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

Chapter Six: 1860 - 1869

In March 1861, before hostilities began in South Carolina,
the Charleston Daily Courier sent reporters to describe ante-bellum
conditions in the South. A pseudonymous writer calling himself
“Batchelor” visited Florida and wrote back his impressions of the
northern part of the state. He liked what he saw in Lake City:

Lake City takes its name from a number of limpid basins that
glisten like pearls around the suburbs. It numbers 800
inhabitants, possesses a mild and healthy climate, and good
sociality. It wears above all an air of sociality and refinement
not always found in a new country, newly peopled. The

adjacent country, judging from the part we saw along the rail
road, is not so wealthy as other portions, and consequently
offers fewer inducements to planters. For health and
happiness, however, it can be safely recommended. It has,
too, its pretty faces, and in numbers sufficient to almost dissipate
the quiet reverie resolves of a bachelor, even. 12

The Civil War was a hard time for Lake Citians, not only
because of the Union blockade of Florida ports, but also because
many young men went off to fight for the Confederacy at battles in
Virginia and Tennessee. The rail lines around Lake City enabled officials
to send beef and salt to Confederate soldiers, and so Union officers
targeted north central Florida for an attack.

One of the ex-slaves in Lake City
who went there from Savannah after
the Civil War was known to everyone
as Uncle Virge. He lived on Wire
Road (now U.S. 41) until his death
in 1928.

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