Wacahoota, Florida is an unincorporated community in Alachua, Levy, and Marion counties, Florida, United States.
Wacahoota, Florida is an unincorporated community in Alachua, Levy, and Marion counties, Florida, United States.
The name "Wacahoota", spelled Wacahootee or Wacahootie on early 19th century maps, is believed to derive from a combination of Spanish vaca, "cow", and Muscogee hute or hoti, "cowpen". The Seminoles living around Payne's Prairie in the 18th and early 19th centuries owned large herds of cattle, and Wacahoota was likely the site of one or more cowpens used by them. [1]
Wacahoota was associated in the 1830s with a location known as "Bowlegs' Old Plantation", in present-day Levy County. Bowlegs Old Plantation is presumed to have been earlier occupied by Billy Bowlegs's band of Seminoles. [2]
Wacahoota was one of the two most populous places in Marion County when it was created in 1844, having been settled by planters from South Carolina after Florida was transferred from Spain to the U.S. The Wacahoota train station was in Alachua County. [3]
A post office named "Wacahootee" was established in 1842 in what soon became Marion County. It closed in 1869, was reopened in 1873 and closed again in 1877. A post office named "Wacahoota" was established in Alachua County in 1895, closing in 1907. [4]
Marion County is a county located in the North Central region of the U.S. state of Florida. As of the 2020 census, the population was 375,908. Its county seat is Ocala. Marion County comprises the Ocala, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area. It includes part of Ocala National Forest, which also extends into three other counties.
Alachua County is a county in the north central portion of the U.S. state of Florida. As of the 2020 census, the population was 278,468. The county seat is Gainesville, the home of the University of Florida.
The Seminole Wars were a series of three military conflicts between the United States and the Seminoles that took place in Florida between about 1816 and 1858. The Seminoles are a Native American nation which coalesced in northern Florida during the early 1700s, when the territory was still a Spanish colonial possession. Tensions grew between the Seminoles and American settlers in the newly independent United States in the early 1800s, mainly because enslaved people regularly fled from Georgia into Spanish Florida, prompting slaveowners to conduct slave raids across the border. A series of cross-border skirmishes escalated into the First Seminole War, when American General Andrew Jackson led an incursion into the territory over Spanish objections. Jackson's forces destroyed several Seminole, Mikasuki and Black Seminole towns, as well as captured Fort San Marcos and briefly occupied Pensacola before withdrawing in 1818. The U.S. and Spain soon negotiated the transfer of the territory with the Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819.
Micanopy is a town in Alachua County, Florida, United States, located south of Gainesville. It is part of the Gainesville, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population as of the 2020 census was 648, up from 600 at the 2010 census.
McIntosh is a town in Marion County, Florida, United States. It is part of the Ocala, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2020 census, the town population was 463, up from 452 at the 2010 census.
Bolek, also spelled as Boleck or Bolechs, and known as Bowlegs by European Americans, was a Seminole principal chief, of the Alachua (Oconee) chiefly line. He was the younger brother of King Payne, who succeeded their father Cowkeeper as leading or principal chief in Florida. Bolek succeeded King Payne in 1812 when he was killed during the Patriot War.
Newnansville, Florida was one of the first American settlements in the interior of Florida. It became the second county seat of Alachua County in 1828, and one of the central locations for activity during the Second Seminole War, during which time it was one of the largest cities in the State. In the 1850s, the Florida Railroad bypassed Newnansville, resulting in the county seat being moved to the new town of Gainesville in 1854. Consequently, Newnansville began to decline, and when a second railway bypassed the town in 1884, most of its residents relocated and formed the new City of Alachua. By 1900, Newnansville was deserted.
King Payne was a son of the Seminole high chief Cowkeeper and succeeded him as leading chief of the Seminoles upon his death in 1783. He led his people against the Spanish and Americans from Georgia and established a number of towns and villages, including Paynes Town in Paynes Prairie, both of which are named for him. Paynes Prairie is in present-day Alachua County, Florida, between Gainesville and Micanopy. U.S. Route 441 and Interstate 75 cut through the prairie.
Evinston is an unincorporated community in Alachua and Marion counties, Florida, United States.
Rochelle is an unincorporated community in Alachua County, Florida, United States. It was found in the 1830s on a former native settlement and mission site. and was built around the Plantation of Madison Starke Perry.
Ahaya was the first recorded chief of the Alachua band of the Seminole tribe. European-Americans called him Cowkeeper, as he held a very large herd of cattle. Ahaya was the chief of a town of Oconee people near the Chattahoochee River. Around 1750 he led his people into Florida where they settled around Payne's Prairie, part of what the Spanish called tierras de la chua, "Alachua Country" in English. The Spanish called Ahaya's people cimarones, which eventually became "Seminoles" in English. Ahaya fought the Spanish, and sought friendship with the British, allying with them after Spain ceded Florida to Great Britain in 1763, and staying loyal to them through the American Revolutionary War. He died shortly after Britain returned Florida to Spain in 1783.
The Battle of San Felasco Hammock took place during the Second Seminole War, fought by Florida's Seminole Indians to prevent their removal to the Arkansas Territory in accordance with the Indian Removal Act of 1830.
Hague is an unincorporated community in Alachua County, Florida, United States. It is located on Alachua County Road 237 between U.S. Route 441 and the Deerhaven Subdivision line of the CSX Railroad, between the cities of Alachua and Gainesville.
Campville is a community in eastern Alachua County, Florida, north of Hawthorne. The community grew up along the route of the Florida Transit and Peninsular Railroad, with a sawmill, a store, a church, a school and a score of homes in the area when a post office was established in 1881. It was named for three brothers by the name of Camp who ran a large sawmill in the area. The population was about 300 in 1928, when a brick factory, several tree nurseries, and four stores were located in the community. The brick factory was also founded by the Camp brothers and bricks produced there can be seen in Gainesville's old downtown buildings. The bricks are a tan buff color. The post office was closed in 1966.
Arredondo, Florida is an unincorporated community in Alachua County, about seven miles southwest of Gainesville on the highway from Gainesville to Archer. It was established as a shipping station on the Florida Railroad that ran from Fernandina through Gainesville to Cedar Key, largely absorbing an earlier community called Kanapaha. The Florida Railroad later became part of the Seaboard Air Line Railroad, which abandoned the line from Archer to Cedar Key in 1932. The tracks were removed in the 1970s.
Grove Park is an unincorporated community in Alachua County, Florida, United States, on Florida State Road 20 west of Hawthorne.
Rutledge, Florida is an unincorporated community in central Alachua County, Florida. The community was established for formerly enslaved persons during Reconstruction by the Freedmen's Bureau. The First Morning Star Missionary Baptist Church and the Greater Liberty Hill United Methodist Church, both founded in the 19th century, continue to serve the community. The Greater Liberty Hill church is the site of the Liberty Hill Schoolhouse, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. The Rutledge Community Cemetery, formerly called Union Cemetery of Rutledge, is under the stewardship of the Second Morning Star Missionary Baptist Church. The center of the community was located about five miles west of Gainesville, Florida in the 19th century. As of 2021 it extends from just west of the Gainesville city limits to I-75. A post office was established in 1886, and closed in 1905. In 1888 the community had three stores and a boarding house. It was on the planned route of the Gainesville, Tallahassee and Western Railroad, which was never built.
Fort Clarke was an unincorporated community in central Alachua County. The fort established was by the US Army during the Second Seminole War. A historical marker commemorates the fort, which was abandoned by the US Army in 1840. In 1841, 16 citizens voted at Fort Clarke on adopting a proposed constitution for Florida. In May 1845, the community was a precinct at which seven residents voted in the election of the state governor and legislators, and the representative to the US House of Representatives, after Florida was admitted to the union as a state. A post office was established in 1846 and closed in 1858. In 1883, John Bevill, who was described as the model farmer of Alachua County, had over 1,000 acres (400 ha) in cultivation at Fort Clarke. Two churches, the Fort Clarke United Methodist Church and the Greater Fort Clarke Missionary Baptist Church, are currently located in the vicinity of the former site of the fort. The site is now part of the urbanized area west of Gainesville.
Gad Humphreys was an officer in the United States Army and an Indian agent in Florida. He was appointed to his post in 1822. He was supportive of the Indians and tried to help them and protect them from encroachments by White settlers. He was accused of abusing his post by preventing or delaying the return to their owners of fugitive slaves that had taken refuge with the Indians. An investigation was conducted, but none of his accusers were willing to testify. Even so, he was removed from his post in 1830.
The historic communities of Alachua County were populated places and/or places with a post office that were established in the 19th century or early 20th century in what is now Alachua County, Florida, but which were abandoned, annexed into an incorporated municipality, or had a much reduced population by the later part of the 20th century.
Municipalities and communities of Alachua County, Florida, United States | ||
|---|---|---|
| Cities |  | |
| Towns | ||
| Unincorporated communities | ||
| Ghost towns | ||
| Footnotes |
| |
Municipalities and communities of Marion County, Florida, United States | ||
|---|---|---|
| Cities |  | |
| Towns | ||
| CDPs | ||
| Unincorporated communities | ||
| Footnotes | ‡This populated place also has portions in an adjacent county or counties | |