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WEST VOLUSIA AND THE ST. JOHNS RIVER First and always, there is the
River. West Volusia is in the middle of the River’s course. The water is wide and deep, allowing for boat traffic ranging from tugs pushing huge oil barges to canoes paddled by sightseers. The coffee brown color of the water comes from the amount of vegetation in the rich loam at its bottom. The River’s gone by many names -- Il-la-ka, Rio de Corrientes, Riviere de Mai, Rio de San Mateo, Rio de San Juan, and St. Johns to list a few. Some of its names are lost, along with the languages of the people who first swam and fished in it, and hunted and lived along its banks. But, by whatever name it’s called, the River always has been the economic backbone and the emotional heart of what now is called the DeLand-West Volusia area. And it’s been that way for roughly 15,000 years. There’s no written record to show what went on during most of that time. Recorded history of the area begins only in 1513, when the Spanish arrived in Florida. But that represents only about 3 percent of the time that people have been living in West Volusia. Evidence of the other 97 percent comes from archeology, which has found the evidence of Native Americans who first came to the area as the last Ice Age was drawing to a close. Much of this evidence is buried within what is called middens, heaps of shells and other debris that dot the West Volusia area. Middens actually are prehistoric trash heaps. The heaps contain remains of shellfish and other freshwater animals that were eaten by early people. Middens also contained pieces of pottery, discarded tools and other refuse. Archeologists shifting through middens are similar to detectives going through a suspect’s trash. Seeing what somebody throws away gives a good idea of how that person lived. But people lived in West Volusia even before the middens began to develop. In fact. some of the earliest signs of humans in Florida come from the bottom of the St. Johns near DeLand. Scuba divers have found spear points, arrowheads and other stone tools along with the fossils of such long-extinct animals as mastodons and mammoths. The people who left those ancient tools and weapons were nomadic hunters and gathers, living off game and wild plants, nuts and fruits. Descendants of the tribes who followed game across the Bering Strait land bridge from Asia to North America, they got to the West Volusia area about 15,000 years ago. Florida was a vastly different place then than now. It was cooler and drier, making the river more shallow than it is today. Hunters would wait at narrow spots in the river, where animals were likely to cross, and ambush their prey as it slogged through the muddy banks. About 9,000 years ago, the Earth’s climate warmed. Glaciers, which covered much of the earth during Ice Age, melted and caused ocean levels to rise. Central Florida became warm and humid, much as it is today. Giant land mammals of the Ice Age became extinct, but in their place came other species, such as alligators and manatees, that inhabit the St. Johns today. The culture of the Floridians changed along with the climate and wildlife. They no longer were nomadic hunters -- following big game and living in temporary shelters. Instead, attracted by the abundance of fish and shellfish in the river and by the variety of game that lived along its banks, the people established permanent settlements.These people left the first middens. By 4,000 B.C., they had developed cultures at least as sophisticated as Europe’s at that time. These early West Volusians made pottery, lived in large villages and practiced religion. Some of the earliest pottery in North America has been discovered in the remains of a large settlement on Tick Island, in the river near DeLeon Springs. The pottery, burials and clay sculptures all show that a fairly complex society existed on the island about 6,000 years ago. Trade and warfare with other tribes introduced the West Volusia people to new pottery-making techniques and other advancements. By 500 B.C., people along the river also had begun growing their own crops. This provided more food, which allowed more people to live within the villages. Archaeologists call the 2,000 years between 500 B.C. and the arrival of Europeans the St. Johns Period, after the river which sustained the increasingly-complex culture that flourished along its banks. The last of the St. Johns people to live along the river before the arrival of the Europeans were the Timucuans (pronounced tim-MOO-Kwans), a loosely-organized confederacy of several tribes. Timucuans lived in large villages, with probably hundreds of residents. Many of the villages were surrounded by protective stockades made of long poles stuck in the ground with sharpened points to discourage invaders. Most of the villagers lived in dome-shaped huts made of wood with palmetto thatched roofs. The village chief and his family lived in a long building in the center of the compound. This long house also served as a community meeting hall and church. Most of Timucuans wore only aprons of Spanish moss or leather breechcloths. Tribal leaders and their families had elaborate tattoos, made from plant dyes that were poked under the skin with thorns. Chiefs sometimes were tattooed from head to foot. The Timucuans called the river II-La-Ka, which roughly translates as chain of lakes. It’s an apt name for a river that repeatedly widens out into lakes. Just in the DeLand area alone, the river connects lakes, Beresford, Dexter, Woodruff and Spring Garden. Evidence of Timucuan villages dot the Greater DeLand area. There were at lest two large settlements -- one in what is now Blue Springs State Park in Orange City, and the other on Hontoon Island in the river near DeLand. At both of those sites, archeologists have discovered large statues of owls. In both cases, the statues were made by burning and scraping the image into six-foot-long logs. Archeologists believe the figures are, in effect, ancient "No Trespassing" signs. Timucuans believed owls were evil spirits, so the carved figures probably were designed to scare unwanted visitors away from sacred burial mounds. Not all visitors were scared away by carved figures. Spanish conquistadors certainly weren’t. And, apparently, West Volusia was one of the first spots visited by the Spanish when Juan Ponce de Leon arrived in 1513. A translation of Ponce de Leon’s 1513 log of his first expedition to Florida includes this passage: "We ascended a large river, passing through two small rivers and three lakes, whence we came to a great boiling spring which the Indians call ‘Healing Waters’." That might -- but only might -- be a description of going south on the St. Johns and then east through lakes Dexter, Woodruff and Spring Garden to what now is DeLeon Springs State Recreational Area. There’s no real proof of that. But, for the last century, West Volusia tourism promoters have seized on the passage and used it to tout DeLeon Springs as the fabled Fountain of Youth that Ponce sought. Whether or not Ponce actually passed through West Volusia, his arrival meant the end of the Timucuan way of life. Other Spaniards followed and began building forts and missions along the river. The first Spanish named it Rio de Corrientes, or River of Currents, in honor of its northward-moving flow. Europeans left the West Volusia area alone until 1570, when a group of conquistadors started a sugar plantation near DeLeon Springs. The plantation was developed partially in response to French encroachments into Florida. French explorers had built a fort near the mouth of the river eight years earlier. The French landed by the river’s mouth on May 1, 1562 and named it Riviere de Mai, or River of May. With both the Spanish and French claiming the river, the Timucuans became caught up in the European power struggles that had been going on in one form or another since the barbarians first sacked Rome. Meanwhile, the Europeans brought over diseases for which the native population had no immunity. The Timucuans were doomed. Numbering at least 13,000 in 1600, within slightly more than a century they were as extinct as the mastodons that their ancestors had hunted. Meanwhile, the Spanish had run the French out of Florida. After regaining complete control of the river, Spaniards renamed it Rio de San Mateo, or St. Matthew’s River. After about a century, people started calling it after a mission, San Juan del Puerto, built near its mouth. Eventually, the name Rio de San Juan, or St. John’s River, stuck. Concentrating most of their efforts on the coast, the Spanish eventually abandoned their West Volusia plantation. With the Spanish uninterested and the Timucuans exterminated, the greater DeLand area was virtually uninhabited for about 200 years. Then another European conflict, known either as the Seven Years’ War or the French and Indian War, spilled over to the New World. Britain, her American colonists and Indian allies won the fight. As a spoil of the war, England got West Florida from the Spanish in 1763. Among the natives who allied themselves with Britain was the Creeks, and Indian nation in what is now Georgia and Alabama. Creeks and British troops invaded Florida and raided Spanish plantations. Some of the Creeks liked what they saw here, so, after the war, they came back with their families. These were the first Seminoles. Some of the early Seminoles settled in the West Volusia area. They rounded up wild cattle that had strayed from the Spanish settlements and lived peacefully with British whites who were developing plantations in the area. Two of the British plantations -- one by Lake Beresford southwest of what is now DeLand and another in what now is DeLeon Springs -- were in West Volusia. The planters grew sugar cane and indigo (a plant used to make a dark blue dye). Life was good for these colonists. Great Britain supported them with supplies and protected them with troops while leaders in the 13 colonies north of Florida were becoming disenchanted with English rule. When those other colonies rebelled, Florida remained loyal to the crown. Other colonists, called Tories, who were loyal to Britain, ran from or were run out of the 13 rebellious colonies. They found haven here and allies in the Seminoles. Raiding parties of both whites and Seminoles hit Georgia and the Carolinas. Georgians and Carolinians raided back. Florida became a battleground for a vicious guerrilla war. The Revolution ended in 1783 and Spain took Florida back from the British. Trying to get residents into the territory, Spain offered large land grants to settlers. A few Americans were enticed into West Volusia and one of them tried to re-start the DeLeon Springs plantation. Probably the most successful development at this time was an Indian trading post where the St. Johns narrows just before entering Lake George, about 10 miles north of DeLeon Springs. The post became known as Volusia Landing. Nobody knows for sure why the post got that name or what the word "Volusia" means. Historians say "Volusia" probably comes from the name of a settler. Whatever the origin of the name, it got applied to the settlement that grew up around the trading post and, eventually, to the entire county. Many of the settlers who drifted down from Georgia and Alabama didn’t have enough money to start plantations.They planted crops on small farms and rounded up wild hogs and cattle. These white settlers became known as Crackers, from the sound of whips that they used to drive cattle. There was little law enforcement in the area. Guerrillas who had grown used to raiding and taking what they wanted from Georgia and the Carolinas during the Revolution saw no reason to stop just because the war ended. As the 1700s faded into the 1800s, various border disputes and military operations throughout Northern Florida encouraged folks in this area to keep their powder dry. One prolonged military raid, led by Andrew Jackson in 1818, has gone down in history as the First Seminole War. A bit of law, order and peace came in 1821, when Spain ceded Florida to the United States. The trickle of Cracker settlers from Georgia and Alabama became a flood after the U.S. took control. West Volusia went through its first economic boom. Several wealthy landowners came from the Carolinas and established thriving plantations in the area. But the prosperity was not to last. It came to a sudden, tragic and bloody halt in January, 1836. Seminoles struck the West Volusia plantations, isolated farms and settlements. Within a month, practically every white in the area was either run off or dead. That was early in the Second Seminole war, which grew into the longest, bloodiest and most expensive campaign waged by the U.S. Army against Native Americans. It lasted from 1835 to 1842. Seven years of small raids and major pitched battles that cost the United States $20 million and the lives of 1,500 soldiers. Nobody knows how many civilians and Seminoles were killed. But 3,824 Seminoles and blacks were forcibly moved from Florida to what now is Oklahoma by the time it was all over. Fictional stories about the war give the impression that it was fought in the Everglades. Wrong. The war ended in the Everglades area, but much of it was fought within what now is Volusia County. Most of the Seminoles that weren’t evicted to the West hunkered down in the southern part of the state, around the Everglades. More white settlers came and Florida became a state in 1845. There was a brief flare-up of hostilities in 1858, led by a Chief called Billy Bowlegs. This fight, which involved mainly local militia against a few warriors, is called the Third Seminole War. About the only thing that the Third Seminole War really did was give Floridians practice for what was to come a few years later. On January 10, 1861, Florida seceded from the Union it had joined a scant 16 years earlier. Men and cattle were West Volusia’s two biggest contributions to the Confederacy during the War Between the States. The men went into the armies of Lee in Virginia and Johnston and Bragg in Georgia and Tennessee. The cattle went to feed those armies. In 1863, after the North captured Vicksburg, Miss., most of the South was cut off from Western beef supplies. Florida was the only one place for hungry Confederate eyes to turn. Much of the beef came from the grasslands and palmetto scrub of West Volusia. This area didn’t see any battles between Union and Confederate forces. But there were dozens of fights between Confederates, settlers and bands of outlaws. The outlaws were mostly deserters from major theaters of war in Georgia and South Carolina. It was easy for someone in either the Confederate or Union Army to desert, steal a horse, cross into Florida and disappear into the palmetto scrub. The state also was a haven for draft dodgers, called layouts at that time, from the rest of the Confederacy. Deserters and layouts formed gangs that sometimes numbered in the hundreds. They preyed upon the helpless citizens until the War ended. When the war ended in 1865, Florida was in better shape than most of the rest of the South. There had been no prolonged campaigns and pitched battles upon its soil, so the state wasn’t a gutted ruin like Virgina, Georgia, Tennessee and the Carolinas. West Volusia in particular was ready for economic development. It had plenty of open land for farming. River boats could ply the St. Johns for the county’s entire length, from Lake Monroe in the south to Lake George in the north. That was particularly important, for the transportation of goods and materials, before the arrival of railroads. The river and the vacant land attracted investors by the hundreds. When the war ended, West Volusia was mostly cattle range with a few scattered settlements. Blacks, recently freed from slavery, and Northerners began to settle in the area. By 1869, a town called Spring Hill had developed in what now is DeLand. Two years later, a group of Wisconsin residents founded what would become Orange City. Most of the new residents came to the area hoping to strike it rich by citrus growing. But one of them, a Minnesota man named George Colby, was motivated by something else when he arrived in 1876. A Spiritualist, Colby said he was guided by spirits to get off a riverboat near Orange City and walk east. He said his spirit guides told him to stop near a Lake and build a house. Within a few years, Colby had attracted other members of his faith. They named their settlement Cassadaga, after another Spiritualist community in New York. Also in 1876, a man named Henry DeLand decided to retire from manufacturing baking powder. He wanted to try his hand at citrus raising and land development. So, he moved from Fairport, N.Y. to some good grove land just to the north of Spring Hill. DeLand quickly became West Volusia’s most ardent booster. He bought up land and resold it to other investors. He advertised extensively in northern newspapers in hopes of luring new residents. People began calling the community DeLand. In 1882, voters decided to make the name official and incorporated into a city. Two years later, Henry DeLand and another New Yorker, Berlin Wright, decided to develop a small resort town on the shores of a lake between DeLand and Cassadaga. They called the both body of water and the community Lake Helen, after Henry’s daughter. Like many advertisers touting a project, DeLand promised money back guarantees to anybody who bought citrus land from him and was dissatisfied. Unlike many other advertisers, DeLand kept his promise. And, when a freeze struck the area’s citrus crop in January of 1886, DeLand was faced with dozens of dissatisfied investors who wanted their money back. Keeping his word financially ruined him, but DeLand paid back the investors and then had to return to the New York baking powder business. But, for most the area, the 1886 freeze was but a minor setback. A major economic boost came later that year, when the railroad reached Lake Beresford. That brought in still more residents. One of those attracted to the area by Henry DeLand’s advertisements was John B. Stetson, the millionaire hat manufacturer. He arrived in 1886, shortly after the freeze. He couldn’t have come at a better time as far as the city’s future was concerned. When the freeze wiped out Henry DeLand, it also stopped him from supporting the town’s small college, which at that time was called DeLand Academy. Stetson picked up where Henry DeLand left off and began supporting the college, which is now called Stetson University and is internationally known as one of the best small institutes of higher learning in the U.S. West Volusia entered the 20th Century with hopes of becoming a major resort area. Large hotels were built in Orange City, DeLand, Lake Helen and DeLeon Springs. Although the West Volusia hotels never reached the opulence of the coastal Florida digs of such moguls as John D. Rockefeller, middle and upper-middle class tourists strengthened the greater DeLand area’s economy. By the 1940s, the area also began attracting manufacturers. At first, defense contractors made up most of the industrial tax base. But, by the 1980s, electronic firms and other light industries had set up shop in West Volusia. The industries have given some stability to the area’ economy. West Volusia’s population and such economic indicators as its tax base have increased steadily throughout the 20 Century. Now, area business and political leaders are trying to keep that growth going. The leaders are trying to find out how to expand the three major industries -- agriculture, tourism and manufacturing -- without having them adversely affect each other or the environment. And, as always happens in West Volusia, that means focusing attention on the river -- protecting it from pollution; keeping such unique wildlife as the West Indian manatee safe within it; allowing sport and commercial fishing to use it responsibly and protecting it so it will remain the area’s backbone well into the 21st Century. END
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