Cascades Waterfall

Cascades Waterfall. Cascades Park. This waterfall celebrates the location of the Florida State Capital in October 1823 by Dr. William H. Simmons of St. Augustine and John Lee Williams of Pensacola. These men were commissioned by Governor William P. Duval to find a compromise location for the capital between St. Augustine and Pensacola. The area around the Apalachee village of Tallahassee ("old fields") was selected. John Lee Williams eloquently described the area as follows:, "Doct. Simmons has agreed that the site should be fixed near the old fields abandoned by the Indians after Jackson's invasion, but has not yet determined whether between the… old fields, or on a fine high lawn about a mile W. In both spots, the water is plenty and good… Directly east of the old fields runs a stream of water which you must recollect. This stream, after running about a mile south. pitches about 20 or 30 feet into an immense chasm, in which it runs 60 or 70 rods to the base of a high hill which it enters among the clefts of Amorphous atgilceaous… rocks full of shells and other fossils." (Florida's Lost Waterfall: Cascades Park, Between Two Rivers: Stories from the Red Hills to the Gulf. Julie Hauserman, August 2004), This cascade and sink have long since vanished, but the stream, the St. Augustine Branch, remains. The 1824 map shows the original plan for Tallahassee and includes the St. Augustine Branch., (sidebar) , What is a rod? A rod is an old English unit of length equal to 5.5 yards (16.5 feet) (A Rod=A Perch=A Pole), (captions) , Drawing by Comte Francis de Castelnau depicting the Cascade (1839). State Archive of Florida, 1824 map of original plan for the City of Tallahassee. State Archives of Florida