacksonville, etc.
The country gradually rises and improves in quality of soil beyond this point, but houses continue sparse. The station next beyond is Trail Ridge (15 miles) . Here the mail is delivered for Middleburg on Black Creek, twelve miles east. (See Route up the St. John.) ”

“ After 1882 the reclamation of swamp lands in the south of the peninsula was carried on on a large scale, and led to the development of the sugar industry. The discovery of rich phosphate deposits in 1889 improved economic conditions greatly, and the growing popularity of eastern Florida as a winter resort has further enhanced its prosperity. The present Constitution was adopted in 1886. In politics, both State and National, Florida since 1876 has been invariably Democratic. ”

“ In time, coral sand-spit and mangrove swamp were cleared for a wonderland playground, of divine climate whither winter tourists throng by the hundred thousand. In time, too, these sand-spits and swamps and older formations of the sunny peninsula furnished homes and sources of livelihood or of wealth to many thousands more, people, these, to whom Florida is a Career, not a Resort. ”

“ Everything grows with a spontaneity that is surprising—fruits and flowers everywhere in the woods and wildernesses in wild luxuriance. The very nature of things seems to be reversed; pears grow on graceful vines, peas on stately trees, and some things (as witness the air plant) grow on nothing at all. But in spite of the richness of the soil, the geniality of the climate, Florida is not exactly a paradise; here as elsewhere man must carry out the great law, and labour for his daily bread. Nature is prolific, and yields her treasures ungrudgingly, but she demands something in return. ”

“ In 1820 the constitutional convention of Alabama, in anticipation of the ratification of the Spanish treaty, memorialized congress to embrace West Florida within the boundaries of that state. The memorial enforced the measure with all those obvious arguments which come to the mind when it turns to the subject. But they were silenced, as if by the imperious decree of fate that the Perdido boundary should be, and forever remain, a monument of d’ Arriola’s diligence in reaching the Gulf coast three years before d’ Iberville. ”