How Ocheesee almost replaced Tallahassee as capital of Florida

The wooden frame capitol building in Tallahassee as it
appeared in 1831 when Ocheesee almost became state capital.
State Archives of Florida

Tallahassee had been capital of Florida for fewer than ten years when it almost lost the title to the Apalachicola River valley.

Pensacola and St. Augustine had never been thrilled that the new town being carved from the wilderness had taken their ancient titles as the twin capital cities of Florida. The population boom taking place in in Tallahassee, however, was rapidly solidifying its status.

The 1830 census revealed that Leon County, of which Tallahassee was the county seat, had become Florida's most populous county with 6,494 residents. Gadsden County was next with 4,895 while Jackson County was third with 3,907. 

Pensacola and St. Augustine had had lost their centuries old positions as the population centers of Florida in just nine years.

Florida as it appeared in 1832.
(Click to enlarge)

Anti-Tallahassee delegates to the Florida Territorial Legislative Council knew that 1831 might be their last chance to wrest the title of capital away from the growing town in the hills of Middle Florida. When the Council members convened that year, they took their best shot.

The delegates met at the tiny frame capitol building in Tallahassee in 1831 and voted for the appointment of a commission to review other potential sites for the establishment of a permanent capital city. 

The members of this commission began their work and three places quickly emerged as the leading candidates to replace Tallahassee. They were Ocheesee Bluff in Calhoun County, Mt. Vernon (Chattahoochee) in Gadsden County and an unidentified point on the Suwannee River. 

Mt. Vernon, which was soon renamed Chattahoochee due to mail confusion with the Alabama community of the same name, was the only one of these places that had become an actual town by 1831. It had been picked to become the site for Florida's new U.S. Arsenal and the arrival of steamboat traffic on the Apalachicola River spurred its growing development as an important river port.

The red clay of Ocheesee Bluff in Calhoun County, Florida.

Ocheesee Bluff, until recently the site of the Creek Indian village of Ocheesee Talofa, was also located on the Apalachicola River. The Federal Road crossed the river at Ocheesee, which was soon to be named the seat of government for short-lived Fayette County. 

Interests from the East Coast of Florida favored a location somewhere on the Suwannee River. A city there would have to be built from scratch, but unlike Tallahassee would be closer to St. Augustine, Jacksonville and Fernandina while also offering the advantage of river transportation.

It was a close decision:

SEAT OF GOVERNMENT. - The Commissioners appointed under the Resolution of the last Council have made separate reports - one infavor of Mount Vernon - two infavor of Ocheesee and one infavor of a point on the Suwanee as the seat of Government. - (Tallahassee Floridian, January 10, 1832).

This historic live oak tree at Ocheesee Bluff survives from
the days of the town of Ocheesee, Florida.

Three of the four commissioners favored a location on the Apalachicola River, but split between Mt. Vernon and Ocheesee. The latter place received a plurality of the total vote, but since the commission included four members it ended in a tie with Mt. Vernon and a site on the Suwanee.

Unable to break this deadlock, the Council delegates themselves decided to wait another year or two and see what might happen:

...The public buildings at Tallahassee will answer, until the progressive improvement of the Country shall show what point is likely to continue central, as regards the population of the Territory. - There are immense bodies of unexplored land of good quality in East Florida, and the Suwanee will probably be the center of population within ten years. - (Tallahassee Floridian, January 10, 1832).

The restored gunpowder magazine of the U.S. Arsenal at
Chattahoochee is now the Apalachicola Arsenal Museum.

It was not to be. The next ten years saw Leon County's dramatic growth continue while neighboring Jefferson County surged past Jackson to become the third most populous of Florida's counties. The St. Joseph Convention approved a proposed constitution for Florida and the territory was admitted to the Union as a state in 1845.

Ocheesee lost its chance to become capital of Florida by a single vote. Had the Apalachicola River supports on the commission unified their votes, the state capitol building would likely be there today. Instead, it is a ghost town. An old oak tree at Ocheesee Landing and the historic Gregory House across the river in Torreya State Park are virtually all that remain to prove it ever existed. 

Columbus, the town that soon grew on the Suwannee River, is also a ghost town today. Its cemetery and a few other traces can be seen at Suwannee River State Park.

Chattahoochee still survives as a small but charming city of just under 4,000 people. Its trail system has been named one of the finest of any small town in America and the Apalachicola River is both a Florida Blueway and a National Scenic Trail.

Tallahassee remains the state capital of Florida.

You can learn more about the ghost town of Ocheesee and Chattahoochee's historic River Landing Park in these videos from TwoEgg.TV:

Jackson County declares war on "fake news"...in 1872!

Jackson County's Courthouse as it appeared not long
after the end of Reconstruction.

"Fake News" is a favorite national obsession these days. Liberals accuse conservative media outlets of spreading untruthful stories while conservatives say the national media is left-wing and slants the news accordingly.

Inaccuracy in reporting is nothing new. The citizens of Jackson County, in fact, declared war on "fake news" all the way back in 1872.

The issue was the county's murder rate.

Republican members of the State Legislature were alarmed by growing resistance in Jackson County to Reconstruction era rule in Florida. They wanted the U.S. Army to march back into the county to enforce prohibitions against such things as public gatherings and private gun ownership. Florida was still under military rule a full seven years after the War Between the States (or Civil War) and many Constitutional rights had been suspended.

They also believed that the presence of the soldiers would suppress Democrat votes while encouraging the county's Republican voters to turn out in larger numbers. Most of the freedmen or freed slaves in Jackson County were then Republicans, but the party was fracturing and bitter division was developing between the factions.

Marianna during the 1870s.

Jackson County had been the scene of several violent outbreaks during Reconstruction, particularly in the fall of 1869. These had been bloody but relatively short in duration. Hostility was growing in 1872 as property owners felt the weight of increasing taxes. The Republicans in Tallahassee had doubled taxes during their seven years of control.

In addition, graft and fraud was widespread in the Jackson County Courthouse. A trio of public officials - all appointed by the state's governor - had devised a plan to enrich themselves by increasing the assessed values of key properties. Assessments were later found to have been fraudulently increased by as much as 400% on targeted properties. When the owners could not afford to pay these taxes, the land was sold on the courthouse steps and usually wound up in the hands of one of the crooked county officials.

Everyday citizens, white and black, were also being hurt by a dramatic increase in fees. John Q. Dickinson, the former Union officer now serving as appointed Clerk of the Circuit Court, had dramatically increased the amount that citizens had to pay for document stamps, marriage licenses, deed filings and for filing lawsuits. This put the legal system beyond the reach of many county residents because they simply did not have the money to pay the fees.

These tactics led to growing resistance and, as mentioned above, a fracturing of the previously solid Republican voting block of freedmen.

Florida Capitol as it appeared in the 1870s.
State Archives of Florida/Memory Collection

Several individuals in the state legislature tried to clamp a lid on the situation by having occupation troops sent back to Marianna. They used wild claims of rampant killings and murders to add weight to their demands.

The campaign of "fake news" reached its peak in 1872 when members of the legislature alleged that 184 people had been assassinated or murdered in political violence in Jackson County in a three year time period.

Carpetbagger-allied newspapers like the Tallahassee Sentinel joined in and Jackson County found itself at the vortex of one of Florida's first recorded media frenzies. Lurid headlines spread across the nation and demands grew for the return of federal troops to the county.

There was just one problem. The claims were not true.

The outraged editor of the Marianna Courier went page by page through the county's records to determine the real truth of the matter. The result was a determination that 74 investigated deaths had occurred in Jackson County over a seven year time period, nearly half the number that state legislators claimed had taken place in just three years.

Lest anyone think that local officials suppressed the real numbers, it should be remembered that the Circuit Judge, Clerk of Courts and Sheriff were then all Republican officials appointed by the governor. If anything, they would have tried to inflate the numbers to support their friends in the legislature.

Of the the 74 deaths mentioned in the county records, the Courier dug deeper and found that many were not murders and that others were the result of police shootings and domestic disputes:

• 14 - Killed by accident.
•   9 - Justifiably killed by law enforcement.
•   8 - Killed in the commission of a criminal act.
• 17 - Killed in brawls or fights.
•   3 - Killed by causes unknown.
• 23 - Murdered (including political assassinations).

Another view of the State Capitol in the 1870s. The building
looked like this when legislators launched their "Fake News"
campaign against the people of Jackson County, Florida.
State Archives of Florida/Memory Collection

The final number for murders was 23. This number did include some political assassinations, but also included a number of murders that had nothing to do with politics. Averaged out over a seven year time period, this came to about 3.3 First Degree Murders per year - including political assassinations.

The total was a bit high, but it is a long way from 3.3 to the 61.3 First Degree Murders per year claimed by the "fake news" reports coming from the state legislature and allied newspapers in 1872.

Put simply, politicians in Tallahassee had accused Jackson County of having a murder rate 18.6 times higher than it really did. The media jumped on board. It was a brutal assault on the reputation of the community and its people and they were quick to fight back:

The people of Jackson County, Florida, of which Marianna is the seat, offer a reward of $50,000 for a substantiation of the charges of Ku-Kluxism made against that county, and a true and correct list of the names of the “one hundred and eight-four “murders, fifteen of the number being “women and children,” which are averred to have been committed in the county. This reward is offered in view of the slanderous report of the legislative committee. - Charleston Daily News, March 21, 1872.

No one ever claimed the reward offered of $50,000 offered by the people of the county for proof that 184 people had been murdered there in 1869-1872. 

The unproved allegations still find their way into books today, fake news from another century that continues to hound a peaceful, rural county to this day.

#91 Governor John Milton (100 Great Things about Jackson County, Florida)

Gov. John Milton
(D) Florida

Governor John Milton is #91 on my list of 100 Great Things about Jackson County, Florida. Please click here to see the full list as it is posted.

Born in Louisville, Georgia, on April 20, 1807, Governor Milton was a descendant and namesake of the famed English poet John Milton, who wrote Paradise Lost. The governor's grandfather was a soldier of the American Revolution and his father, General Homer V. Milton, served with distinction during the War of 1812 and Creek War of 1813-1814.

As a boy, the "Governor" - as he is generally known around Jackson County - studied at an academy in his hometown of Louisville and excelled in subjects that included Greek, Latin, English and mathematics. He was undoubtedly a bright and talented individual who was admitted to the bar in Georgia before he was 20 years old.

Leaving his hometown, Milton went on to practice law in Columbus, Georgia, where he was also elected to the rank of colonel in the Georgia militia (forerunner of today's Georgia National Guard). He ran for U.S. Congress in 1832 as a supporter of John C. Calhoun's theory of nullification.

Columbus, Georgia

The Nullifcation theory held that a state, by virtue of its sovereign status, could overrule or nullify actions of the Federal government that were not beneficial to the state. Milton lost that race, but remained an adamant supporter of states' rights and opponent of the growing power of the Federal government.

On August 11, 1834, Milton was arrested and charged with murder after he shot a man with whom he had been engaged in a personal and political dispute:

This day has terminated the controversy between Col. John Milton and Maj. J.T. Camp, by the death of the later. Col. Milton understanding that his life had been threatened by Maj. Camp, procured a double barreled Gun, and walked over to Nicholas Howards Store, and discharged the contents of one of his barrels into his back, and while falling discharged the other into his left breast. -

New Orleans, Milton's one-time home.
Photo courtesy of Brian Mabelitini

Milton turned himself in to local authorities, but was acquitted in a trial that began less than two weeks later. The jury determined that he had acted in self defense as Camp had threatened to kill him.

By 1835, Milton had relocated to Mobile, Alabama, where he continued his practice of law. He raised a company of cavalry during the Creek War of 1836 and took part in the movements that sent many of the Creek Indians west on the Trail of Tears.

Following the death of his first wife, Susan Amanda Milton, the future governor remarried Caroline Howze with whom he eventually had ten additional children. He and Susan had parented five children, but only one - William Henry Milton - survived the diseases of that day to become an adult.

Seeking more fertile ground for his law practice, the future governor moved to New Orleans and lived in Louisiana until 1845. It is believed that he was the same John Milton who was listed as having been badly injured during a steamboat explosion that took place on the Mississippi River at New Orleans on July 1, 1845. Among the "gentleman" passengers on the boat was a "John Milton" who was reported to have been badly scalded by steam.

Sylvania Plantation Marker at Blue Springs

Not long after this accident, Milton began his move from Louisiana to Jackson County. Through family connections he acquired the plantation of the late William Robinson at Blue Springs, which he expanded tremendously during the late 1840s and 1850s. Eventually his "Sylvania" plantation grew to include more than 6,000 acres of prime Jackson County land.

Always active in military and political affairs, John Milton was elected Major General of the 1st Division of the Florida Militia in 1849 and to a seat in the Florida Legislature one year later. Even though Jackson County was then a "Gibraltar" of the now-defunct Whig Party, Milton was a dedicated Democrat. His popularity is evidenced by the fact that he was elected to the legislature from a county controlled by party other than his own.

Old State Capitol in Tallahassee, Florida

In 1860, Milton was elected Governor of Florida by a commanding margin in the same November election that saw Abraham Lincoln elected President of the United States. In Florida, Milton received 6,994 votes in that election, compared to 5,248 for his opponent. Abraham Lincoln did not receive a single vote in Florida.

Although in those days the Governor-elect did not take office for nearly one year after being elected, Governor Madison S.Perry worked closely with his successor. It was Governor-elect Milton who announced Florida's secession from the portico of the Old Capitol on January 10, 1861.

Old Capitol as it appeared when Milton was Governor
State Archives of Florida/Memory Collection

Governor Milton assumed his office in October 1861. By that time Florida was part of the Confederate States of America. The governor would lead his state through nearly four years of war against the United States, even though he had been elected to his post while Florida was still part of the U.S.

His tenure as governor was remarkable as he was tasked with protecting the citizens of a state all but abandoned by the Confederate military. On their own and with little help from the Confederate capital in Richmond, Governor Milton and the Florida Legislature raised and equipped troops both for the Confederate armies and the defense of Florida.

Old Capitol Building in Tallahassee

The governor also stood up for the poor people of his state in the face of acts that reflected the growing desperation of the Confederate government. When Confederate commissary officers began seizing the last cows from the widows and children of Southern soldiers, Milton pleaded their case to Richmond. When the wives and children of a group of Unionists from Taylor County were seized by the Confederate army and placed in a concentration camp near Tallahassee, Milton secured their freedom and had them passed through the lines to their husbands and fathers.

Battle of Marianna Monument

Milton played a critical role in maintaining Florida's transportation systems during the war and in providing for the families of soldiers. His efforts helped secure the Confederate victory at Olustee on February 20, 1864, and when Marianna was attacked on September 27 of that year, he rushed forward to Chattahoochee determined to oppose the Federal advance in person if the enemy continued to advance.

On March 6, 1865, Confederate troops that included the Governor's sons - Major William H. Milton of the 5th Florida Cavalry and Cadet John Milton of the West Florida Seminary (today's Florida State University) - defeated a Union attempt to take Tallahassee and nearby Thomasville, Georgia. Dr. Charles Hentz, a Confederate surgeon who knew the governor well, remembered that things did not seem right with him in the wake of the dramatic victory:

Gov. Milton's grave at St. Luke's Episcopal Church

Governor Milton made an address to the soldiers in the Capitol. I had observed him when we were going down, walking up & down the Depot platform with an air of the most profound abstraction and dejection. I think he must have been suffering from some disease of the brain.

Less than one month later, Governor John Milton was dead. His life came to an end from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at his Sylvania plantation on April 1, 1865. While many of blamed Milton's death on suicide, recent research has produced a copy of a special Extra issue of the West Florida News from the week of his death that indicates the fatal gunshot wound was fired by accident. Milton was preparing for a bird-hunting expedition with his son when his shotgun accidentally discharged.

The Governor is buried at St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Marianna, alongside his father and many other members of his family. The Milton family remains heavily involved in business, legal and community improvement efforts in Jackson County to this day.

To learn more about Governor Milton's life and administration, please consider my book: The History of Jackson County, Florida: The War Between the States. It is also available at a discounted price for Kindle readers.

New Expanded Edition of "The Battle of Natural Bridge, Florida" is Now Available!

The new and expanded edition of my book, The Battle of Natural Bridge, Florida: The Confederate Defense of Tallahassee, is now available.

A companion volume to my book on the Battle of Marianna, which will also be released in new and expanded form soon, this book explores the history of the Battle of Natural Bridge, which was fought along the St. Marks River south of Tallahassee on March 6, 1865. The last significant Confederate victory of the War Between the States, this battle not only preserved Tallahassee's status as the only Southern capital east of the Mississippi not captured during the war, it also saved much of North Florida and South Georgia from vast economic devastation.

The expanded edition of the book includes a great deal of new information, including a section featuring original accounts of the battle, expanded casualty lists and the fascinating and mysterious story of the "last casualty" of the Battle of Natural Bridge.

Many men from Jackson County fought in the Battle of Natural Bridge and the book includes numerous mentions of the county and its connections to the engagement.

To order the new book, please follow the link above. To learn more about the battle, please visit www.exploresouthernhistory.com/nbindex.

Battle of Natural Bridge anniversary is this week.

Coming up in this week's print issue of the Jackson County Times, we will remember the anniversary of the Battle of Natural Bridge, Florida and explore how the battle impacted Jackson County even though it was fought near Tallahassee.

The last significant Confederate victory of the Civil War, the battle was fought on March 6, 1865 at the Natural Bridge of the St. Marks River. Troops from all over Florida, including Jackson County, took part in the fight and two of the three officers commanding the main Confederate line were from Marianna.

The Battle of Natural Bridge preserved Tallahassee's status as the only Southern capital city east of the Mississippi River not taken by Union troops during the Civil War. It also prevented massive destruction of infrastructure, governmental capability, industry and other resources.

To learn more about the battle, please visit www.exploresouthernhistory.com/nbindex or consider my book, The Battle of Natural Bridge, Florida, now available at Chipola River Book and Tea in downtown Marianna. You can also purchase it through www.barnesandnoble.com, www.amazon.com or by order through most bookstores.

The Battle of Natural Bridge, Florida

Most people who grew up in Florida have at least heard of the Battle of Natural Bridge. The Civil War battle on the banks of the St. Marks River preserved Tallahassee's status as the only Southern capital east of the Mississippi River not taken by Union troops.

A number of men from Jackson County took part in this battle and others were on the march trying to get there when the fight broke out.

If you are interested in learning more, I've started a new series on Natural Bridge at our sister blog, Civil War Florida. Over the next couple of weeks, I will be following the troop movements and events of the Natural Bridge campaign, so if Florida's Civil War history is of interest, come over and join us!