Early Settlers on This Land

Early Settlers on This Land. Faver-Dykes State Park. The area around Pellicer Creek was granted to Spanish citizens, as early as the late 1770s. Pellicer Creek was known as Cano del Noroeste (North West Creek) in the First Spanish Period (1565 - 1763). , In the British Period (1763 - 1783) a plantation economy was introduced. Within today's park boundaries lay the plantations of John Moultrie and James Hume. To the west John Hewitt built a sawmill on the creek furnishing lumber for regional construction., In the Second Spanish Period (1783 - 1821) many land grants were issued to encourage agriculture. In the 1790s, William McHenry received 800 acres along the creek, and 1,800 acres at Hemming Point were granted to Hepworth Carter., Francisco Pellicer was granted 1,100 acres south the creek, and the creek took on his name. The only intact early land grant, it is now "Princess Place Preserve," a public park., Indian Attack! , In 1802, plantations across the river were burned and looted by Seminole Indians. Carter sold his acres to Samuel Betts, a land speculator, for $500, but the Hispanic settlers merely retreated to St. Augustine., Unrest and Revolution! , In 1812 an American invasion of Spanish Florida developed into the Patriot's War, a "lengthy and destructive blood feud." Rural settlers lived in danger, never sure when the armed "patriots" might appear., More Land Grants and Another Indian War , In 1817, Joseph Hernandez, the first Hispanic to serve in the U.S. Congress, was granted 455 acres naming it Buena Suerte. He was a local leader, owned many plantations, and captured Osceola, the famous Seminole warrior., During the Second Seminole War of 1835, furious Seminoles rampaged throughout the region. After the War, plantation land lay fallow until the late nineteenth century., "The whole country south of St. Augustine has been laid waste this past week, and not a building left standing between St. Augustine and Cape Florida." [from Niles' Weekly Register, Volume XLIX: 442, February 11, 1836.], (captions) , Clements and Clements map of 1834, courtesy Florida Memory, Florida Department of State, Patriot soldiers planning attack on Castillo de San Marcos, St. Augustine. Courtesy Jackson Walker , , Woodcut from An Authentic Narrative of the Seminole War, 1936. Courtesy Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.