Part Two: 1840s-1850s, Statehood
By John Hendricks, historian
By 1840, most of the settlers in Nassau County had settled their Spanish Land grants with the United States government. Most of the claims were deemed valid, but those whose claims were rejected lost their land. Since fresh water offered potable water and a means of transportation, most land grants settlers lived on the St. Marys and Nassau Rivers or Lofton, McQueen and Thomas Creeks. The two organized communities at this time were Fernandina and Mills Ferry (now Kings Ferry). There were also a scattering of settlers living on the head waters of Mills and Boggy Creeks near today’s village of Dyal. Thanks to the US Postal act, these three areas had post offices, usually located in the house of the Postmaster. Fernandina PO opened in 1833 but closed in 1844. The Woodstock Mills PO opened in 1844 near Mills Ferry and the mill’s owner, as well as the area’s prominent citizen and huge landowner, Edwin Alberti, was its Postmaster. The Post Office near today’s Dyal first opened in 1833 as Beasant’s, then changed names to Frinks, Kirkland, and finally Piney Grove as the location changed houses. The following are some of the events that influenced Nassau County during this period.
Florida Railroad: The construction of the Florida Railroad across Nassau County in the 1850s is arguably the single most important event in the county’s two-hundred-year history. The impact shortly after its establishment in 1855 was tremendous: First, the trans-peninsular rail line, David Yulee’s brainchild, gained tens of thousands of acres in the interior of the county from Florida’s Internal Improvement Trust Fund. This helped the railroad to raise funds to build the 155-mile line, a quarter of which fell within Nassau County’s boundaries. Secondly, Yulee claimed that he could not build over the swampy marshes to reach the original Fernandina (now Old Town). Seeing the significance role that Yulee’s railroad headquarters would play in the town, the entire city relocated a mile south to its present location. Ironically, David Yulee’s railroad now owned the land upon which the new city was laid out. Several railroad officials, including owner Yulee, board members McCrae and Call, contractors Cole, Finegan, McDowell and Daniel Callahan, made a great deal of money by selling dozens of lots in new Fernandina. David Yulee purchased what was known as the 600-acre Eliza (or Louisa) Plantation west of today’s lighthouse. By 1860, Joseph Finegan, a large sawmill owner and the railroad’s general contractor, was by far the richest man in Nassau County.
The advent of the Florida Railroad also impacted the interior of Nassau County. Small hamlets quickly sprang up along the line, the largest ones before the outset of War in 1861 being Hart’s Road (now Yulee) and Callahan. Timbermen were no longer dependent on moving their lumber overland to Kings Ferry or Fernandina. The railroad opened up unlimited markets both domestically and abroad via both the Fernandina port on the Atlantic and the Cedar Key port on the Gulf of Mexico. Although today the original line is not contiguous, the impact of the Florida Railroad is still felt today with two rail companies still moving freight upon the same grade that David Yulee and Daniel Callahan built.
Statehood: After 24 years of territorial government, Florida became the 27th state to join the Union on March 3, 1845. Nassau County’s population at the time was roughly 2,000 people, divided almost evenly between Whites and Black slaves. Elections were held statewide two months later in March of 1845 and only White men over 21 were eligible to vote. There were four voting precincts throughout the county: Fernandina, Brandy Branch, Kirkland’s (near today’s Dyal), and Frink’s (north of today’s Dyal). Citizens voted for the governor, their state representative and state senator, and Florida’s lone representative to Congress. At this time, senators to the US government were appointed by each state, with James Wescott and Nassau County’s own David Yulee, of Jewish descent, taking office as Florida’s first senators in Washington on July 1. David Yulee was replaced in 1851 by Stephen Mallory but returned to the US Senator when Jackson Morton retired in 1855. David Yulee’s influence in Congress in the next five years helped the Florida Railroad become a reality, which in turn influenced Nassau County in the coming decades.
County Seat moved again: Sometime in the late 1830s, the log cabin in today’s Evergreen supposedly burned down. We do know that the designated Court House post office that served Nassau’s government at that location was discontinued in November 1838 which may help us date the fire. Several years later, a new site in the western half of the county was chosen at the crossroads of Kings Road and branch of the Alachua Trail (near today’s hamlet of Dyal). The next three sheriffs serving Nassau County from 1844 to 1865 lived near this area: John Jones, A J Braddock, and Jehu Boothe. Braddock also served as the new Court House postmaster in 1848. After the Florida Railroad opened through Nassau County, Callahan became the official post office for the county courthouse. The Nassau County seat would remain near Dyal until after the War Between the States.
Southwest Boundary finally settled: There still was no resolution on the ambiguous southwestern boundaries between Nassau and Duval and Alachua Counties until the 1840s/1850s. In 1844, the Florida legislature defined the Columbia-Nassau line as from the mouth of Deep Creek upstream to the Jacksonville Road, then west on said road to the Alachua Trail, where it turned due south on the high Trail Ridge. The line would not be changed to its present north/south line until the 1850s. It took a disputed 1856 state senate election between John Broward and A S Baldwin to finally define the Duval-Nassau line beyond Thomas Creek. Some citizens of the small hamlet of Baldwin claimed that their precinct was in Nassau County and not Duval County as described in the original boundary’s vague description. Their case was denied and in 1858 the State finally defined what is now the present boundaries between Nassau and Duval and between Nassau and Columbia (now Baker) Counties.
1860 U S Census: The US Census captured a snapshot of those who lived in Nassau County in the year prior to the start of War Between the States. Our county’s population at that time was about 3600, of which about 790 Whites and 43 Free Blacks lived in the newly platted town of Fernandina. The richest town dwellers whose personal estate was worth over 50K were McCall, Acosta, Cole, and Broome. Railroad contractor and timber baron Joseph Finegan was listed as the wealthiest citizen at 132K.
There were over 1100 Whites and 11 free Blacks living throughout the rest of the island and in the county’s sparsely populated mainland. Four of the eleven free Blacks were brick masons building Fort Clinch. There were four planters besides Broome whose real estate was valued over 30K: Harrison (Ephriam and Robert), 0’Neal and Cooper. Most of the rest of the county were small farmers owning farms worth less than 5K, except for a couple of larger farms owned by a Higginbotham and a Geiger. The farmers founded protestant churches such as Burford Grove (1839), Sharon Baptist (1841) and Ephesus Baptist (1845). There were three mills located around Kings Ferry: the largest was the Edwin Alberti, followed by the Davis Brothers and Germond and Gaskins. Harbingers of a dominant industry to come was the Branch and Gardner Still, Nassau County’s first turpentine farm near today’s Boulougne. The railroad also played a major employment role in the interior: Sixty Irish immigrants lived and worked inside two railroad camps in the county. Over 1540 Black slaves lived in Nassau County, nearly double the amount listed here in 1830, victims of a brutal system that Florida decided to keep when it became a state. Within months after the 1860 US Census was taken, War would break out that would change the path of the Nation and the County for the good.
John Hendricks is a Nassau County historian, author, and director of the West Nassau Historical Society. You can join him on the 4th Thursdays of each month at 6:30 pm at their meeting inside the historic Callahan Train Depot.