Historical sketches of colonial Florida

HISTORICAL SKETCHES
-OF-
Colonial Florida.

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RICHARD LEWIS CAMPBELL.

1824-1896.

HISTORICAL SKETCHES
-OF-

Colonial Florida.

-BY-

RICHARD L. CAMPBELL.

A FACSIMILE REPRODUCTION
OF THE 1892 EDITION
-WITH AN-
INTRODUCTION AND INDEX
-BY-
PAT DODSON.

BICENTENNIAL FLORIDIANA
FACSIMILE SERIES.

A UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA BOOK.

THE UNIVERSITY PRESSES OF FLORIDA.
Gainesville 1975.

BICENTENNIAL FLORIDIANA
FACSIMILE SERIES,
published under the sponsorship of the
BICENTENNIAL COMMISSION OF FLORIDA,
SAMUEL PROCTOR, General Editor.

A
FACSIMILE REPRODUCTION
OF THE 1892 EDITION
WITH PREFATORY MATERIAL, INTRODUCTION,
AND INDEX ADDED.

NEW MATERIAL COPYRIGHT � 1975
BY THE BOARD OF REGENTS
OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA.

PRINTED IN FLORIDA.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Campbell, Richard L.
Historical sketches of colonial Florida.

(Bicentennial Floridiana facsimile series)
Originally published by Williams Pub. Co., Cleveland.
"A University of Florida book."
Includes bibliographical references
1. Florida-History-To 1821. 2. Pensacola,
Fla.-History. I. Title. II. Series.
F314.C19 1892a 975.9 75-14032
ISBN 0-8130-0370-9

BICENTENNIAL COMMISSION OF FLORIDA.

Governor Reubin O'D. Askew, Honorary Chairman
Lieutenant Governor J. H. Williams, Chairman
Harold W. Stayman, Jr. Vice Chairman
Don Pride, Executive Director

Dick J. Batchelor, Orlando
Johnnie Ruth Clarke, St. Petersburg
A. H. Craig, St. Augustine
James J. Gardener, Fort Lauderdale
Jim Glisson, Tavares
Mattox Hair, Jacksonville
Thomas L. Hazouri, Jacksonville
Ney C. Landrum, Tallahassee
Mrs. Raymond Mason, Jacksonville
Carl C. Mertins, Pensacola
Charles E. Perry, Miami
W. E. Potter, Orlando
F. Blair Reeves, Gainesville

Vi BICENTENNIAL COMMISSION.
Richard R. Renick, Coral Gables
Jane W. Robinson, Cocoa
Mrs. Robert L. Shevin, Tallahassee
Don Shoemaker, Miami
Mary L. Singleton, Jacksonville
Bruce A. Smathers, Tallahassee
Alan Trask, Fort Meade
Edward Trombetta, Tallahassee
Ralph D. Turlington, Tallahassee
Robert Williams, Tallahassee
Lori Wilson, Merritt Island

GENERAL EDITOR'S PREFACE.

FLORIDA was a new American territory when
Richard Campbell was born in 1824. Throughout
his long life he was caught up in the excitement of
the growth and progress of this green land which
was his home. The Campbell family had settled in
West Florida while it was still a Spanish colony.
John Campbell, Richard's father, was a prosperous
businessman and shipper, and he owned large
tracts of land. The family participated actively in
the political, religious, and social life of the Pen-
sacola community. They were ardent supporters of
the southern cause during the Civil War and gave
unstintingly of their energy and treasure. After the
war, Richard Campbell participated actively in the
political and economic life of Pensacola and West
Florida. He was a successful attorney, one of the
best known in Florida. One of his associates, Ed-
ward A. Perry, later became governor of the state.
In the tumultuous months after the Civil War,

Viii PREFACE.
Campbell could have been aptly described as an
"unreconstructed rebel." Always, however, he di-
rected his efforts toward the goal of restoring home
rule to Florida. He was active in the Democratic
party, and during the controversial election of 1876
he helped to achieve a party victory for Florida.
For all of his political adroitness and business
acumen, Richard Campbell was also a historian and
scholar. Historical Sketches of Colonial Florida,
which he wrote during the closing years of his life,
stands as an enduring monument to his love for
Florida and most particularly for Pensacola and
West Florida. Campbell deeply resented the fact
that most Florida histories ignored the rich and
colorful history of West Florida, which predated
French colonization on the St. Johns River and the
Spanish settlement of St. Augustine. Campbell
argued that West Florida's role in Florida history
had never been recounted fully or accurately. He
dedicated himself through reading, research, and
writing to changing the situation, so that future
generations would know more about the people and
events that shaped an important area of Florida and
the Gulf Coast. Campbell worked from an extensive
library that he had assembled at his country home
outside of Pensacola, and what he did not himself

possess in the way of books and manuscripts, he
borrowed from friends or secured from American
and Canadian libraries and archives.
Campbell was not a great historian or writer. He
was, however, a careful researcher. Moreover, he
avoided writing the "romantic histories" of the pe-
riod. As is noted in the introduction to this fac-
simile, "Campbell seldom succumbed to nineteenth-
century rhetoric. His was a moving, narrative style,
interwoven with shrewd observations and poignant
history lessons." The fact that Historical Sketches
of Colonial Florida is still being read and used
today is a credit to Campbell's scholarship.
"Campbell shared his wisdom without being
didactic. As a voice of experience he did not simply
relate West Florida history; he interpreted it . . .
his views are sound and remarkably free of bias
or romanticism." Campbell's dedication to the pres-
ervation of Florida's heritage emphasizes the heri-
tage theme of the national bicentennial. As the
country prepares to celebrate its two hundredth
birthday, our citizens are being encouraged to re-
examine our past, to learn of the events which
helped to shape American culture and life, and to
know more about the men and women who settled
the American frontier. A flood of historical books,

ix

PREFACE.

X PREFACE.
monographs, and articles are pouring forth. Scholar-
ship and research is being encouraged. Campbell's
short but accurate account of the significant events
in Pensacola's colonial past was based on the his-
torical records then available. Today, spurred on
in part by the rising interest in the bicentennial,
the task of telling Pensacola's history is moving
forward with energy and dedication.
Historical Sketches of Colonial Florida was pub-
lished originally in a limited edition. Because of its
value to Florida scholarship, it is being republished
as one of the facsimiles in the Bicentennial Florid-
iana Facsimile Series by the University Presses of
Florida, Gainesville, for the Florida Bicentennial
Commission. Pat Dodson, a member of the Florida
Bicentennial Commission and an authority on the
history of Pensacola and West Florida, has written
the introduction for this edition.
The Florida Bicentennial Commission was cre-
ated by the Florida legislature in 1971 to plan
Florida's role in the national bicentennial. Governor
Reubin Askew serves as honorary chairman of the
commission. Representatives from the legislature,
heads of state agencies, and ten public members
appointed by the governor constitute the commis-
sion. Executive offices are in Tallahassee.

The commission has adopted a major publica-
tions program which includes the issuance of fac-
simile editions of twenty-five rare, out-of-print vol-
umes covering all phases of Florida's rich and
colorful history. Each facsimile volume carries an
introduction written by a well-known authority in
Florida history, and an index. These books will be
available at moderate prices to all those interested
in Florida's past.
Pat Dodson, a native of Pensacola and graduate
of Vanderbilt University and the University of Flor-
ida, is the editor of the Historical Sketches of
Colonial Florida facsimile. Mr. Dodson has been
associated with advertising and public relations in
Pensacola, and he is a banker and major land de-
veloper and builder. He served as a member of the
Board of Regents of the Florida University System,
and in 1970 he was appointed director of adminis-
tration for the Florida Department of Transporta-
tion. He helped organize the Historical Pensacola
Preservation Board and served as its first chairman;
he has had a major influence on the preservation
and restoration of Pensacola's historic district. He
serves as a member of the President's Advisory
Council on Historic Preservation. He is the author
of Journey through the Old Everglades: The Log

PREFACE.

xi

of the Minnehaha and several historical articles.
His poetry has been published in distinguished
literary magazines, including the Sewanee Review.
Mr. Dodson has been actively involved in planning
for the bicentennial on the national, state, and
local levels. He was a member of the advisory
committee which helped draft legislation creating
the Florida Bicentennial Commission and served
as the commission's first chairman. He holds an
honorary degree from the University of West Flor-
ida, was named Pensacola's Man of the Year in
1974, and has recently been recognized by the
American Association for State and Local History
with an Award of Merit for his lifetime of devotion
to the cause of Florida and Pensacola history and
historic preservation and restoration.

SAMUEL PROCTOR
General Editor of the
BICENTENNIAL FLORIDANA
University of Florida FACSIMILE SERIES.

xii

PREFACE.

INTRODUCTION.

IN 1892 JULIEN C. YONGE, the thirteen-year-old
scion of a distinguished Pensacola family, received
as a gift from his father, Philip Keyes Yonge, a new
book on the history of West Florida. This slim vol-
ume had been written by Richard L. Campbell, one
of Florida's best known attorneys and a long-time
friend of Julien's parents. Historical Sketches of
Colonial Florida became the first acquisition of
what years later became the P. K. Yonge Library of
Florida History at the University of Florida. The
Yonges, father and son, spent thousands of dollars
and many years on a collection of books, manu-
scripts, maps, documents, and pictures which today
has neither rival nor peer. The library was dedi-
cated as a memorial to P. K. Yonge by his son, who
served for many years as director of the library
and as editor of the Florida Historical Quarterly.'
It is somewhat ironic to realize that the P. K.
Yonge Library, which today includes so many pri-

mary source documents and manuscripts, should
have begun with a secondary source book only 284
pages in length. Historical Sketches of Colonial
Florida is neither great history nor great literature.
While it is listed in Florida bibliographies, it hardly
measures up to fuller historical treatises on West
Florida, most of which have been produced in the
twentieth century. Yet Campbell's book is very
important because it provides the first full account
of West Florida's colonial era, covering nearly
three centuries of Spanish, French, and English
rule. For the first time, a carefully researched ac-
count, however brief, was made available both to
the scholarly community and to the general public.
Colonial Sketches was widely accepted in its own
time, and it has continued to be read and used
until the present.
Campbell's own life was closely tied to many of
the exciting events of nineteenth-century Florida
related in his history. He wrote Colonial Sketches
toward the end of his life, after building a distin-
guished career as attorney and businessman. Al-
ways interested in the history of Florida, particu-
larly West Florida, he had read all that he could
lay his hands on, and he had collected many books
which were useful to him in his writing. Of great-

xiv

INTRODUCTION.

INTRODUCTION.

est value, however, were his own personal ex-
periences and those of his family on the Florida
frontier.
His father, John Campbell, was from Glasgow,
Scotland; according to family tradition, he had
served at one time with the British Royal Navy on
a ship that was berthed in Pensacola. He was an
enlisted man in Sir William H. Percy's squadron
in 1814 when the British were preparing to with-
draw from Pensacola as Andrew Jackson advanced
on the city. According to this account, which can-
not be documented by extant records, Campbell
liked the little Spanish outpost so well that when
he returned to London and married Ann Corpe,
who was from the Isle of Wight off England's south
coast, he and his bride returned by sea to West
Florida.2 There is reason to believe that Campbell
was living in Pensacola by 1818, and perhaps he
was there when Andrew Jackson captured the town
again during the First Seminole War. The eldest
Campbell child, a daughter who was named Ann
for her mother, was born in Pensacola in 1819.
That year John Campbell had a logging crew
working for him on the Alabama River, and shortly
afterwards he was rounding up stray cattle in
Conecuh County, Alabama.3 By the time Camp-

XV

xvi INTRODUCTION.
bell's second child, Emily, was born in 1821, Florida
had become an American territory and Andrew
Jackson was serving in Pensacola as territorial gov-
ernor, a post to which he had been appointed by
President Monroe.
A Spanish census of Pensacola the year before
the American acquisition counted 713 inhabitants;
living along the Escambia River were 380 white
Americans with 73 slaves. Transactions in land and
slaves had made John Campbell a prosperous West
Florida businessman by the time his son, Richard
Lewis, was born on January 8, 1824. Although the
Campbells were to become the parents of three
more daughters-Marion in 1827, Helen in 1829,
and Elodie in 1831-Richard remained the only
son.4
Richard grew up in a community where Spanish
and French were still spoken, and he acquired a
familiarity with both. Old veterans such as Dr.
Eugenio Antonio Sierra, who had served under
Bernardo de Galvez when he had forced the British
out of Pensacola in 1781, were still around, ready
to spin their tales of battle for an eager and alert
youngster like Richard. Others in the town had
remembered the conflicts with William Augustus
Bowles and his Muscogee Nation to the east, and

INTRODUCTION.

there were men such as John Innerarity, who, as
a member of the trading firm of John Forbes Com-
pany, had been involved in the Creek War of 1813-
14 and had witnessed the Red Stick Creeks parad-
ing American scalps taken at Fort Mims in South
Alabama. No doubt young Campbell also heard the
folktales that had grown up from Andrew Jackson's
three sojourns in Pensacola in the decade just be-
fore his birth.
John Campbell had become active in local affairs
in Pensacola. In 1821 after the American govern-
ment was established, he became a United States
citizen. Shortly afterwards, with other old Spanish
and new American residents, he signed a petition
which was forwarded to Washington by Governor
Jackson, recommending Colonel William King as
the new governor for the territory.5 The petition
was not successful; William P. DuVal of Kentucky
was named governor. Campbell's mercantile busi-
ness activities began to expand, and he acquired a
schooner, the Harriet, and with it the title "captain."
Apparently the craft was used to bring supplies
from Mobile and New Orleans into West Florida.
In 1828 John Campbell was elected city alderman,
and he served in that position for nearly twenty-
six years.6 He was a founding member of Pensa-

xvii

INTRODUCTION.

cola's first Episcopal congregation, which built
Christ Church on Seville Square in 1832. He was
also a trustee of the Pensacola Academy, a short-
lived effort to boost local education.7 While Camp-
bell supported James Gadsden for appointment as
governor in 1832, this endorsement did not seem to
hurt his political position in West Florida. Governor
DuVal appointed him port warden in 1833 and
reappointed him the following year. He was named
Escambia County auctioneer in 1835 by Governor
John H. Eaton and was renamed in 1841.8 Richard
joined his father in 1841 in a memorial to Congress
petitioning to have the city connected with the in-
terior by railroad. The names both of old Spanish
settlers and of prominent Americans were listed on
this document.9
Richard received his early education in Pensacola,
but sometime in 1841 he journeyed to New York
City for special instruction by a Scottish minister
who operated a boys' school there. On his return to
Pensacola he began reading law as an apprentice in
a local firm, probably that of Benjamin D. Wright, a
former Pennsylvanian who had married the daugh-
ter of Spanish patriarch Juan de la Rua.10 A few
years afterwards Richard opened his own office.
About 1845 he married Catherine McCord, the

xviii

INTRODUCTION.

daughter of a prominent Alabama planter. She was
the same age as her husband, and was a member
of a large Irish family which had originally settled
in South Carolina. Her father, Russell P. McCord,
had purchased a plantation in southwest Alabama
and moved his family there from Camden, South
Carolina, when Catherine was still a young girl.
McCord served in the Mexican War, holding the
rank of colonel."
In 1847, Richard and Catherine's first child,
Emily, was born in Pensacola. In the next eleven
years six other children were born-three boys and
three girls. All were baptised in Christ Church,
where the Campbell family were leading parishion-
ers. Richard followed his father as deputy to the
Episcopal Diocesan Council for three consecutive
years beginning in 1855.
Campbell had begun to play an active role in
Florida politics. He supported the Whig Party
which scored heavily in the election in 1852 in
Florida. Whig support declined rapidly after that,
however, and many of its adherents, including
Campbell, aligned themselves with the Democratic
Party. Prior to the State Democratic Convention
held in Madison in the spring of 1856, Campbell
was asked if he would serve as an elector, but he

xix

INTRODUCTION.

declined. His response was obviously not well
known when the convention met, since the Jackson
County delegation nominated him. He declined
again, and this time made it final in a public speech
in Madison in May. According to an August 1856
report in the Tallahassee paper that supported the
Democrats, Campbell was "now engaged in the
canvass, and as it progresses his 'voice will be
heard wherever the fight is hottest.'"12
Campbell's law practice was also expanding.
Sometime in 1856 or 1857 Edward A. Perry, a
young, Massachusetts-born lawyer who had studied
at Yale and who had been admitted to the bar in
Alabama, joined the firm.13
In 1856 Campbell became a charter member of
the Historical Society of Florida, enlisted perhaps
by Major George R. Fairbanks of St. Augustine,
one of its first vice-presidents, whom he had met at
his first Diocesan Council.14 A significant connec-
tion with the wealthy William J. Keyser family was
made in 1856 with the establishment of the lumber
and timber firm of Keyser, Judah and Company,
with William H. Judah, husband of Campbell's
sister Elodie, as a principal.
The 1850s were growing, prospering years for
Florida. Population increased from 87,445 in 1850

XX

INTRODUCTION.

to 140,424 on the eve of the Civil War. The value
of real and personal property tripled, going from
$28,862,270 to $82,592,641. The Campbells-both
Richard and his father-prospered during these
years. John Campbell owned slaves, at one time as
many as nineteen, and he sometimes traded them
for land. Richard was also speculating on different
parcels of land in and around Pensacola.15 His most
important property came to him as a result of a
land suit between the Union Bank of Florida, which
he represented, and Hugh W. Nesbit. The latter
had mortgaged for $2,000 a tract of land, five to
six hundred acres lying six miles north of Pensacola
between the old Jackson Road and the Carpenter's
Creek headwaters of Bayou Texar. The court
awarded the property to the bank, and Campbell
purchased it. Since it was covered with huge live
oaks, he called it Oakfield.16 It became the Camp-
bell country home.
Although the family's economic status grew, trials
of sickness and death were grievous. In 1858 the
Campbells' third son, named for their close friend
Benjamin D. Wright, died only two months after
birth. A diphtheria epidemic struck Pensacola in
1860 and four of the Campbell children were
stricken and died within a period of two weeks.

xxi

Only the oldest daughters, Emily and Helen, sur-
vived this tragedy. The children were buried at St.
Michael's Cemetery; a single four-sided monument
with a child's name on each face of the stone marks
the site.
The growing controversy between North and
South reached a climax in the election of 1860.
Abraham Lincoln won the presidency, and patriotic
ardor for secession swept Dixie. In Pensacola two
infantry companies of one-year volunteers for the
Confederate Army were raised under the command
of A. H. Bright and Campbell's law partner, Ed-
ward A. Perry. Both John and Richard Campbell
signed the oath of allegiance to the Confederacy,
and Richard pledged $300, the second largest sum
after Francisco Moreno's $1,200, to equip the local
soldiers and support their families.17
Preparations for hostilities began in Florida al-
most as soon as the election results were known.
Early in January, state officials learned that Wash-
ington had authorized the reinforcement of the
Pensacola forts. Although both of Florida's United
States Senators, David Levy Yulee and Stephen R.
Mallory, had hoped Pickens could be secured, they
urged that no blood be shed at least until a South-
ern Confederacy was formed. In telegrams to the

xxii

INTRODUCTION.

governors of Florida and Alabama and to prom-
inent citizens of Pensacola including Campbell,
Mallory cautioned against violence. What might
well have been one of the earliest incidents of the
war were the shots fired on the night of January
8, 1861, by Federal sentries at a small party of
Confederates whose plan was to seize the old Span-
ish battery, Fort San Carlos de Barrancas.18 Gov-
ernor Albert B. Moore of Alabama revealed on
January 8 that Tallahassee had sought his aid in the
seizure of Federal installations at Pensacola. That
same day, Colonel William H. Chase, a retired
United States Army officer living in Pensacola,
was placed in command of Florida's forces. Florida
seceded on January 10, 1861, and Governor Madi-
son Starke Perry immediately ordered the infantry
companies at Pensacola to take the United States
Navy Yard and the forts. Richard Campbell and
Captain Victor M. Randolph were named "commis-
sioners" of Florida.
Five companies of Alabama troops were reported
en route from Montgomery to Pensacola, and with
their arrival the Confederates made their move
against the Navy Yard at Warrington on the out-
skirts of the city. Colonel Tennant Lomas, with a
force of some five hundred Alabama and Florida

xxiii

INTRODUCTION.

INTRODUCTION.

troops accompanied by a large crowd of civilians
including Commissioner Richard Campbell de-
manded the surrender from Commodore James
Armstrong, a veteran of fifty years of service, who
along with some of his subordinates appear to have
been Confederate sympathizers. Armstrong had
only a handful of marines and sailors to defend the
property, and he yielded with scarcely more than a
word of protest. A Union lieutenant whose wife
was an ardent secessionist hauled down the Ameri-
can flag and Campbell himself raised aloft the new
ensign of thirteen alternate stripes of red and white
with a large white star on a blue field in the upper
corner. Meantime, the Federals had also abandoned
the nearby mainland forts-McRee and Barrancas-
but Union Lieutenant Adam J. Slemmer occupied
Fort Pickens on Santa Rosa Island which com-
manded the entrance to Pensacola Bay.19
On May 25, 1861, Perry's infantry company, the
Pensacola Rifle Rangers, was enlisted as Company
A, Second Florida Infantry Regiment, and it was
assigned to the Army of Northern Virginia. Cap-
tain Perry became colonel in May 1862. In the
meanwhile, Campbell was active in work on the
homefront, including signing vouchers to authorize

xxiv

payment of monthly allowances to the families of
the local volunteers.20
The Civil War quickly blazed forth on many
fronts. By the fall of 1861, Confederate troops had
tried unsuccessfully to take Fort Pickens from the
Federal on Santa Rosa Island, and fierce artillery
battles ensued across the entrance to Pensacola
Bay.21 But pressures were building in places far
from Florida, and most of the state's military men
were called away to fight for the life of the Con-
federacy, to stop if possible General Grant's ad-
vance on southern strongholds along the Tennessee
and Cumberland rivers.22 As the South's military
situation deteriorated, the fear of slave rebellion
arose.23 Martial law was declared in Pensacola in
March 1862, and on the dispatch of the remaining
southern troops in Pensacola to fend off landing
parties at nearby Fort Morgan, Alabama, the city
began evacuating. The mainland forts were dis-
mantled, guns, powder, and shot removed, and
whatever could be hauled away was moved over-
land by wagon train. The last of the Confederates
began leaving on May 7 and were entirely gone
two nights later. The following day, May 10, Fed-
erals received the surrender of the city.24

INTRODUCTION.

XXV

INTRODUCTION.

Campbell was also faced with the personal re-
alities of war. His sentiment for the Confederacy
was strong, yet he was responsible for his aging
parents, his wife, and his two surviving daughters,
Emily and Helen. Many Pensacolians, including city
government officials, had taken refuge in Greenville,
Alabama. By horse-and-buggy and wagons, the
Campbell family moved their personal effects to the
McCord plantation at Benton on the Alabama River
near Selma. Here they were relatively safe, al-
though the war raged north and south of them.
In critical need of iron and steel, the Confederacy
established a main ordnance and ammunition depot
at Selma. Raw ore was available in northeast Ala-
bama, and even before the war the Benton Iron
Works had been established in Calhoun County.
Now Richard Campbell and his brother-in-law,
George C. Pattison (Ann's husband), organized the
Oxford Iron Company. Other directors were Fred
and Charles Woodson, M. C. Wiley, John Weedon,
and William S. Knox. Its charcoal furnace, with
a capacity of twenty tons of iron per day, was con-
structed on the west side of Furnace Hill in what
would become the city of Anniston. It went into
blast in April 1863. The company owned 825 acres

xxvi

INTRODUCTION.

around the furnace, plus timber land from which
they drew their charcoal supply. Campbell shipped
his product via the railroad to Selma, where it was
converted into cannon, shot, and shell. Much of it
also went into the Confederate ironclads built at
Selma.25
Campbell traveled back and forth from his mines
to the Confederate Ordnance Department at Selma
and to Benton to care for his family. Later he
moved his wife and children to Anniston. By the
spring of 1865 the war was all but over in Florida
and in the nation. The ultimate outcome was clear
even before Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court-
house. Selma had fallen, and on May 20 the Stars
and Stripes were flying again over Tallahassee and
elsewhere in Florida. In one of the last actions of
the war, Union General Croxton followed the rail-
road up from Talladega, and with no one to defend
the area but a collection of convalescents, home
guards, and pardoned deserters under General Gill,
the Federals destroyed the furnaces of the Oxford
Iron Company. The Campbells remained in Annis-
ton until Catherine gave birth to their last child,
Mary, on June 2, 1865. Six years later, in 1871, a
group headed by Samuel Noble, who built an iron

XXvii

INTRODUCTION.

and steel empire in Alabama with the financial as-
sistance of the wealthy Quintard family of New
York, purchased Oxford Iron Company.26
The Campbell family returned to Pensacola after
the Civil War. John Campbell served in his old
position as port warden for a few months before
his death. His wife, Ann, died shortly afterwards.27
Using his inheritance, Richard Campbell built a
new home on Palafox Street. The family lived at
Oakfield in the summers.28 He re-established his
law office in the Pinney Building at the corner of
Palafox and Intendencia streets. Edward Perry, who
was released from Confederate service as brigadier
general, did not return to the firm, but he joined
Campbell and other leaders, like Stephen R. Mal-
lory, former secretary of the Confederate Navy, in
trying to rebuild Pensacola and West Florida's shat-
tered war economy.29
According to family tradition, Campbell was in-
volved in efforts to stave off harsh military control
in Pensacola. One account, unverified by legislative
records, holds that in a speech before a group of
lawmakers, he threatened that "the first carpetbag-
ger to set foot across the state line into Florida
would be hanged on the nearest live oak tree."70
If the speech was made at all, it would have been

xxviii

INTRODUCTION.

sometimes after the 1865 election which saw David
S. Walker named governor without opposition and
former Confederates in control of the state legisla-
ture. By 1867 the Radicals were in the majority in
Congress, and a new Reconstruction program began
for the former Confederate states.31
On March 31, 1868, Campbell and H. Wright
were named at the Conservative Convention in
Quincy, Florida, as delegates from Escambia
County to the National Democratic Convention in
New York City. Extant records do not reveal
whether Campbell actually attended the conven-
tion, which nominated Governor Horatio Seymour
of New York for President.32
Campbell's law firm had become one of the
busiest in Pensacola. In 1868 he represented the
descendants of Francisco Maximiliano de St. Max-
ent, head of Spanish troops in West Florida in
1816-17, in a successful suit to secure title to im-
portant properties. Contractors had taken 800 ar-
pens of his estate in 1825, claiming the Spanish
government had not honored St. Maxent's certifi-
cate for 702 bread rations for his troops. The case
re-opened Florida's colonial and territorial past.
Involved in the original 1825 suit were Richard K.
Call, attorney for the contractor; Thomas Commyns;

xxix

INTRODUCTION.

United States District Judge H. M. Brackenridge;
and John de la Rua, attorney for Irene Folch,
Maxent's widow. Pablo Palmes, an old Spanish
settler, and John Innerarity, heir of the Panton-
Leslie/John Forbes companies, were original wit-
nesses. After 1868 Campbell, and later his brother-
in-law, John C. Avery, administered the property
for the St. Maxent heirs of Havana for at least two
decades."3
In 1868 the legislature approved incorporation
of the Pensacola and Perdido Railroad with Camp-
bell as a director. Other Pensacolians, including
Benjamin D. Wright, who probably brought Camp-
bell into the venture, were also involved. However,
construction of the line did not commence until
1873 under a revised charter.34 Not all of Camp-
bell's investments in the late 1860s were successful.
He was owner (probably with A. E. Maxwell and
Samuel Z. Gonzalez) of some marine ways, ship
repair installations, on the abandoned United States
Naval Live Oak Reservation across Pensacola Bay.
Their plan was to rebuild ships with oak timbers
that were available in the area, but they were ten
years too early to benefit from Pensacola's great
shipping era, and the venture failed.35
In 1876 Florida became a national battleground

XXX

INTRODUCTION.

for the presidential election between Republican
Rutherford Hayes and Democrat Samuel Tilden.
The Republican-controlled election canvassing
board gave Florida's electoral votes to Hayes, but
the gubernatorial election was another matter. The
Bourbon Democrats had run former Unionist
George F. Drew, and they were refusing to settle
for anything but complete victory. One source in-
dicates that it was Richard Campbell's idea to take
the dispute before the state supreme court. Repre-
senting Drew, Campbell apparently was the one
who obtained the services of R. B. Hilton of Talla-
hassee and George P. Raney of Apalachicola to form
the three-man legal team that presented Drew's case
before the court. The petition for a writ of man-
damus, submitted on December 13, 1876, was im-
mediately granted by the justices. A re-canvass was
ordered and resulted in a Democratic victory.
Campbell and his colleagues had won their case,
and Drew was declared the duly elected governor
of Florida. His inauguration on January 2, 1877,
marked the end of the Reconstruction era in Flor-
ida.36
Family tradition holds that Campbell had sub-
stantial political support to try for the governor-
ship after Drew's term ended, but because he

xxxi

wanted to remain in Pensacola he declined to be-
come a candidate. However, his former associate,
Edward A. Perry, ran on the Bourbon Democrat
ticket in 1884 against Frank Pope, who was sup-
ported by dissident Democrats and Republicans.
Perry was elected, giving a victory of much prestige
and importance to Pensacola and West Florida.37
On Campbell's political visits to Tallahassee, still
by horseback, stagecoach, or buggy, it was neces-
sary for him to break the journey into several over-
night stops. One was in Walton County, some two
days and sixty miles east of Pensacola. Campbell
usually enjoyed the hospitality of Colonel John L.
McKinnon, one of the area's Scottish patriarchs.
The McKinnon household was Presbyterian, but on
these visits the Episcopalian from Pensacola partici-
pated in their family prayer services, which in-
cluded hymns and kneeling around a family altar."3
Campbell's three daughters were now grown.
After the Civil War, Emily Campbell had married
James H. Smith, a Cofifederate veteran from Smith-
field, North Carolina, who operated the commissary
at the Wright sawmill in Millview. When he was
killed in a hunting accident in 1874, Emily moved
to Oakfield to bring up her three young daughters.
Helen had married Frank N. Reus of Mobile, who

xxxii

INTRODUCTION.

INTRODUCTION.

worked for the Keyser Lumber interests. They
made their home in Pensacola. In 1888 Campbell's
youngest daughter, Mary, married William S. Key-
ser at Oakfield. The son of William J. Keyser, he
was probably the wealthiest man in Pensacola. He
exported lumber for twenty-two mills, including
two of his own. After his graduation from Yale in
1880, he had taken over the family business, now
that his father and uncle were dead. William and
Mary lived graciously and frequented top social
circles on the Eastern seaboard. After the turn of
the century they built a colonial-style mansion on
the Bayshore, which, in 1924, became the Pensa-
cola Country Club.39
Campbell's Oakfield was now his main residence,
and here he experimented with a variety of crops.
The Louisville and Nashville Railroad crossed his
property, and he had a small station at his front
gate, where, as payment for the right-of-way, trains
were required to stop when flagged. There was a
large fish pond on the property, and Campbell en-
joyed ringing a bell which notified the fish that it
was time to be fed. His mule had been trained to
drive the cows home for milking. There were a pair
of peacocks and a gaggle of geese. Campbell also
had a fast trotting horse to drive himself to town.40

xxxiii

INTRODUCTION.

In his later years Campbell acquired the title of
judge, which was likely a gesture of community
respect, a rather common southern practice. There
are no extant records showing that Campbell ever
served in any judicial capacity. He maintained his
political interests, mainly through old friends such
as Justice Augustus E. Maxwell of the Florida Su-
preme Court, who had a home near Oakfield.
Maxwell had served as Florida secretary of state
and attorney general, and he had been a member
of the United States Congress and the Confederate
States Senate.41

The Book.

Richard Campbell's deep love and sense of his-
tory developed naturally, since he had participated
so actively in many of the great events of nine-
teenth-century Florida. His study at Oakfield
housed a sizable collection of books and periodicals
which he read and used. Because of his special
interest in the British period in Florida, he ordered
from the Public Archives of Ottawa, Canada, some
of the papers of General Frederick Haldimand, who
had served as commander of the British Southern

xxxiv

INTRODUCTION.

District from 1765 to 1773 and was later governor
general of Canada.42 Campbell was appalled at how
little material on British activities in Florida had
been published; it was almost a forgotten episode
of history. Thus, in his introduction to Historical
Sketches of Colonial Florida, Campbell said (p. 3)
that he had decided to write his book when he dis-
covered available material on West Florida in the
Haldimand Papers. He had always felt that West
Florida's role in Florida history had never been
fully or accurately recounted. Surely he must have
considered it an injustice to West Florida's past
when he noted how George R. Fairbanks had
relegated Pensacola to little more than a minor
role.43
An examination of Fairbank's History of Florida,
From Its Discovery by Ponce de Leon, in 1512, to
the Close of the Florida War, in 1842, first pub-
lished in 1871, reveals how little space was de-
voted to West Florida. Fairbanks, who had prac-
ticed law and had been a judge at St. Augustine
before the Civil War, was oriented to the Atlantic
seaboard. A year in Tallahassee when he was in
the legislature (1846-47) and a visit there in 1859
gave him his only known personal contacts with
that part of Florida.44 There is no evidence of his

XXXV

having ever been in Pensacola; that seems obvious
from his book.45
Fairbanks allowed some 23 pages to West Florida
events out of the 268 pages covering the period
from discovery to the American takeover in 1821.
Only six pages are devoted to Narvaez in West
Florida, ten to Tristan de Luna and his settlement
at Pensacola in 1559, two paragraphs to Andres
d'Arriola, and less than five to the entire eighteenth
century in West Florida. There is one paragraph on
British Pensacola and one describing Bernardo de
Galvez's siege of the city in 1781. For the same
colonial era, Fairbanks dramatized in detail the
landings, skirmishes, and political intrigues of Flor-
ida's East Coast. Yet for all its neglect of West
Florida, Fairbank's work was still a readable and
useful history of the state which was sorely needed
at the time. The author had simply covered the
subject matter with which he was most familiar.
Campbell's book, most of which he wrote in his
study at Oakfield, was the first important history
of colonial Pensacola. He would have avoided con-
siderable criticism had he given his work a more
limited title. At first he planned to begin his vol-
ume in 1763 with the British acquisition of Florida
after the French and Indian War, but he reor-

xxxvi

INTRODUCTION.

ganized his notes and allotted forty-nine pages to
early Spanish and French exploration in the area
and the settlement at Pensacola. Approximately
one-third of the book is devoted to the British
period, and the remainder to the years after 1783.
The history of colonial East Florida is almost totally
neglected, and there is little mention of the area
west of the Perdido River.
Campbell worked from a personal library con-
sisting largely of secondary sources. He cited only
a few titles, but he obviously drew his material
from many more books, monographs, and articles.
For background on the European colonial nations
he had apparently studied Sir Archibald Alison's
exhaustive ten-volume history of Europe and Gui-
zot's classic history of France.46 For data on British
colonial government in North America he utilized
William Kingsford's History of Canada.47 Campbell
had access to several nineteenth-century versions
of Hernando de Soto's exploration. He refers to
Tristan de Luna's accounts of his settlement at
Pensacola Bay in 1559, although he could hardly
have read them directly, since these sixteenth-
century Spanish records were not available in Eng-
lish at that time.48 Other early Florida background
data he secured from George Fairbanks' history

xxxvii

INTRODUCTION.

xxviii INTRODUCTION.
and from William Roberts' eighteenth-century his-
tory of Florida, which is known to have been in his
library.49
Although Campbell was one of the first historians
to utilize the West Florida records of Frederick
Haldimand, his use of this valuable primary source
is spotty, and it creates doubt that he ever actually
examined all the papers himself. Rather, evidence
points to Douglas Brymner, Canadian archivist at
the time, who sent Campbell a calendar of the
Haldimand collection. Campbell probably selected
from this index the specific materials on West
Florida that interested him. Campbell also mentions
the "thirty volumes of manuscript in the British
Museum, known as the 'Bouquet Collection'," but it
is likely that he had only indirect access to this
collection.50
For data on Galvez' campaign against Pensacola
in 1781, Campbell relied upon Max von Eelking's
account of the siege and indicated (footnote, p. 112)
that he believed this memoir to be the only de-
tailed one in existence.51 There were other histories
of this event, but they seemed to have missed
Campbell's attention. A brief version by the British
commanding general, John Campbell, was in print.52
Bernardo de GAlvez' own Diario de la Operaciones

INTRODUCTION.

contra la Plaza de Pensacola was not yet available
in English, but copies had been printed in Span-
ish.53 Apparently, only one of three diaries in
Archivo del General Miranda-British officer Rob-
ert Farmar's account edited by Buckingham Smith
-had appeared by 1892.54 Nineteenth-century his-
torians dealing with Spanish colonial America were
faced with major difficulties in securing primary
source data. The fact that there was not even a
formal library in Pensacola at the time that Camp-
bell was working on his book is even more telling.
For two letters (and an apparent letter) of
George Washington dealing with Spanish affairs in
the Southeast during and after the American Revo-
lution, Campbell cited Jared Sparks, the contem-
porary Harvard specialist on the late eighteenth
century in America.55 In Chapter 18 Campbell
quoted in their entirety two letters of Alexander
McGillivray, apparently taken from Albert J. Pick-
ett's History of Alabama. These letters are two
of the five written by the Creek chief which Pickett
reprinted. Other Campbell passages clearly stem
from Pickett.56 For instance, Campbell drew from
Pickett the memoirs of the Frenchman LeClerc Mil-
fort, depicting his stay with the Creek Indians dur-
ing the British and second Spanish period in West

xxxix

INTRODUCTION.

Florida and relating Milfort's fascinating account of
the Creeks' origin. Milfort's brother-in-law was
Alexander McGillivray.57
Campbell moved his narrative into the nineteenth
century with still other material from Pickett, and
then he seems to have relied on his own copies of
Niles' Weekly Register for Andrew Jackson's two
invasions of Florida.58 However, Campbell must
have heard firsthand the story of the Jackson-
Gonzalez confrontation in 1814 at Vacaria Baja,
which became Oakfield, perhaps from Manuel Gon-
zalez himself, who lived until 1842. Campbell cor-
rected (pp. 241-42) another version of the incident,
inaccurately set in 1818, by Ellen Call Long in her
Florida Breezes published in 1882.59 Although he
makes no reference to James Parton, it is obvious
from the subjects and sequence of several of Rachel
Jackson's letters and incidents in Parton's biography
of Old Hickory that Campbell drew from this bi-
ography accounts relating to Pensacola's turmoil
during Jackson's governorship in 1821.60
Reflecting his legal background, Campbell com-
mented twice in Chapter 15 on property rights with
the change of governments after the 1783 treaty
with England, and cited Joseph M. White, original
member of the United States Land Commission in

xl

INTRODUCTION.

West Florida and later territorial delegate to Con-
gress. After White became assistant counsel for the
federal government in the adjudication of Spanish
and French land claims, he published in 1839 his
New Reconciliacion of the Laws of Spain and the
Indies, and of Colonial Charters, Commissions, etc.61
Campbell's only illustration, a line drawing of
Spanish Pensacola on Santa Rosa Island, was from
Roberts' 1763 History of Florida, as evident from
Campbell's paraphrasing of Roberts' accreditation
to the Spaniard, Dom [Don?] Serres (pp. 51-52).
This sketch also appeared later in a special collec-
tion of American views, published in London in
1768 under the title, Scenographia Americana.62
Other sources on southern colonial history could
have been available to Campbell, although he did
not cite them. There were a number of travel-
geography books which included historical sketches
of Florida and the South written during or just
after the last Spanish colonial period by such au-
thors as Philip Pittman, Thomas Hutchins, William
Bartram, John Pope, Garrett Pendergrast, Berquin-
Duvallen, Claude Robin, Fortescue Cuming, John
Melish, William Darby, James Forbes, William
Simmons, Charles Vignoles, and John Lee Wil-
liams.6"

xli

INTRODUCTION.

Basic source books for early Spanish colonial his-
tory were Richard Hakluyt's late sixteenth-century
and early seventeenth-century works." On Florida's
Spanish colonial history there were several Buck-
ingham Smith translations such as the narrative of
Cabeza de Vaca,65 Abbie M. Brook's (Silvia Sun-
shine) Petals Plucked from Sunny Climes, devoted
primarily to the sixteenth century in Florida,66 and
William H. Prescott's studies of Philip II.67 Ac-
counts of de Soto include those of Albert Pickett
in his History of Alabama, and of Theodore Ir-
ving.68
Campbell might have been aware of the works
of the Spanish historian Fernandez de Navarrete
and the French compiler and translator Ternaux-
Compans, which have been used by serious scholars
of Gulf Coast history along with the source docu-
ments themselves. Other secondary works by Span-
ish writers which Campbell may have availed
himself of included material on Spain's activities
in West Florida in the late seventeenth century:
the writings of Barcia, Conde de Clonard, and
Barado.69 For the British period the books which
should have been available to Campbell were Ber-
nard Romans' classic natural history of Florida,

xlii

INTRODUCTION. xliii
Mary Durnford's recollections of Elias Durnford
(1863), and British Lieutenant Tarleton's account
of the Revolutionary War in the South (1787).70
F. X. Martin's History of Louisiana and Benjamin
Franklin French's Collections emphasized the early
history of the Gulf Coast. Charles Gayarre had
compiled his four-volume History of Louisiana in
1866, the most complete of more than a dozen nine-
teenth-century accounts of the French and Spanish
colony and her relations with her neighbors." Other
histories of Louisiana that Campbell likely used
were those of Amos Stoddard, E. Bunner, Robert
Greenhow, and John B. S. Dimitry.72 Histories trans-
lated from French authors included those of Le-
Page DuPratz and Barbe-Marbois.73
Besides Milfort's narrative, books on the southern
Indians that may very well have been in Campbell's
library included Benjamin Hawkins' Sketch of the
Creek Country in 1798 and 1799; two biographies of
William Augustus Bowles, one by Benjamin Bayn-
ton and the other a sketch from the British Public
Characters; McKenney and Hall's history of North
American Indians; Schoolcraft's classic on Indians;
William Bartram's observations on the Creeks and
Cherokees; Thomas S. Woodward's memoirs of the

INTRODUCTION.

Creeks; George Eggleston's informal biography of
William Weatherford; and Albert S. Gatschet's ac-
count of the Creek migrations.74
Books on Alabama and Mississippi were readily
available in Pensacola, and it seems likely that
Campbell referred to Willis Brewer's and Alexander
B. Meek's histories of Alabama, and Claiborne's
History of Mississippi.75 He used Eaton's and Wal-
do's biographies of Jackson.76 Also familiar to him
were Arsene Latour's Memoir of the War in West
Florida and Louisiana, James Wilkinson's Memoirs
of My Own Times, Justin Winsor's multi-volume
history of the United States, and possibly John D.
G. Shea's works on the Catholic Church in the
United States.7 On the late eighteenth century
Campbell could have referred to Worthington C.
Ford's United States and Spain in 1790, and George
Gauld's Account of the Surveys of Florida, etc.78
Other sources were Andrew Ellicott's Journal, offi-
cial records and memoirs of the acquisition and
takeover of Florida, including Luis de Onis' memoir
on the negotiations with Spain, John Brannen's
compilation of letters of American officers during
the War of 1812, N. H. Claiborne's Notes on the
War in the South, etc., Henry Brackenridge's letters
on Andrew Jackson and his textbook on the War of

xliv

INTRODUCTION. xlv
1812, William H. Milburn's lectures, including the
one on Alexander McGillivray, David Crockett's
autobiography, W. K. Spark's Memories of Fifty
Years, and the memoir of British Admiral Edward
Codrington on the War of 1812.79
Although Campbell's narrative is largely re-
stricted to West Florida, he offered a counter-argu-
ment to George Fairbanks' boast that St. Augustine
was two hundred years older than Pensacola.80
Campbell prepared his case as a skilled and learned
lawyer would. He first pursued a three-part hy-
pothesis on the origin of the name "Pensacola" (pp.
28-30). Then he linked de Luna and Arriola by
maintaining that Arriola's was a resuscitation of the
de Luna colony. It was a clever attempt to bolster
Pensacola's claim as North America's first European
colony, an honor dimmed by the 134-year interval
between de Luna and Arriola. To cap his case, at
the close of Chapter 3, Campbell quoted Guizot:
"In the almighty hands of eternal God, a people's
history is interrupted and recommenced-never."
As an extra "dig" at Fairbanks, Campbell could
not refrain when writing of the American Revolu-
tion (p. 48) from reminding his rival that St. Au-
gustine could "without question, supplement the
glory of her antiquity with the boast of having once

seen her streets lighted up by the blazing effigies
of John Adams and John Hancock."
Yet, Campbell seldom succumbed to nineteenth-
century rhetoric. His was a moving, narrative style,
interwoven with shrewd observations and poignant
history lessons. His tone was serious, though not
devoid of humor. He was no abstractionist; he
dealt with specific persons, places, and objects. And
for effective narrative, he knew how to make one
object or person act on another for dramatic effect.
Campbell's love of the sea is obvious, and, of
course, is understandable in light of his birthplace
and his many family attachments to the naval and
maritime services. Historical Sketches begins with
a description of Panfilo de Narvaez' five rag-tag
vessels in 1528, and then with the addition of a few
pages on the new American government, he ends
his story of three centuries of colonial struggle with
the sailing of Spanish troops and citizens in 1821
for Havana. Wherever possible, he specifically iden-
tified the ships, almost as though they were live
participants in history.
Campbell enjoyed revealing the fundamental re-
lationships between men and geography. His com-
ments on Pensacola landmarks help give his book
lasting value. He filled his narrative with tidbits on

xlvi

INTRODUCTION.

INTRODUCTION.

this and that place, marking the sites of the Spanish
village on Santa Rosa Island, a lost British ceme-
tery, the old Navy Yard, and other places, some of
which are still identifiable in present-day Pensa-
cola.
Campbell shared his wisdom without being di-
dactic. As the voice of experience, he did not simply
relate West Florida history; he interpreted it, usu-
ally in terms of international conflict. With the ex-
ception of his vindictiveness toward East Florida,
most of his views are sound and remarkably free
of bias or romanticism. His dates are accurate. His
judgments of such controversial figures as Tristan
de Luna, Bernardo de Galvez, and Andrew Jackson
have held up after new research and scholarship.
His explanation of the de Luna misfortunes (pp.
20-21) reveals his insight into human nature; his
indictment of the other Spanish conquistadors is
refreshing. One cannot remember anyone else not-
ing that de Luna had a character "distinct and
apart from the gold-seeking cut-throat adventurers
that Spain sent in shoals to the Gulf shores during
the sixteenth century."
Like other nineteenth-century historians, includ-
ing Albert Pickett, Campbell attributes Tecumseh's
incitement of the Creeks in 1811 to the British. The

xlvii

point is still debatable, although more recent his-
torians tend to agree with Professor Robert Cotter-
ill and his view that Tecumseh came South to
preach the old ways and to bring peace rather than
war.81
Unfortunately, Campbell probably never con-
sidered including his own lifespan in his Sketches.
Simple economics upheld his respect for historical
perspective, for he apparently financed the book
himself. The Williams Publishing Company spe-
cialized in private publishing, and Campbell may
have made contact with the Cleveland firm through
his church connections, since owner William W.
Williams was also editor of Church Life, a publica-
tion of the Episcopal Diocese of Ohio. Then again,
Campbell could have simply responded to an ad-
vertisement in the Magazine of Western History,
launched by Williams in 1884.82 At any rate, indi-
cations are that the single printing of Campbell's
lone work was small, perhaps no more than a
thousand copies with both red and blue covers.3
It was printed with a Library of Congress card
number, but it is difficult to find contemporary re-
views of the book.
It should be noted that Campbell was unrelated
to Major General John Campbell, who surrendered

xlviii

INTRODUCTION.

Pensacola to Bernardo de Galvez in the 1781 siege,
and that in omitting personal references Campbell
tastefully avoided mention of his father as an ob-
server of the last gasp of Spanish rule. However,
there may be a single subtle breach in this decorum.
The Biblical reference at the end of Chapter 6,
"Suffer the little children to come unto me, and for-
bid them not," would appear to be more than a
stress of the fact that Pensacola had never been
without an altar since Galvez' siege. Surely it la-
ments the tragic loss of his own five children thirty
years earlier.
Considering his numerous associations with Ala-
bama and the attitudes expressed in his book, it is
not surprising to confirm through his descendants
the fact that Richard Campbell believed that West
Florida should have been part of Alabama. The
question of Alabama annexation had been an issue
even before new settlers petitioned for it and old
Spanish citizens petitioned against it in 1821. In
1856 the Florida Legislature passed a bill permit-
ting a referendum, but Governor James E. Broome
vetoed it. In 1869, a referendum was held in West
Florida, and Alabama annexation won almost two
to one, including a pro vote in Campbell's home
county of Escambia. However, Florida's state gov-

xlix

INTRODUCTION.

I INTRODUCTION.
ernment never honored the results of the referen-
dum, and the agitation had ceased by 1874. 4
At any rate, Campbell's almost bitter expression of
the "exclusion of Pensacola from the great State of
Alabama" (p. 84) expressed his feelings on the
matter. This feeling is not totally subdued in West
Florida even today.
Campbell's Sketches would seem now to have a
two-fold value, First, the book remains an excel-
lent and accurate short account of the significant
events in Pensacola's colonial past. The fact that the
subject matter has only recently been re-covered in
a single volume reflects the rather meager historical
scholarship on the area up to the recent renaissance
in Pensacola spurred by the establishment in the
1960s of the University of West Florida and a
strong restoration and preservation movement.53
Secondly, it affords a late nineteenth-century per-
spective of this colonial era only seventy years after
its demise. The fact that this view has not been
altered significantly in the eighty-four years since it
was written evokes considerable wonder of Pen-
sacola's history and the telling of it, a task only now
being resumed with force.
Just four years after Campbell's book was pub-
lished, and after many months as a virtual invalid

INTRODUCTION.

ii

at Oakfield, he died June 16, 1896, at the age of
seventy-two. His wife died less than three years
later.86 Both were buried at St. Michael's, Pensa-
cola's old Spanish cemetery. Son of a British sailor
in the War of 1812, and father-in-law of a pre-
World War I lumber baron, Richard L. Campbell
emerges as a flesh-and-blood link between the co-
lonial era of which he wrote and the twentieth
century.
PAT DODSON.
Pensacola, Florida.

Notes.

1. "The Editor Emeritus," Florida Historical Quarterly
24 (January 1956): 288.
2. Family tradition further holds that Campbell came to
Pensacola as the British consul, but British government
records do not verify the tale. Ministry of Defense (Naval
Historical Library), London, to author, April 28, 1972.
Significant biographical information on the Campbell family
was obtained from Mrs. Charles W. (Amante Semmes)
Crawford of Pensacola, a great-granddaughter of Richard L.
Campbell; Richard Campbell Keyser, of Morristown, New
Jersey, a grandson; and C. Campbell Dirck Keyser, of Silver
Springs, Maryland, a great-grandson. A search for biograph-
ical sketches of John and Richard L. Campbell in standard
sources has been fruitless.
3. Campbell's Alabama activities are mentioned in the

lii

INTRODUCTION.

records of a lawsuit soon after: Docket No. 2419, United
States District Court, Escambia County, Florida, 1823.
4. Two of Richard Campbell's sisters died within a year
of their marriages. Marion married businessman Albert L.
Avery, and died at twenty-one, perhaps in childbirth. Four
years later Helen married United States Army Captain H.
M. Judah and died in 1852, likely in the yellow fever epi-
demic of that year. Two years later Judah's brother, Wil-
liam, of New York, married Judah's deceased wife's sister
Elodie. In turn Avery married his deceased wife's sister
Emily Campbell.
5. Record Book A, 502, Escambia County, Florida, recites
that by October 1, 1821, John Campbell possessed the nec-
essary residence requirements, had taken the necessary oath,
and was granted citizenship. Clarence E. Carter, ed., Terri-
torial Papers of the United States, 27 vols. (Washington,
1956-65), 22: 286-89. The petition states that many of the
signers were living in Pensacola in 1818-19 when Colonel
King headed the temporary military government established
by Jackson in 1818. A notation initialed March 9, 1921, by
William S. Keyser, Richard L. Campbell's son-in-law, states
that John Campbell "came to Pensacola about 1818 from
Glasgow, Scotland, with Ann Winter, his wife, who was a
native of the Island of Guernsey." "Family record of Tur-
quand and McCord families," Alabama Department of Ar-
chives and History, Montgomery.
6. General Index to Deeds, Grantees, A-G, 43-44 A-C,
Escambia County, Florida. Julien C. Yonge, ed., "Some
Officials of the City Government of Pensacola," Florida
Historical Quarterly 3 (January 1925): 31-33.
7. Julia J. Yonge, Christ Church Parish, Pensacola, Flor-
ida, 1827-1927 (Pensacola, 1927), p. 60; Carter, Territorial
Papers, 24: 957-58.
8. Ibid., pp. 630, 814, 966; 25: 104; 15: 476; 26: 276.
9. Ibid., 26: 448.
10. Interview with Mrs. Charles W. Crawford, Pensacola,

INTRODUCTION.

January 6, 1972; Campbell Keyser to author, January 19,
1972.
11. "Family Record of Turquand and McCord Families,"
Alabama Department of Archives and History, Montgomery;
Susan S. Bennett, comp., "The McCords of McCord's Ferry,
South Carolina," The South Carolina Historical and Gene-
alogical Magazine 34 (October 1933): 189.
12. Tallahassee Floridian and Journal, August 16, 1856.
13. Cyclopedia of American Biography, 7: 544, gives the
date of Perry's arrival in Pensacola and partnership with
Campbell as 1856 or 1857. Rerick states Perry came to
Pensacola in 1856; Rowland H. Rerick, Memoirs of Florida,
2 vols., Francis P. Fleming, ed. (Atlanta, 1902), 1: 356.
Perry served as governor of Florida from 1885 to 1889.
14. Journal of the Eleventh Annual Convention of the
Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Florida, 1848
(Tallahassee, 1849), p. 4; Seventeenth Annual Convention,
1855 (Tallahassee, 1856), p. 5; Eighteenth Annual Conven-
tion, 1856 (Tallahassee, 1857) p. 5; Nineteenth Annual
Convention, 1857 (Tallahassee, 1858), p. 5.
15. United States Census, Escambia County, Florida,
1840; General Index to Deeds, Grantees, A-G, 43-44 A-C,
Escambia County, Florida.
16. Record Book N, 358, Escambia County, Florida; Ab-
stracts of Section 28 and 29, Township 1 South, Range 30
West, Lawyer's Title Company, Pensacola, Florida.
17. Julien C. Yonge, ed., "Secession in Florida: Pensacola
on Its Own," Florida Historical Quarterly 27 (April 1948):
283, 285, 286, 291, 295, 297; and "Pensacola in the War for
Southern Independence," Florida Historical Quarterly 38
(January-April 1959): 357, 367. Yonge's articles reproduce
documents in the P. K. Yonge Library of Florida History,
Gainesville.
18. The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the
Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 70
vols. (Washington, 1880-1901), Ser. 1, Vol. 1: 334-35.

liii

liv

INTRODUCTION.

Hereinafter referred to as Official Records. J. H. Gilman,
"With Slemmer in Pensacola Harbor," Battles and Leaders
of the Civil War, 4 vols. (New York, 1887-88), 1: 26-27.
19. Official Records, Navies, Ser. 1, vol. 4: 48-56; ibid.,
1, Vol. 52, part 21: 4, 7; House Reports, 36th Cong., 2nd
sess., no. 87, 32, 57-60; John T. Scharf, History of the Con-
federate States Navy From Its Organization to the Surrender
of Its Last Vessel (New York, 1887), 601-2; William W.
Davis, The Civil War and Reconstruction in Florida (New
York, 1913; facsimile edition, Gainesville, 1964), pp. 79-82.
An article in the Pensacola Daily News, June 22, 1893,
quoting the June 1893 issue of the Confederate War Journal,
describes Campbell at the Navy Yard surrender as "Col. R.
L. Campbell, aide-de-camp to General Benjamin [sic]
Chase."
20. Sigsbee C. Prince, Jr., "Edward A. Perry, Yankee
General of Florida Brigade," Florida Historical Quarterly
29 (January 1951): 198. Prince incorrectly indicates Perry's
company was mustered into Confederate service in July
1861. Julien C. Yonge, ed., "Secession in Florida, Pensacola
on Its Own," Florida Historical Quarterly 27 (April 1948):
288, 291.
21. J. L. Larkin, "Battle of Santa Rosa Island," Florida
Historical Quarterly 37 (January-April 1959): 372-76. For
an account of Pensacola area war activities, see Edwin C.
Bearss, "Civil War Operations In and Around Pensacola,"
Florida Historical Quarterly 36 (October 1957): 125-65.
22. Robert E. Lee to J. H. Trapier, March 1, 1862, Official
Record, Armies, Ser. 1, Vol. 6: 403.
23. Samuel Jones to Braxton Bragg, March 6, 1862, ibid.,
p. 841; John Milton to Jefferson Davis, October 10, 1862,
ibid., Ser. I, Vol. 53: 260.
24. Frank Moore, ed., The Rebellion Record: A Diary of
American Events, with Documents, Narratives, Illustrative
Incidents, Poetry, 11 vols. (New York, 1861-68), 4: 72. For
a summary of events in Florida from 1861 to 1865 see John

INTRODUCTION.

1v

F. Reiger, "Florida After Secession: Abandonment by the
Confederacy and Its Consequences," Florida Historical
Quarterly 50 (October 1971): 128-42.
25. Ethel M. Armes, The Story of Coal and Iron in Ala-
bama (Birmingham, 1910), pp. 179-80; for a sketch of the
naval foundry and shipyard at Selma, see William N. Still,
"Selma and the Confederate States Navy," The Alabama
Review 15 (January 1962): 19-37.
26. Armes, Story of Coal and Iron, pp. 180-81, 312.
27. State of Florida, Journal of the House of Representa-
tives, 14th Session (Tallahassee, 1864), p. 111. John Camp-
bell's tombstone in St. Michael's cemetery gives his date of
death as January 30, 1867. His wife's tombstone gives her
date of death as 1871.
28. Escambia County, Florida, Will Book Docket 0, 205-
205A, 659A.
29. Pensacola Mail, January 30, 1872. Campbell's last law
office apparently was on East Zaragoza, near Tarragonna
Street. Florida State Gazeteer and Business Directory, 1886-
1887 (New York, 1886), p. 358.
30. C. Dirck Keyser to author, February 23, 1972.
31. For a realistic view of Reconstruction in Florida, re-
futing the theses of Professor William A. Dunning and his
students at Columbia University that Florida had a radical
Republican government until 1876, see Jerrell H. Shofner,
"Political Reconstruction in Florida," Florida Historical
Quarterly 45 (October 1966): 145-70; "Florida in the Bal-
ance: The Electoral Count of 1876," Florida Historical
Quarterly 47 (October 1968): 122-50; Merlin G. Cox, "Mil-
itary Reconstruction in Florida," Florida Historical Quarterly
46 (January 1968): 219-33; Ralph L. Peek, "Election of
1870 and the End of Reconstruction in Florida," Florida
Historical Quarterly 45 (April 1967): 352-68; and "Military
Reconstruction and the Growth of the Anti-Negro Sentiment
in Florida, 1867," Florida Historical Quarterly 47 (April
1969): 380-400; Richard Hume, "Membership of the Flor-

Ivi

INTRODUCTION.

ida Constitutional Convention of 1868. A Case Study of
Republican Factionalism in the Reconstruction South,"
Florida Historical Quarterly 51 (July 1972): 1-21.
32. "Quincy Conservative Convention," Florida Historical
Quarterly 18 (April 1940): 268; St. Augustine Examiner,
April 18, 1868.
33. Campbell received a judgment in the United States
District Court that the old bread debt had been paid, and
he delivered clear title on about two hundred acres to
Joaquin M. Justiniani, representing St. Maxent's heirs in
Cuba. Campbell received the "letter blocks" in what is still
known as the Maxent Tract, fronting Pensacola Bay and the
north shore of Bayou Chico. Docket No. 298, United States
District Court, Escambia County Florida, 1825; Record
Book Q, 746-48, Escambia County, Florida; mid-century
District Court records are unavailable in Pensacola and may
be lost.
34. The road (mentioned on page 103) ran for 5.8 miles
from Millview on Perdido Bay to Bayou Chico, with 1.5
miles in siding and spurs. It eventually reached Perdido
Wharf and its three round trips a day provided a means to
get the lumber produced by six mills to Pensacola's port,
where four-masters carried it over the globe. By 1880 the
line had five locomotives, seventy-two freight and log cars,
and a lone passenger coach. The railroad failed in 1895
after the pine forests supplying the mills on Perdido Bay
were depleted. Campbell's comment, handed down through
the family, was that "the railroad's busted and I'm dis-
gusted." However, by 1902 the line was extended twenty-
four miles to Muscogee by the Pensacola, Alabama and
Tennessee Railroad. Acts and Resolutions Adopted by the
Legislature of Florida, at Its Fifth Session, 1872, p. 90;
Pensacola Observer, October 10, 1868; Rerick, Memoirs of
Florida, 2: 193; George W. Pettengill, Jr., The Story of
Florida Railroads, 1834-1903, Bulletin no. 86, The Railroad
and Locomotive Historical Society (Boston, 1952), p. 115;

INTRODUCTION. lvii

Reports of officers. . year ending March 31, 1876 (N. P.,
1876?), Pensacola and Perdido Railroad Co., copy at P. K.
Yonge Library of Florida History, Gainesville, Florida; Mrs.
Daniel B. Smith, "Millview," Pensacola Historical Society
Quarterly 1 (July 1965): 1; quote from interview with Mrs.
Charles W. Crawford, January 6, 1972.
35. Interview with Mrs. Charles W. Crawford, Pensacola,
January 6, 1972. The Live Oak Reservation had been started
during the administration of John Quincy Adams, and by
1833 some 225 acres were covered by 60,000 trees. For an
account of the early days of the reservation under Judge
Henry M. Brackinridge, see William F. Keller, The Nation's
Advocate: Henry Marie Brackenridge and Young America
(Pittsburgh, 1956), pp. 331-48.
36. Senate Reports, 44th Cong., 2nd sess., no. 611, 338-
401; Rerick, Memoirs of Florida, 1: 335-37; John Wallace,
Carpetbag Rule in Florida (Jacksonville, 1888; facsimile ed.,
Gainesville, 1964), pp. 339-42; Davis, Civil War and Re-
construction in Florida, pp. 732, 734. Hilton, a Tallahassee
attorney and former judge, had fought the Reconstruction
government from the start. See Wallace, Carpetbag Rule,
pp. 437-40. Raney, a former State Supreme Court justice,
was appointed attorney general by Drew and re-appointed
by Governor William D. Bloxham in 1881. He became
chief justice of the State Supreme Court in 1888. Rerick,
Memoirs of Florida, 2: 100-103. For more on the irony of
Drew's election, see Jerrell H. Shofner, "A Note on Governor
George F. Drew," Florida Historical Quarterly 48 (April
1970): 412-14.
37. For more on Perry, see Sigsbee C. Prince, Jr., "Ed-
ward A. Perry, Yankee General of the Florida Brigade,"
Florida Historical Quarterly 29 (January 1951): 197-205,
and "Edward Aylsworth Perry, Florida's Thirteenth Gov-
ernor" (MA thesis, University of Florida, 1949).
38. John L. McKinnon, History of Walton County (At-
lanta, 1911; facsimile ed., Gainesville, 1968), p. 249.

Iviii

INTRODUCTION.

39. In 1900 W. S. Keyser and Co. shipped 90,000,000
feet of lumber from Pensacola and 45,000,000 feet from
Mobile, Pascagoula, and Biloxi. Rerick, Memoirs of Florida,
1: 592-93; 2: 224-25, 314.
40. R. Campbell Keyser, Morristown, New Jersey, to au-
thor, January 19, 1972. The site of Oakfield is on the
present-day L & N Railroad where it skirts a post-World-
War II subdivision which has retained the Oakfield name.
41. Rerick, Memoirs of Florida, 1: 621.
42. General Sir Frederick Haldimand Papers, Public Ar-
chives of the Dominion of Canada, Ottawa. The P. K. Yonge
Library of Florida History, Gainesville, began to acquire
microfilm and Xerox copies of the papers in 1970. The first
two reels include correspondence with the governors of
provinces (1765-74); letterbook on affairs in Florida (1768-
70); letters and accounts relating to ordnance affairs at Pen-
sacola (1764-73); accounts of Pensacola (1767-73); regi-
mental returns, and military accounts relating to Florida
(1760-74); calendars of correspondence with General Gage,
Brigadier General Taylor, and the provincial governors.
Campbell apparently learned of the Pensacola material in
the Canadian Archives Annual Report of 1884-89 which
catalogs 262 volumes containing Haldimand's correspond-
ence and diary. Peter J. Hamilton in his Colonial Mobile:
An Historical Study Largely from Original Sources (New
York, 1897; rev. ed. 1910) drew heavily on the Haldimand
Papers.
43. George R. Fairbanks, History of Florida From Its
Discovery by Ponce de Leon, in 1512, to the Close of the
Florida War, in 1842 (Philadelphia, 1871). Fairbanks wrote
an earlier book entitled The Early History of Florida (St.
Augustine, 1857).
44. Rerick, Memoirs of Florida, 1: 526-27.
45. Although he apologizes for his lack of information,
Fairbanks gave only brief mention to West Florida in his
paper "Early Churchmen of Florida," Semi-Centennial of
the Diocese of Florida, held in Tallahassee: January 18 and

INTRODUCTION.

19, 1888 (Jacksonville, 1889), appendix D. The fact that
Fairbanks' wives were from the Panhandle did not seem to
increase his knowledge of West Florida history.
46. Apparently Campbell's reference to Allison's [sic]
History of Modern Europe is to Sir Archibald Alison, His-
tory of Europe from the Commencement of the French
Revolution in 1789 to the Restoration of the Bourbons in
1815, 10 vols. (Edinburgh, 1837-42), reissued and abridged
several times in Edinburgh and New York through 1857;
and History of Europe from the Fall of Napoleon, in 1815,
to the Accession of Louis Napoleon, in 1852 (Edinburgh
and London, 1852-59), which had gone into ten editions
by 1860. Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot, The History of
France from the Earliest Times to the Year 1789, 8 vols.,
Robert Black, trans. (Paris, 1870-76; trans. ed., London,
1872-83).
47. William Kingsford, History of Canada, 10 vols. (Lon-
don, 1887-98).
48. The Luna Papers were not made widely available in
English until the twentieth century. Herbert Ingram Priestly,
ed. and trans., The Luna Papers: Documents Relating to the
Expedition of Don Tristdn de Luna y Arellano, 2 vols. (De-
Land, 1928).
49. William Roberts, An Account of the First Discovery,
and Natural History of Florida (London, 1763).
50. The originals of the Bouquet Papers are found in the
British Museum. About 1940 the Pennsylvania Historical
and Museum Commission reproduced the papers in a mime-
ograph edition and have since published two volumes in
hard covers.
51. Max von Eelking, Die deutschen Hiilfstruppen in
nordamerikanischen Befreiungskriege, 1776 bis 1783 (Han-
over, 1863).
52. British Major General John Campbell's account of the
surrender of Pensacola was published in Westminister Maga-
zine 9 (October 1781): 551-53.
53. Bernardo de Galvez's Diario de las Operaciones de la

lix

lx

INTRODUCTION.

Expedicion contra la Plaza de Pensacola was first published
in late 1781 at an unknown Spanish city and reprinted in
Sociedad Econdmica de la Habafia, Memorias, Ser. 2, II-III
(1846-47).
54. The diary of Francisco de Miranda was published in
Archivo del General Miranda, 1750-1785 (Caracas, 1929),
1: 150-75; Buckingham Smith, ed., "Robert Farmar's Jour-
nal of the Siege of Pensacola," Historical Magazine and
Notes and Queries 4 (June 1860): 166-72. For background
on most of these accounts, see N. Orwin Rush, Spain's Final
Triumph over Great Britain in the Gulf of Mexico: The
Battle of Pensacola (Tallahassee, 1966).
55. Jared Sparks, Diplomatic Correspondence of the
American Revolution, 12 vols. (Boston, 1829-30; Washing-
ton, 1889), 6: 54; 8: 175; 10: 335.
56. Albert J. Pickett, History of Alabama and Incidentally
of Georgia and Mississippi, from the Earliest Period, 2 vols.
(Charleston, 1851; reprint ed., Birmingham, 1962). These
two McGillivray letters are on pp. 369-71 and 373-75 in
Pickett (reprint) and are from American State Papers,
Indian Affairs, vol. 1.
57. LeClerc Milfort, Memoire; ou, coup-d'oeil rapide sur
mes different voyages et mon sejour dans la nation creck
(Paris, 1802).
58. Niles' Weekly Register (Baltimore, 1811-49).
59. Ellen Call Long, Florida Breezes: or, Florida, New
and Old (Jacksonville, 1882; facsimile ed., Gainesville,
1962), p. 123; It is puzzling why Marquis James in his
classic biography of Jackson omits this dramatic incident,
inasmuch as his bibliography lists Campbell and he ob-
viously searched for local detail to carry Jackson through
Pensacola.
60. James Parton, Life of Andrew Jackson, 3 vols. (New
York, 1860), vol. 2.
61. This is the title shown on the fourth preliminary leaf
in White's A New Collection of Laws, Charters, and Local

Ordinances of the Governments of Great Britain, France
and Spain, Relating to Concessions of Lands in Their Re-
spective Colonies, 2 vols. (Philadelphia, 1839). Another Pen-
sacola Episcopalian, White provided the property for Christ
Church: Julia J. Yonge, Christ Church Parish, p. 8.
62. William Roberts, An Account of the First Discovery
and Natural History of Florida (London, 1763); L. M.
Stark, Rare Book Division, New York Public Library, to
author, January 2, 1973.
63. Philip Pittman, The Present State of the European
Settlements on the Missisippi (London, 1770; facsimile ed.,
Gainesville, 1973); Thomas Hutchins, An Historical Nar-
rative and Topographical Description of Louisiana and West
Florida (Philadelphia, 1784; facsimile ed., Gainesville,
1968); William Bartram, Travels Through North & South
Carolina, Georgia, East & West Florida, the Cherokee
Country (Philadelphia, 1791); John Pope, A Tour Through
the Southern and Western Territories of the United States
of North-America; the Spanish Dominions on the River
Mississippi, and the Floridas (Richmond, 1792); Garrett E.
Pendergrast, A Physical and Topographical Sketch of the
Mississippi Territory, Lower Louisiana, and a Part of West
Florida (Philadelphia, 1803); Berquin-Duvallon, Vue de la
colonie espagnole du Mississippi, ou des provinces de Loui-
siane et Florida Occidentale (Paris, 1803); Claude C. Robin,
Voyages dans l'interieur de la Louisiane et de la Florida oc-
cidentale, et dans les isles de la Martinque et de Saint-
Domingue, pendant les annees 1802, 1803, 1804, 1805 et
1806 (Paris, 1807); Fortescue Cuming, Sketches of a Tour
to the Western Country (Pittsburgh, 1810); John Melish,
A Description of East and West Florida and the Bahama
Islands (Philadelphia, 1813); William Darby, Memoir on
the Geography and Natural and Civil History of Florida
(Philadelphia, 1821); James G. Forbes, Sketches, Historical
and Topographical, of the Floridas, More Particularly of
East Florida (New York, 1821; facsimile ed., Gainesville,

Ixi

INTRODUCTION.

1964); William H. Simmons, Notices of East Florida, with
an Account of the Seminole Nation of Indians (Charleston,
1822; facsimile ed.,. Gainesville, 1973); Charles Vignoles,
Observations Upon the Floridas (New York, 1823); John
Lee Williams, A View of West Florida, Embracing Its
Geography, Topography, etc. (Philadelphia, 1827).
64. Richard Hakluyt, trans., The Discovery and Conquest
of Terra Florida, by Don Ferdinando de Soto (London?,
1611; reprint ed., London, 1851), Divers Voyages Touching
the Discovery of America and the Islands Adjacent Unto the
Same (London, 1582; reprint ed., London, 1850), The
Principal Navigations Voyages Traffiques & Discoveries of
the English Nation, 12 vols (London, 1589; reprint ed.,
Edinburgh, 1885-90, Glasgow, 1903-5).
65. Alvar Nuiiez Cabeza de Vaca, Relation of Alvar
Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, Buckingham Smith, trans. (New
York, 1871) [first Spanish ed., Zamora, 1542].
66. Abbie M. Brooks, Petals Plucked from Sunny Climes
(Nashville, 1880).
67. William H. Prescott, History of the Reign of Philip
the Second, 3 vols. (Philadelphia, 1882).
68. Albert J. Pickett, History of Alabama; Theodore
Irving, The Conquest of Florida by Hernando De Soto
(New York, 1851).
69. Martin Fernandez de Navarrete, Colecci6n de los
Viages y Descubrimientos que Hicieron por Marlos Espaiio-
les Desde Fines del Siglo XV, etc., 5 vols. (Madrid, 1825-
37), vol. 3 is pertinent to the Southeast; Henri Ternaux-
Compans, Recueil de pieces sur la Floride (Paris, 1841);
[another work], Voyages, relations et memoires originaux
per servir d l'histoire de la decouverte de l'amerique
(Paris, 1837), chapter 7 on de Vaca, chapter 2 on South-
east; Andres Gonzalez de Barcia, Ensayo Cronologico, para
la Historia General de la Florida (Madrid, 1723); Searfin
Maria de Soto y Abbach, Conde de Clonard, Historia Orgd-
nica de las Armas de Infanteria y Caballeria Espaiiolas

Ixii

INTRODUCTION.

INTRODUCTION. Ixiii

(Madrid, 1853); Francisco Barado y Font, Museo Militar
(Barcelona, c. 1883).
70. Bernard Romans, A Concise Natural History of East
and West Florida, etc. (New York, 1775; facsimile ed.,
Gainesville, 1962); Mary Durnford, Family Recollections of
Lieutenant General Elias Walker Durnford (Montreal,
1963); Banastre Tarleton, A History of the Campaigns of
1780 and 1781, in the Southern Provinces of North America,
by Lieutenant-Colonel Tarleton (Dublin, 1787).
71. Francois X. Martin, History of Louisiana, from the
Earliest Period (New Orleans, 1827-29; rev. ed., New
Orleans, 1882); Benjamin F. French, Historical Memoirs of
Louisiana (New York, 1853); Charles E. A. Gayarre, His-
tory of Louisiana, 4 vols. (New York, 1854-66).
72. Amos Stoddard, Sketches, Historical and Descriptive,
of Louisiana (Philadelphia, 1812); E. Bunner, History of
Louisiana from Its First Discovery and Settlement to the
Present Time (New York, 1842); Robert Greenhow, The
History of Florida, Louisiana, Texas, and California, and of
the Adjoining Countries (New York, 1856); John B. S.
Dimitry, Lessons in the History of Louisiana, from Its Earli-
est Settlement to the Close of the Civil War (New York,
1877).
73. Antoine LePage DuPratz, History of Louisiana, or
of the Western Parts of Virginia and Carolina, 2 vols. (Paris,
1758; trans. ed., London, 1763); Francois Barbe-Marbois,
The History of Louisiana, Particularly of the Cession of
that Colony to the United States of America, William B.
Laurence, trans. (Paris, 1829; trans. ed., Philadelphia, 1830).
74. Benjamin Hawkins, A Sketch of the Creek Country, in
1798 and 1799 (New York, 1848); [Benjamin Baynton],
Authentic Memoirs of William Augustus Bowles Esquire,
Ambassador from the United Nations of Creeks and Chero-
kees to the Court of London (London, 1791); "The Life of
General W. A. Bowles, A Native of America-Born of
English Parents in Frederic County, Maryland, in the Year

1764," Public Characters, 1801-1802 (London, 1803);
Thomas L. McKenney and James Hall, History of the In-
dian Tribes of North America, 3 vols. (Philadelphia, 1838-
44); Henry R. Schoolcraft, Information Respecting the
History, Condition and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of
the United States, 6 vols. (Philadelphia, 1851-57); William
Bartram, "Observations on the Creek and Cherokee Indians,
1789," Transactions of the American Ethnological Society 3
(1853): 1-81; Thomas S. Woodward, Woodward's Remi-
niscences of the Creek, or Muscogee Indians (Montgomery,
1859); George C. Eggleston, Red Eagle and the Wars with
the Creek Indians of Alabama (New York, 1878); Albert S.
Gatschet, A Migration Legend of the Creek Indians, 2
vols. (Philadelphia, 1884-88).
75. Willis Brewer, Alabama: Her History, Resources, War
Record, and Public Men From 1540 to 1872 (Montgomery,
1872); Alexander B. Meek, Romantic Passages in South-
western History (New York, 1857); John F. H. Claiborne,
Mississippi as a Province, Territory and State, with Bio-
graphical Notices of Eminent Citizens (Jackson, 1880).
76. John H. Eaton, The Life of Andrew Jackson (Phil-
adelphia, 1817); S. Putnam Waldo, Memoirs of Andrew
Jackson, Major-General in The Army of the United States,
and Commander in Chief of the Division of the South
(Hartford, 1818).
77. Arsene Lacarriere Latour, Historical Memoir of the
War in West Florida and Louisiana in 1814-1815 (Phil-
adelphia, 1816); James Wilkinson, Memoirs of My Own
Times (Philadelphia, 1816); John D. G. Shea, History of the
Catholic Church within the Limits of the United States, 4
vols. (New York, 1886-92), A History of Catholic Missions
Among the Indian Tribes of the United States (New York,
1855), The Catholic Church in Colonial Days (New York,
1886); Justin Winsor, ed., Narrative and Critical History
of America, 8 vols. (Boston, 1884-89).
78. Worthington C. Ford, ed., The United States and

Ixiv

INTRODUCTION.

Spain in 1790 (Brooklyn, 1890); George Gauld, An Account
of the Surveys of Florida, &c. (London, 1790).
79. Andrew Ellicott, The Journal of Andrew Ellicott
(Philadelphia, 1803); Luis de Onis, Memoir upon the
Negotiations Between Spain and the United States of
America, which Led to the Treaty of 1819 (Washington,
1821); John Brannan, ed., Official Letters of the Military
and Naval Officers of the United States, During the War
with Great Britain in the Years 1812, 13, 14 & 15 (Wash-
ington, 1823); Nathaniel H. Claiborne, Notes on the War
in the South with Biographical Sketches of the Lives of
Montgomery, Jackson, Sevier, the late Gov. Claiborne, and
Others (Richmond, 1819); Henry M. Brackenridge, Judge
Brackenridge's Letters (Washington, 1832) and History of
the Late War, Between the United States and Great Britain
(Baltimore, 1816); William H. Milburn, The Rifle, Axe,
and Saddle-Bags, and Other Lectures (New York, 1857);
David Crockett, Life of Colonel David Crockett, Written
by Himself (Philadelphia, 1860); William H. Sparks, The
Memories of Fifty Years (Philadelphia, 1870); Sir Edward
Codrington, Memoir of the Life of Admiral Sir Edward
Codrington (London, 1873).
80. "The present city of Pensacola may be considered to
date back to about the year 1750, being nearly 200 years
the junior in age of St. Augustine." Fairbanks, History of
Florida, p. 187.
81. Robert S. Cotterill, The Southern Indians; the Story
of the Civilized Tribes Before Removal (Norman, 1954),
pp. 166-75.
82. Virginia R. Hawley, Western Reserve Historical So-
ciety, Cleveland, to author, January 29, 1972.
83. Two copies of Campbell's Sketches are in the John
C. Pace Library, University of West Florida, Pensacola, one
in a wine cloth cover and one in a dark blue cloth cover.
Both copies were originally owned by Captain and Mrs.
James C. Watson of Pensacola and appear identical in

/xv

INTRODUCTION.

INTRODUCTION.

every respect except the color of the covers, even to the
errata page following page 8.
84. Carter, Territorial Papers, 22: 311-16, 320-23. The
1869 referendum was dependent on the assent of Congress
and the payment by Alabama of $1,000,000. Although the
Alabama Legislature approved the move, it bogged down in
Florida's government because it required a constitutional
amendment. Ironically, Campbell must have found himself
working with Pensacola Republican leader George P. Went-
worth on the annexation issue. For a summary of attempts
at Alabama annexation and background sources, see Hugh
C. Bailey, "Alabama and West Florida Annexation," Florida
Historical Quarterly 35 (January 1957): 219-32.
85. The first volume of the Pensacola Series, celebrating
the American Revolution Bicentennial, published by the
Pensacola-Escambia Development Commission in coopera-
tion with the History Department of the University of West
Florida, deals with the colonial era in West Florida: James
R. McGovern, ed.,. Colonial Pensacola (Pensacola, 1972).
Including some social history, it has a section on early
Spanish Pensacola by Irving A. Leonard, British Pensacola
by Robert R. Rea, and the last Spanish period in Pensacola
by Jack D. L. Holmes.
86. Pensacola Daily News, June 16, 1896.

lxvi

HISTORICAL SKETCHES

-OF-

Colonial Florida.

-BY-

RICHARD L. CAMPBELL.

CLEVELAND, OHIO:
THE WILLIAMS PUBLISHING CO.
1892.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in year 1892,
by RICHARD L. CAMPBELL, in the office of the Librarian
of Congress, at Washington.

PREFACE.

THE inducement to write this book was to
supply, in a slight measure, the want of any
particular history of British rule in West
Florida. With that inducement, however, the
effort would not have been made but for the
sources of original information existing in the
Archives of the Dominion of Canada, as well as
others, pointed out to me by Dr. William
Kingsford of Ottawa, author of the 'History
of Canada;' to whom I take this occasion of
making my acknowledgments.
An account of British rule necessitated one of
Spanish colonial annals, both before and after it.
If any apology be necessary for the space
devoted to the Creeks, it will be found in the
considerations that for twenty years the body

4 PREFACE.

of the nation was within the limits of British
West Florida; that their relations with the
British, formed during that period, influenced
their conduct towards the United States until
after the War of 1812; and above all, that the
life of Alexander McGillivray forms a part of
the history of West Florida, both under British
and Spanish rule.
The prominence given to Pensacola is due to
its having been the capital of both British and
Spanish West Florida, and therefore the centre
of provincial influence.

CONTENTS.

PAGE.
CHAPTER I...................... .................................... 9
The Discovery of Pensacola Bay by the Panfilo de Narvaez.
The Visits of Maldonado, Captain of the Fleet of Her-
nando de Soto.

CHAPTER 11I........................................... .... ... 19
The Settlement of Don Tristram de Luna at Santa Maria-
His Explorations-Abandonment of the Settlement-
The First Pensacola.

CHAPTER III............................................................... 31
Don Andres de Pes-Santa Maria de Galva-Don Andres
d'Arriola-The Resuscitation of Pensacola--Its Conse-
quences.

CHAPTER IV ......................................... ............. . 36
Iberville's Expedition-Settlement at Biloxi and Mobile-
Amicable Relations of the French and Spanish Colonies
from 1700-1719.

CHAPTER V..................... ... ................................ 41
War Declared by France against Spain-Bienville Surprises
Metamoras-Metamoras Surprises Chateauqne-Bien-
ville Attacks and Captures Pensacola-San Carlos and
Pensacola Destroyed-Magazine Spared.

CHAPTER V I .................................................. ...... 51
Sketch of Island Town-Its Destruction-The Third Pensa-
cola-The-Cession of Florida by Spain to Great Britain
-Appearance of Town in 1763-Captain W,'llrs port
-Catholic Church.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER VII......... ........... .... ..... ........ .............. . 59
British West Florida-Pensacola the Capital-Government
Established-Johnstone first Governor-British Settlers
-First Survey of the Town-Star Fort-Public Buildings
-Resignation of Johnstone-His Successor, Monteforte
Brown.

CHAPTER VIII................................................... .. 71
General Bouquet-General Haldimand.

CHAPTER IX ............... .............. ....... ... ............. 78
Governor Elliott-Social and Military Life in Pensacola-
Gentlemen-Women - Fiddles- George Street - King's
Wharf on November 14, 1768.

CHAPTER X ......................................................... . 87
Governor Peter Chester-Ft. George of the British and St.
Michael of the Spanish-Council Chamber-Tartar
Point-Red Cliff.

CHAPTER X I................................................ ...... 93
Representative Government.

CHAPTER XII........ ........... ... ............................ 97
Growth of Pensacola-Panton, Leslie & Co.-A King and
the Beaver-Governor Chester's Palace and Chariot-
The White House of the British and Casa Blanca of the
Spanish-General Gage-Commerce-Earthquake.

CHAPTER XIII................. ............ .......................111
Military Condition of West Florida in 1778-General John
Campbell-The Waldecks-Spain at War with Britain-
Bute, Baton Rouge and Fort Charlotte Capitulate to
Galvez-French Town-Famine in Fort George-Galvez's
Expedition Against Pensacola-Solana's Fleet Enters
the Harbor-Spaniards Effect a Landing-Spanish En-
trenchment Surprised-The Fall of Charleston Cele-
brated in Fort George.

6

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER X IV.......................................................131
Fort San Bernardo-Siege of Fort George-Explosion of
Magazine-The Capitulation-The March Through the
Breach-British Troops Sail from Pensacola to Brook-
lyn.

CHAPTER XV .............. .........................................142
Political Aspect of the Capitulation-Treaty of Versailles-
English Exodus-Widow of the White House.

CHAPTER X VI......................................................1 50
Boundary Lines-William Panton and Spain-Indian Trade
-Indian Ponies and Traders-Business of Panton,
Leslie & Co.

CHAPTER X VII..................................................158
Lineage of Alexander McGillivray-His Education-Made
Grand Chief-His Connection with Milfort-His Rela-
tions with William Panton-His Administration of
Creek Affairs-Appointed Colonel by the British-
Treaty with Spain-Commissioned Colonel by the
Spanish-Invited to New York by Washington-Treaty
-Commissioned a Brigadier-General by the United
States-His Sister, Sophia Durant-His Trials-His
Death at Pensacola.

CHAPTER X VIII................................. ..................200
Governor Folch-Barrancas-Changes in the Plan of the
Town-Ship Pensacola-Disputed Boundaries-Square
Ferdinand VII -English Names of Streets Changed for
Spanish Names-Palafox-Saragossa-Reding-Baylea
Romana-Alcaniz-Tarragona.

CHAPTER X IX .................. ...................................217
Folch Leaves West Florida-His Successors-War of 1812-
Tecumseh's Visit to the Seminoles and Creeks-Conse-
quences-Fort Mims-Percy and Nicholls' Expedition.

7

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER X X .................. .. ................................. 227
Attack on Fort Boyer by Percy and Nicholls-Jackson's
March on Pensacola in 1814--The Town Captured-
Percy and Nicholls Driven Out-Consequences of the
War to the Creeks--Don Manuel Gonzalez.

CHAPTER XXI.......... .......... ................... ..................243
Seminole War, 1818-Jackson Invades East Florida-De-
feats the Seminoles-Captures St. Marks-Arbuthnot
and Ambrister-Prophet Francis-His Daughter.

CHAPTER X XII.................................................... 252
Jackson's Invasion of West Florida in 1818-Masot's Pro-
test-Capture of Pensacola-Capitulation of San Carlos
-Provisional Government Established by Jackson-
Pensacola Restored to Spain-Governor Callava-
Treaty of Cession-Congressional Criticism of Jackson's
Conduct.

CHAPTER XXIII....................... ........................... 67
Treaty Ratified-Jackson Appointed Provisional Governor-
Goes to Pensacola-Mrs. Jackson in Pensacola-Change
of Flags-Callava Imprisoned-Territorial Government
-Governor Duval-First Legislature Meets at Pensa-
cola.

8

ERRATA.

Page 10. Sixteenth for Eighteenth.
" 61. Distant for District.
" 113. Journal for Journey.
" 117. 1779 for 1789.
" 225. Barrataria for Banataria.
" 276. Domingo for Doningo.
" 233. During for Doing.

CHAPTER I.

The Discovery of Pensacola Bay by Panfilo de Narvaez-
The Visits of Maldonado, Captain of the Fleet of
Hernando de Soto.

ON ONE of the early days of October, 1528,
there could have been seen, coasting westward
along and afterwards landing on the south
shore of Santa Rosa Island, five small, rudely-
constructed vessels, having for sails a grotesque
patchwork of masculine under and over-wear.
That fleet was the fruit of the first effort at
naval construction within the present limits of
the United States. It was built of yellow pine
and caulked with palmetto fibre and pitch.
Horses' tails and manes furnished the cordage,
as did their hides its water vessels. Its freight-
age consisted of two hundred and forty human
bodies, wasted and worn by fatigue and ex-
posure, and as many hearts heavy and racked
with disappointment. It was commanded by His
9

10 HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF

Excellency Panfilo de Narvaez, Captain-general
and Adelantado of Florida, a tall, big-limbed,
red-haired, one-eyed man, "with a voice deep
and sonorous as though it came from a cavern.'
These were the first white men to make foot-
prints on the shores of Pensacola Bay and to
look out upon its waters. Although they landed
on the Island, there is no evidence that their
vessels entered the harbor.
Narvaez, an Hidalgo, born at Valladolid about
1480, was a man capable of conceiving and
undertaking great enterprises, but too rash and
ill-starred for their successful execution, possess-
ing the ambition and avarice which impelled the
Spanish adventurers to the shores of the Gulf
of Mexico during the eighteenth century, with
whom Indian life was but a trifling sacrifice for
a pearl or an ounce of gold.
Five years before his Florida expedition he
had been appointed, with a large naval and
land force under his command, by Velasquez,
governor of Cuba, to supersede Cortez, the
conqueror of' Mexico, and to send him in chains
to Havana, to answer charges of insubordina-
tion to the authority of Velasquez. But Cortez

COLONIAL FLORIDA.

was not the man to be thus superseded. Never
did his genius for great enterprises make a more
striking display than by the measures he adopted
and executed in this emergency. By them he
converted that threatening expedition into one
of succor for himself, embracing every supply,
soldiers included, he required to complete his
conquests. Of this great achievement the de-
feat of the incompetent Narvaez was only an
incident.
No labored comparison of conqueror and
vanquished could present a more striking con-
trast between them than that suggested by
theirfirst interview. "Esteem it," said Narvaez,
"great good fortune that you have taken me
captive." "It is the least of the things I have
done in Mexico," replied Cortez, a sarcasm
aimed at the incapacity of Narvaez, apart from
the gains of the victor.
The fruits of the expedition to Narvaez were
the loss of his left eye, shackles, imprisonment,
banishment, and the humiliation of kneeling to
his conqueror and attempting to kiss his hand.
To the Aztec the result was the introduction of
a scourge that no surrender could placate, no

11

12 HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF

submission, however absolute and abject, could
stay, and, therefore, more pitiless than the
sword of Cortez-the small-pox.
After leaving Mexico, Narvaez appeared before
the Emperor Charles V., to accuse Cortez of
treason, and to petition for a redress of his own
wrongs, but the dazzling success of Cortez, to
say nothing of his large remittances to the
royal treasury, was an effectual answer to every
charge. The emperor, however, healed the
wounded pride, and silenced the complaints of
the prosecutor by a commission with the afore-
mentioned sonorous titles to organize an expe-
dition for a new conquest, by which he might
compensate himself for the loss of the treasures
and empire of Montezuma, which he had so
disastrously failed to snatch from the iron
grasp of Cortez.
The preparations to execute this commission
having been made by providing a fleet, a land
force, consisting of men-at-arms and cavalry,
as well as the necessary supplies, Narvaez, in
April, 1528, sailed for the Florida coast, and
landed at or near Tampa bay.
Having resolved on a westward movement,

COLONIAL FLORIDA.

he ordered his fleet to sail along the coast,
whilst he, by rather a circuitous march, would
advance in the same direction. This parting
was at once final and fatal. He again reached
the Gulf, somewhere in the neighborhood of St.
Marks, with his command woefully wasted and
diminished by toil, battle and disease; and, as
can well be imagined, with his dreams of avarice
and dominion rudely dispelled.
No tidings of the fleet from which he had so
lucklessly parted being obtainable, despair im-
provised that fleet with motley sails which we
have seen mooring off the island of Santa Rosa
in the early days of October, its destination
being Mexico-a destination, however, which
was but another delusion that the winds and
the waves were to dispel.
Narvaez found a grave in the maw of the sea,
as did most of the remnant of his followers.
Famine swept off others, leaving only four to
reach Mexico after a land journey requiring
years, marked by perils and sufferings incident
to such a journey through a vast forest bounded
only by the sea, intersected by great rivers, in-
habited by savages, and infested by wild beasts.

13

14 HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF

One of the survivors was Cabega de Vaca, the
treasurer and historian of the expedition.
Twelveyears elapsed after Narvaez discovered
Pensacola Bay before the shadow of the white
man's sail again fell upon its waters. In
January, 1540, Capitano Maldonado, who was
the commander of the fleet which brought
Fernando de Soto to the Florida coast, entered
the harbor, gave it a careful examination, and
bestowed upon it the name of Puerta d' Anchusi,
a name probably suggested by Ochus,* which it
bore at the time of his visit. In entering Ochus
he ended a voyage westward, made in search of
a good harbor, under the orders of Soto, who
was at that time somewhere on the Forida
coast to the westward of Apalachee.
Having returned to Soto, Maldonado made
so favorable a report-the first official report-
of the advantages of Puerta d' Anchusi that
Soto determined to make it his base of supply.
He accordingly ordered Maldonado to proceed
to Havana, and after having procured the

* So the name is given by historians; but, to be consistent
with the termination of other Indian namesin West Florida,
it should be written Ochee or Ochusee.

COLONIAL FLORIDA.

required succors to sail to Puerta d' Anchusi,
where he intended to go himself, and there to
await Maldonado's return before he ventured
into the interior; a prudent resolve, suggested
possibly by the sight of the bones of Narvaez's
horses, which had been slain to furnish cordage
and water-vessels for his fleet.
But the resolve was as brief as it was wise. A
few days after Maldonado's departure a cap-
tured Indian so beguiled Soto with tales of gold
to be found far to the northeast of Apalachee,
where he then was, that banishing all thoughts
of Puerta d' Anchusi from his mind, he began
that circuitious march which carried him into
South Carolina, northern Georgia, and Alabama,
where he wandered in search of treasure until
disappointment, wasted forces, and needed sup-
plies again turned his march southward, and his
thoughts to his rendezvous with Maldonado.
That rendezvous was to be in October, 1540.
Faithful to instructions, Maldonado was at
Puerta d' Anchusi at the appointed time with a
fleet bearing all the required supplies. But Soto
did not keep the tryst. He was then at Mau-
villa, or Maubila, supposed to be Choctaw

15

16 HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF

Bluff, on the Alabama river, absorbed by diffi-
culties and engaged in conflicts such as he had
never before encountered. Through Indians
they had communicated, and intense was the
satisfaction of Soto and his command at the
prospect of a relief of their wants, repose from
their toils, and tidings of their friends and loved
ones.
Soto, however, still ambitious of emulating
the achievements of Cortez and Pizzaro, looked
upon Puerta d' Anchusi as only a base of sup-
ply and refuge for temporary repose, from
which again to set out in search of his goal.
But very different were the views of his follow-
ers. By eaves-dropping on a dark night behind
their tents, he learned that to them Puerta d'
Anchusi was not to be a haven of temporary
rest only, but the first stage of their journey
homeward, where Soto and his fortunes were
to be abandoned.
This information again banished Puerta d'
Anchusi from his thoughts under the prompt-
ings of pride, which impelled him to prefer death
in the wilderness to the mockery and humilia-
tion of failure. He at once resolved to march

COLONIAL FLORIDA.

deeper into the heart of the continent, and, un-
consciously, nearer to the mighty river in whose
cold bosom he was to find a grave.
As in idea we go into the camp at Mauvilla,
on the morning when the word of command
was given for a westward march, we see depicted
on the war-worn visages of that iron band
naught but gloom and disappointment, as, con-
strained by the stern will of one man, they
obediently fall into ranks without a murmur,
much less a sign of revolt.
Again, if in fancy we stand on the deck of
Maldonado's ship at Puerta d' Anchusi, we
may realize the keen watchfulness and the deep
anxiety with which day after day and night
after night he scans the shore and hills beyond
to catch a glint of spear or shield, or strains his
ear to hear a bugle note announcing the
approach of his brothers-in-arms. And only
after long, weary months was the vigil ended,
as he weighed anchor and sailed out of the
harbor to go to other points on the Gulf
shore where happily he might yet meet and
succor his commander.
To this task did he devote himself for three

17

18 HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF

years, scouring the Gulf coast from Florida to
Vera Cruz, until the curtain of the drama was
lifted for him, to find that seventeen months
previously his long-sought chief had been lying
in the depths of the Mississippi, and that a
wretched remnant only of that proud host,
which he had .last seen in glittering armor on
the coast of Florida, had reached Mexico after
undergoing indescribable perils and privations.

COLONIAL FLORIDA.

CHAPTER II.

The Settlement of Don Tristram de Luna at Santa Maria-
His Explorations-Abandonment of the Settlement-
The First Pensacola.

NEARLY twenty years passed away after
Maldonado's visit to Ochus before Europeans
again looked upon its shores.
In 1556, the viceroy of Mexico, and the bishop
of Cuba united in a memorial to the Emperor
Charles V. representing Florida as an inviting
field for conquest and religious work. Imperial
sanction having been secured, an expedi-
tion was organized under the command of
Don Tristram de Luna to effect the triple objects
of bringing gold into the emperor's treasury,
extending his dominions, and enlarging the
bounds of the spiritual kingdom by winning
souls to the church. For the first two enter-
prises one thousand five hundred soldiers were
provided, and for the last a host of ecclesiastics,

19

20 HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF

friars, and other spiritual teachers. Puerta d'
Anchusi was selected as the place of the projected
settlement, the base from which the cross and
the sword were to advance to their respective
conquests.
Accordingly, on the fourteenth day of August,
1559, de Luna's fleet cast anchor within the
harbor, which he named Santa Maria; the same
year in which the monarch who authorized the
expedition died, the month, and nearly the day
on which he, a living man, was engaged in the
paradoxical farce of participating in his own
funeral ceremonies in the monastery of Yuste.
The population of two thousand souls, which
the fleet brought, with the required supplies of
every kind, having been landed, the "work of
settlement began. Of the place where the settle-
ment was made there exists no historic informa-
tion, and we are left to the inference that the
local advantages which afterwards induced d'
Arriola to select what is now called Barrancas
as the site of his town, governed the selection of
de Luna's, unless tradition enables us to identify
the spot, as a future page will endeavor to do.
The destruction of the fleet by a hurricane

COLONIAL FLORIDA.

within a week after its arrival threw a shadow
over the infant settlement, aggravating the
natural discontent incident to all colonizations,
resulting from the contrast between the stern
realities of experience and of expectations col-
ored by the imagination of the colonist.
Against that discontent, ever on the increase.
de Luna manfully and successfully struggled un-
til 1562; and thus it was, that for two years
and more there existed a town of about two
thousand inhabitants on the shores of Pensa-
cola Bay, which antedated by four years St.
Augustine, the oldest town of the United States.
Don Tristram de Luna sent expeditions into
the interior, and finally led one in person. In
these journeys the priest and the friar joined, and
daily in a tabernacle of tree boughs the holy
offices of the Catholic faith were performed, the
morning chant and the evening hymn breaking
the silence and awakening the echoes of the
primeval forest.
Where they actually went, and how far north,
it is impossible to say, owing to.our inability
to identify the sites of villages, rivers, and other
land marks mentioned in the narratives of their

21

22 HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF

journeys. The presumption is strong, however,
that they took, and followed northward the
Indian trail, on the ridge beginning at Pensa-
cola Bay, forming the water shed between the
Perdido and Escambia rivers, and beyond their
headwaters uniting with the elevated country
which throws off its springs and creeks east-
ward to the Chattahoochee and westward to
the Alabama and Tallapoosa rivers. It contin-
ued northerly to the Tennessee river; a lateral
trail diverging to where the city of Montgom-
ery now stands, and thence to the site of We-
tumpka; and still another leading to what is
now Grey's Ferry on the Tallapoosa.
That trail, according to tradition, was the
one by which the Indians, from the earliest
times, passed between the Coosa country and
the sea, the one followed in later times by the
Indian traders on their pack-ponies, and the
line of march of General Jackson in his invasion
of Florida in 1814.
That it was regarded and used as their guid-
ing thread by de Luna's expeditions in pene-
trating the unknown country north of Santa
Maria they sought to explore, is evidenced by

COLONIAL FLORIDA.

two facts. They came to a large river which,
instead of crossing, they followed its course,
undoubtedly by the ridge, and, therefore, not
far from the trail. They also came to or
crossed the line of de Soto's march, which he
had made ten years previously, as following the
trail they would be compelled to do and found
amongst the Indians a vivid recollection of the
destruction and rapine of their people by white
men, which they assigned as the cause of the
then sparsity of population, and the abandon-
ment of clearings formerly under cultivation.
So impressed was de Luna with the fertility
and other attractive features of the beautiful
region of Central Alabama, which he explored,
that he determined to plant a colony there.
But in that design he was eventually thwarted
bythediscontent and insubordination of his fol-
lowers, the most of whom, from the first, seem
to have had no other object in view than to
break up the settlement, and to terminate their
insupportable exile by returning to Mexico.
There were amongst those composing the
expedition two elements which proved fatal to
its success. The gold-greedy soon found that

23

24 HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF

the pine barrens of Florida, and the fertile val-
leys of Alabama were not the eldorado of which
they had dreamed. To the friar, the spiritual
outlook was not more promising, the Indians
he encountered being more ready to scalp their
would-be spiritual guide than to open their ears
to his teachings.
Ostensibly, to procure supplies for the colony,
two friars sailed for Havana and thence to
Vera Cruz, to make known its necessities to the
Viceroy of Mexico, and solicit the required suc-
cor. But, as soon as they could reach his ear
they endeavored to persuade him of the futility
of the expedition, and the unpromising charac-
ter of the country as a field for colonization.
At first, his heart being in the enterprise, he
was loathe to listen to reports so inconsistent
with the glowing accounts which had prompted
the expedition and enlisted his zealous support;
but, at last, an impression was made upon him,
and an inquiry resolved upon.
But the viceroyal investigation was fore-
stalled by the visit to Santa Maria of Don
Angel de Villafana, whom the Viceroy of Cuba
had appointed governor of that, at that time

COLONIAL FLORIDA.

undefined region called Florida, who permitted
the dissatisfied colonists to embark in his
vessels, and abandon the, to them, hateful coun-
try in which they had passed two miserable
years.
Don Tristram de Luna, with a few followers
only, remained, with the fixed resolution to
maintain the settlement, provided he could
secure the approbation and assistance of the
Viceroy. But an application for that purpose,
accompanied by representations of the inviting
character of the interior for settlement, was
met by a prompt recall of de Luna and an order
for the abandonment of the enterprise.
Don Tristram, against whom history makes
no accusations of cruelty or bloodshed during
his expeditions into the interior, or his stay at
Santa Maria, and who, animated by the spirit
of legitimate colonization, sought only to found
a new settlement, invites respect, if not admira-
tion, as a character distinct and apart from the
gold-seeking cut-throat adventurers that Spain
sent in shoals to the Gulf shores during the six-
teenth century. Sympathy with him in his
trials and regret at his failure, induce the reflec-

25

26 HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF

tion that, perhaps, had he been burdened with
fewer gold-seekers and only one-twentieth of the
ecclesiastics who encumbered and leavened the
colony with discontent, his settlement might
have proved permanent.
The local results of de Luna's expedition were
fixing, for a time, the name of Santa Maria
upon the Bay, and permanently stamping upon
its shores the name Pensacola; and here narra-
tion must be suspended to determine the origin
of the latter.
Roberts says, the name was "that of an In-
dian tribe inhabiting round the bay but which
was destroyed." Mr. Fairbanks tells us it was
"a name derived from the locality having been,
formerly, that of the town of a tribe of Indians
called Pencacolas, which had been entirely
exterminated in conflicts with neighboring
tribes."
The first objection to this assigned origin of
the name is, that it is evidently not Indian, such
names in West Florida invariably terminating
with a double e, as for examples, Apalachee,
Choctawhatchee, Uchee, Ochusee, Escambee,
Ochesee, Chattahoochee. The "cola'" added to

COLONIAL FLORIDA.

Apalachee, and "ia" substituted in Escambia
for ee, indicate the difference between the �er-
minations of Indian and Spanish names.
Again, amongst savages, we should expect to
find in the name of a place an indication of a
natural object, the name being expressive of the
object, and hence as lasting. But, that the
accident of an encampment of savages upon a
locality should stamp that locality with their
tribal name, as a designation that should sur-
vive not only the encampment, but the very
existence of the tribe, is incredible. Ain extinct
tribe would in a generation or two cease to
have a place in the traditions of surviving
tribes, because their extinction would be only
an ordinary event amongst American savages.
The termination being Spanish, and no nat-
ural object existing suggestive of the name, we
naturally turn our search to a vocabulary of
Spanish names, historical and geographical.
Perched upon a rock springing 240 feet high
from the Mediterranean shore of Spain, con-
nected with the mainland by a narrow strip of
sand, is the fortified little seaport of Peniscola.
Substitute "a" for "i," transpose "s" and we

27

28 HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF

have the name for the original of which we seek.
The seaports of Spain furnished the great body
of Spanish adventurers to America in the six-
teenth and seventeenth centuries; and what
more likely than that some native of the little
town crowning with its vine-clad cottages the
huge rock that looks out upon the "midland
ocean," should have sought to honor his home
by fixing its name upon a spot in the new
world ?
When and by whom the name was affixed to
our shores is an interesting inquiry. Neither
Roberts, nor Fairbanks, nor any other author-
ity, informs us. It comes into history with the
advent of d' Arriola, whose settlement will be
the subject of a future page.
Three hypotheses furnish as many answers
to the question: it was original with Arriola
to the extent at least of a new application of a
Spanish name; or he found the place already
named in some chart or document now lost to
us; or already fixed by an Indian tradition,
according to Roberts and Fairbanks.
The first hypothesis requires no comment.
The second rests upon the existence of a fact of

COLONIAL FLORIDA.

which we can procure no evidence. The third is
a tradition founded upon, or involving, a Span-
ish name.
Very extraordinary events or striking objects
only are the subjects of the traditions of savage
tribes; and what event can be imagined more
extraordinary and impressive to the savage
mind than to be brought suddenly in contact,
for the first time, with the white man under all
the circumstances and conditions of de Luna's
settlement? It was one not likely to pass out
of tradition in the lapse of one hundred and
thirty-three years, for two long lives only
would be required for its transmission. The
settlers would be, in Indian terminology, a tribe;
their departure would be an extinction; and
vanity would at last attribute its ending to the
prowess of the Red man.
A name that identifies a locality and forms a
feature of a purely Indian tradition, having no
reference to or connection whatever with the
white man, must be an Indian name. Here,
however, the name under discussion is a Span-
ish and not an Indian name. The conclusion
is, therefore, irresistible, that as the name is

29

30 HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF

Spanish the tradition relates to Spaniards,
and that the former is a Spanish designation of
the locality of the people to whom it relates.
The settlement of de Luna was the only Span-
ish settlement with which the Indians could
have come in contact before Arriola's. That
settlement, therefore, must be the subject of the
Indian tradition, and the Spanish name Pensa-
cola must have been its name.

COLONIAL FLORIDA.

CHAPTER III.

Don Andres de Pes-Santa Maria de Galva-Don Andres d'
Arriola-The Resuscitation of Pensacola-Its Conse-
quences.

IN 1693, Don Andres de Pes entered the Bay,
but how long he remained, or why he came,
whether for examination of its advantages, from
curiosity, or necessity, to disturb its solitude
and oblivion of one hundred and thirty-three
years, history does not say. But as a memorial
of his visit, he supplemented the name de Luna
had given it with de Galva, in honor of the
Viceroy of Mexico; and thus, it comes into
colonial history with the long title of Santa
Maria de Galva.
In 1696, three years after de Pes' visit, Don
Andres d' Arriola, with three hundred soldiers
and settlers, took formal possession of the
harbor and the surrounding country, which, to
make effectual and permanent, he built a

31

32 HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF

"square fort with bastions" at what is now
called Barrancas, which he named San Carlos.
As the beginning, or rather reconstruction of a
town named Pensacola, he erected some houses
adjacent to the fort. And there, too, was built
a church, historically the first ever erected on
the shores of Pensacola Bay, but presumptively
the second; for it is hardly credible that the
large settlement of de Luna, embracing so many
ecclesiastics, should have failed to observe the
universal custom of the Spaniards to build a
church wherever they planted a colony. Irre-
sistible, therefore, is the inference that the first
notes of a church-bell heard within the limits of
the United States were those which rolled over
the waters of Pensacola Bay and the white
hills of Santa Rosa from 1559 to 1562.
Having demonstrated that the settlement of
de Luna was the original Pensacola, that of
Arriola was apparently the second, though
actually but a resuscitation of the colony of
1559; for the name, the people, though not the
same generation, and the place being one, mere
lapse of time should not be permitted to destroy

	Cover
	Frontispiece
	Title Page
	Bicentennial commission of...
	General editor's preface
	Introduction
	Title Page
	Preface
	Table of Contents
	Errata
	Chapter I
	Chapter II
	Chapter III
	Chapter IV
	Chapter V
	Chapter VI
	Chapter VII
	Chapter VIII
	Chapter IX
	Chapter X
	Chapter XI
	Chapter XII
	Chapter XIII
	Chapter XIV
	Chapter XV
	Chapter XVI
	Chapter XVII
	Chapter XVIII
	Chapter XIX
	Chapter XX
	Chapter XXI
	Chapter XXII
	Chapter XXIII
	Index

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