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Lake City, Florida: A Sesquicentennial Tribute (2009) H. Morris Williams, Dr. Kevin M. McCarthy

While some white settlers moved into what became Columbia
County in the first half of the nineteenth century, growing hostility

between the whites and the Indians kept many whites away. Even for
those whites living there, life was not normal. As historian John Mahan
pointed out in his History of the Second Seminole War, 1835 –
1842, the judicial system was under such pressure in those years that
the “courts had not met in Columbia County for three years because
of the Indians.” Such a lack of judicial process caused many
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inconveniences. For example, one local man, John Bryan, could not
obtain a divorce from his wife, who had abandoned him and was
living in adultery with another man, and so it was the Florida Legislature
that enacted a law that granted him a divorce.

In order to protect the local white settlers from the Indians

and to harbor troops who were fighting the Indians, the federal
government built several forts in the area, including Fort White near
the Santa Fe River and Fort Lancaster in what became downtown
Lake City. The Seminoles attacked local people and killed a number
of them, especially on isolated farms. Many whites left the area,
especially after young men on the farms were called up to serve in the
militia. The last Indian attack happened in 1842.

Federal troops built forts like this one near
Orlando during the Seminole Indian Wars.
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