The Old Country
Alachua County
1824
While the area of central Florida known as Alachua centered around the Alachua Savana, was well known, it had no defined boundaries until in 1824 when the county of Alachua was formerly defined extending from the Georgia boarder to Charlotte Harbor south of Tampa. Being centrally located, Wanton’s home was designated as the temporary county seat. Mosquito county was also formed out of the southern part of St. Johns County which included the Indian reservation.
By October 1824 the Arredondo Grant contained 200 residents and twenty farms. This would become important later in determining the settlement condition of the Arrendondo Grant. Wanton’s son Billy purchased 100 acres of Alachua land in the same year. Moses Levy became one of the richest men in the area with his plantation Pilgrimage less than three miles from Wanton’s.
Hogtown Creek
In 1824 Arrendondo gave a number of tracks of land in the Arrendondo to various individuals including, 1250 acres to Edward Wanton, 1666 acres to Thomas Murphy, and land to Peter Mitchel. Of particular interest to me was on September 25th, 1824 Arrendondo gave 500 acres of land in Alachua on Hog Town Creek to James Rir. Today, Hogtown Creek runs though Gainesville and was not far from where I grew up and where my brother played and looked for sharks’ teeth in it when we were boys. See Hogtown Creek.
1825
In February 1825 elections were held at Wantons to select the commissioners who would choose a permanent seat. Circuit ministers regularly preached at Wanton’s, it was becoming the center of hub of the area with a post office opened in Wanton’s in 1826.
In 1825, Micanopy became the principal chief of the unified Seminole Indians