A New Capital
Simmons
1823
Simmons Day 1
Rather than taking the longer route by sea to St. Marks, Simmons decided on the shorter, but more treacherous, land route setting out on September 26, 1823 on horseback and a pack horse loaded with supplies heading westward from St. Augustine.[1] One of the first obstacles he encountered traveling westward from St. Augustine was the St. John’s River, the largest river in Florida. Traveling west from St. Augustine there were two main crossing points across the St. Johns, the more northern crossing, almost due west from St. Augustine at Picolati, the site of an old Seminole War fort but then abandoned. Further upriver, to the south for the St. Johns flows northward, was Buana Vista there was a ferry appropriately named Alachua Ferry (later Palatka) where the path led westward from the crossing to the Alachua Savana. The “road”, if you could call it that for it was hardly more than old Indian trail, travelable only by horse and mule, or as Vignoles described them “bridle paths”.
September was not a good time for travel being the end of the tropical storm season with torrential rains often dumping inches of rain flooding low areas. It took Simmons a full day to travel the ten miles from St. Augustine to the crossing at Buana Vista where he,
“reached Buonavista, late at night, the road being impeded with water nearly the whole way. The flats being on the other side, there was no possibility of getting my horses over before the morning. I however passed over myself in a canoe and slept at Vibrillia.”
It was still stormy the following day and his horses could not be brought across until evening, but even with it being late in the day, Simmons proceeded in intermittent rain making eleven miles before setting up camp late into the evening at the edge of a lower area called Bell’s Savanna. With it too wet from the rain to start a fire, so he sheltered under a cowhide and had a cold dinner of bread and dried beef from the provisions he carried on the pack horse. Getting up the following morning at daylight and had a quick breakfast from his supplies. He would have liked to have built a fire and make a pot of coffee but with everything so wet he didn’t want to take the time so he set off towards Alachua. After crossing Bell’s Savana, the ground was higher following a sandy ridge through ancient forests of long leaf pines and hardwood hammocks of oak, hickory and sweetgum. By mid-morning the rain had stopped with it becoming a rather pleasant day and he arrived at, “Alachua at sunset after a fatiguing ride of near fifty miles.” He had arrived at Wanton’s trading post where he was warmly welcomed. Simmons had been to Wanton’s the year before, in February of 1822.
[1] FHQ.73, Journal of Dr. W. H. Simmons
Updated: 2026-08-07