Lake Monroe - Christmas 1836

 

Encampment Monroe, Christmas 1836 

Lake Monroe and namesake, President James Monroe

A year after sixteen plantations were burned to the ground in northeast Florida, Army troops, accompanied by volunteer Militia from Alabama and Georgia, began arriving at Lake Monroe to establish a supply post. The troops built an “encampment,” said dispatches, and named their new lakeside fortress Camp Monroe. The lake itself, previously known as Lake Valdez, while Florida was under Spanish Control, had only recently been renamed in honor of our Nation’s 5th President. Florida’s acquisition had been accomplished while James Monroe (1758-1831) was President, his term ending in 1825.

Orders given at the time were to build and occupy the camp but await further instructions before exploring inland, and so for 250 regular soldiers and 39 friendly Indians under command of Lieutenant Colonel Fannin, spent a lonely Christmas in December 1836 on Lake Monroe.

 

Sanford Historical Marker at Site of Fort Mellon

 Intended to serve as a supply fortress for delivery of soldiers and material to the region, a pier was constructed on Lake Monroe so that steamboats could dock. That dock was located one mile east of present-day Sanford, where today Mellonville Road begins a southbound journey that originally took the road 25 miles south, through utter wilderness, to Fort Gatlin. Beginning in 1842, this pier served as the gateway for incoming settlers coming to claim a homestead, but first, the Army had a job to do.

The Military had begun to mobilize in Florida soon after the two hostilities of the prior Christmas. Among those first to arrive was General Winfred Scott, arriving at Volusia Landing, the plantation and outpost founded in 1821 by Horatio S. Dexter (Part I). Scott, on April 24, 1836, eight months before Encampment Monroe was established, wrote of reaching Volusia Landing on the St. Johns River, just south of Lake George, where he awaited the arrival of General Abraham Eustis.

 

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General Scott’s dispatch also said he found the Steamer Essayons docked at Volusia, and so while waiting on General Eustis, decided to “embark in her, and with a guard of only seventeen men determined to penetrate, by the St. Johns River, the southern part of the peninsular as far as practicable.”

The purpose of the expedition, said Scott, was to test the navigability of the St. Johns River. Others had traveled this way before him, but as a military officer, he wanted to see for himself what was in store for his regiment should they be ordered to move further south into Indian Territory. His published report began with: “We found no difficulty in passing the bend of Lake Monroe.” That would have been the sharp 90 degree bend the river takes just prior to entering Lake Monroe from the west.

Essayons passed into and then across Lake Monroe, we learn from General Scott’s dispatch, then attempted to enter the small passageway connecting Lake Monroe with Lake Jesup. “We found the river beyond the lake nearly as bold as below,” wrote Scott. A sandbar prevented Scott’s expedition from entering Lake Jesup, so he added, “We do not doubt that we might have gone fifty or seventy miles further to Cape Canaveral, but unfortunately our boat drew more than four feet, and we only found four on the bar.”  Scott was writing about the portion of St. John’s River that connects the easternmost end of Lake Monroe with Lake Jesup.

 

Second Indian War Generals Scott and Eustis

General Scott’s April 1836 report added: “I was anxious to discover whether the Indians had any settlements on the upper part of the (St. Johns) river: and to find out the place of concealment of their women and children”. Scott concluded by saying his curiosities were answered when they (Indians) “fired upon us from a distance of 300 yards.”

Scott’s expedition returned to Volusia Landing, where on 25 April 1836, General Abraham Eustis arrived. Even then however, Eustis had little time to attend to future military plans. He was instead forced to instruct troops to evacuate. “Volusia”, wrote Scott, “for it had already become extremely sickly. Many cases of malignant bilious fever had occurred which, in the opinion of some of the physicians, threatened the approach of the yellow fever.”

Christmas fires of 1835 had been the reason for the Army coming to Florida. One year later, Lieutenant Colonel Fannin and his regulars found little reason to celebrate the coming of a New Year. But as bad as 1836 had been for the Army, 1837 was about to get much worse.

Much, much worse!

Next Week: Camp Monroe, 5 AM, 8 February 1837