The Old Trails of Florida Meandered East to West

Trails, roads and highways follow patterns established long ago. The traces of what remains fascinate more than historians. Anyone with a curiosity of place and destination wonders where the road ends or where it once led.

Nearly 200 years ago, the people who traveled Florida mostly went east to west on the Old Spanish Trail. The trail, according to several sources, may never have been much of anything but foot paths used by the natives and trails made by animals to sources of water. Portions of this route can be traced from St. Augustine to the Apalachicola River. After Florida became a territory in 1821, interest in reviving, and in some places completely constructing, this road became a priority.

Prior to that time, there existed East Florida with its headquarters in St. Augustine and, 445 miles away, the seat of West Florida in Pensacola. Within a few years it became apparent a new capital between the two would have to be chosen.

According to “Florida, A Short History” by Michael Gannon, Florida’s Legislative Council held its first session in 1822 in Pensacola. It took the delegation from St. Augustine 59 days to travel to West Florida via water. The next year at the session held in St. Augustine, delegates decided to select a halfway location for a capital that would “shorten the sea voyage and the twenty-eight-day overland crossing from St. Augustine to Pensacola.”

Legend has it that two commissioners, one in Pensacola and one in St. Augustine, began walking toward one another and met in an area occupied by Creeks on old Apalachee land. Congress approved the site as the capital in the land known as Tallahassee.

Thus began the quest to revive the Old Spanish Trail, once used as the path the Spanish followed from mission to mission in Florida. However, much of this trail had not been used in hundreds of years, leaving a large task in an overgrown and lush land to build a road to the capital.

An article in Florida Living magazine in 1992, states that Captain Daniel Burch divided the route from Pensacola to St. Augustine via Tallahassee into three parts and then opened bidding to private entrepreneurs for constructing the roads.

“Section 1 ran from the Choctawhatchee River [near DeFuniak Springs] to the Apalachicola River; Section 2 from the latter to the Ochlockonee River [near Tallahassee]; and Section 3 eastward from that river to the St. Johns River,” the article stated. “This third stretch was 212 miles long, twice the length of either of the other two sections.”

Enter John Bellamy who offered to do the entire road for $23,000. The state wanted to pay only $20,000, according to Florida Living. Bellamy, who lived on the St. Johns River, decided to bid only on the longest section of road for $13,500. He later built a mansion on a plantation near Monticello, and as a member of the first Florida Territorial Legislative Council, he entertained lavishly the rich and powerful of North Florida.

Federal troops constructed other sections of the road, according to the Tallahassee Democrat in an article from 1974. What remains of this road in Tallahassee is now called Old St. Augustine Road and has received the designation of one of Tallahassee’s “Canopy Roads” that run out from the capitol like the spokes on a wheel.

“Using slave labor, Bellamy was able to complete the eastern portion of the road in 1826,” the Democrat reported.

The road followed the plans Burch originally laid out which of course followed the ancient and neglected Old Spanish Trail. The contract with Bellamy brought the road to the St. Johns River, but St. Augustine lay another 18 miles east and the construction of that portion of the road proved troublesome. Bellamy finally agreed to complete it for $2,500, according to Florida Living.

From the St. Johns River the road headed south toward Lake Santa Fe near present-day Melrose. From there it went to the capital of the Alachua region, in Newnansville and then to the natural land bridge over the Santa Fe River near High Springs. In 1980, Alachua County took action to preserve what remained of the old road, and named it “scenic.” Today the road remains unpaved and chopped up by I-75 and other roads that serve as arteries from the Interstate to High Springs, Alachua and Newberry.

It is easy to follow the path of the road but not to drive it. Beginning near the Newnansville Cemetery — the only remnant left of the old capital — and traveling to County Road 241, a section of the road can still be found. At the crossroads of Bellamy Road and Providence Road an old building thought to once house a way station on the major thoroughfare of the day, still stands as testament to the days when traffic galloped by at a much slower pace. This section dead ends into Country Road 235A and heading north on that road leads to a very short section of Bellamy Road ending in another town that is no longer: Traxler. The road is interrupted there by I-75.

Crossing over I-75, headed west on CR 236, travelers can pick up the old road once again where it heads toward the Santa Fe, but the road ends before its destination. However, it is possible to hike a portion of Bellamy inside O’Leno State Park where the river goes underground.

Today the road holds the romance of a different time. It also holds a fascination for some people. Phil Lambert of Gainesville read an account of the road several years ago in a local paper and became interested in it, often dreaming of old Florida.

“I began researching on the Web,” Lambert said, “and found old maps and archives. I was interested in Newnansville and the discovery that it was a town that just disappeared when the railroad came through present-day Alachua instead of there.”

He began to study the maps and discovered the paths that may have been used hundreds of years ago.

“As economies changed over the years,” Lambert said, “these towns disappeared. The road tells that tale of our history.”

And it provides a glimpse into an old Florida filled with trees and Spanish moss hanging down low over the paths that followed the water.