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A History of Columbia County Florida (1996) Edward F. Keuchel 14/340

A History of Columbia County, Florida

in 1846 by Enoch Daniels, an early settler. In testimony before
federal officials investigating the Arrendondo land grant, a 38,000
acre tract in present Columbia County given to F. M. Arrendondo
by the King of Spain, Daniels stated that he visited Alligator Town
in 1813. He described it as a community of sixty or seventy Indian
families located on the northeast side of Alligator Lake. Daniels
testified that he returned to the area in 1818 and found only the
remains of the Indian village with no white persons yet having
settled there.22 There are some problems with Daniels’chronology,
and it is possible that 1813 was not the year that he was in Alligator
Town or that 1818 was not the year of his return. For example he
gave 1814 as the year of Newnan’s expedition instead of 1812.
Aside from the dating errors, though, Daniels’ testimony gives
evidence that he was in the area of Alligator Town around 1812 or
1813. Since Williams’ Tennessee volunteers so thoroughly devasted
Seminole settlements east of the Suwannee in 1813, it is most likely
that Chief Alligator and his tribe left at that time.
A further weakening of Seminole strength in northern Florida
took place during the First Seminole War (1817-1818). During the
summer of 1817 Indians were gathering near Tallahassee. This
caused concern among Americans living in southern Georgia and
Alabama. On November 20 General Gaines sent Major David E.
Twiggs and a force to arrest Neamathla a Mikasuki leader of
Fowltown located near Fort Scott in Alabama Territory. The
Indians fired on the soldiers so General Gaines had the village de­
stroyed. This incident occurred within United States territory, but
on November 30, the Seminoles ambushed a supply convoy sailing
up the Apalachicola River. Even though the Apalachicola was in
Spanish Florida, the army regularly used it for supply purposes.
In the attack, thirty-seven soldiers, seven soldiers’ wives, and four

“Historic Records Survey, Works Project Administration, Spanish Land
Grants in Florida Vol. II, Confirmed Claims, State Library Board (Tallahassee,
1941), pp. 56-57.

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