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A History of Columbia County Florida (1996) Edward F. Keuchel 23/340

Early Sett lent ent

search for the tract of land given to F. M. Arredondo, and which
Joseph Arredondo had conferred to Levy. Moses E. Levy, the
father of one of Florida’s first Senators David Levy Yulee, was a
Moroccan-born merchant who had moved to Havana in 1815. He
supplied military goods to the Spanish government and received a
36,000 acre grant near the Arredondo grant. Charles was familiar
with the area having resided at Suwannee Ferry since 1824 which
he stated was thirty to thirty-six miles west of Alligator Town. He
described the area between the Suwannee and the Indian town as
poor pine and palmetto land. Alligator Town was described as an
uninhabited Indian settlement with a number of Indian huts not
occupied and in ruins. The only white settlers he encountered in
the vicinity in 1824 were an “old Mr. Edwards” and “two men by
the name of Austeen” [O’Steen ].,(J
John Lee Williams, who helped select Tallahassee as the site of
the capital and was the author of A View of West Florida (1827),
made a caustic evaluation. Before Justice of the Peace Gould in
1830, Williams testified that the land between Alligator Town and
the Suwannee was of poor quality and bluntly stated that he would
not give more than “ten cents an acre for it.”11

On May 4, 1846, John D. O’Steen, testified before George S.
Hawkins, judge of the circuit court in Newnansville. O’Steen
stated that when he arrived in 1823 or 1824 he was one of the first
settlers in what was to become Columbia County. Upon his arrival
he found two households in the vicinity of Alligator: Noel Raul-
erson who lived at the site of what later became the court house
and Henry Edwards who lived about one and a half miles north­
west of Raulerson. On the northeast end of Alligator Lake O’Steen
found the ruins of an Indian settlement and two Indians: Bill and
Charley Emathla. The Emathla brothers told O’Steen that this
was the site of the Indian community known as “Alpata Telophka”

'"Ibid., pp. 51-52.
"Ibid., pp. 54-56.
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