Newnansville, Florida facts for kids
Quick facts for kids |
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Newnansville Town Site
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Entrance to the Newnansville Cemetery, one of the few surviving remains of the town
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| Location | Alachua County, Florida, USA |
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| Nearest city | Alachua |
| NRHP reference No. | 74000608 |
| Added to NRHP | December 4, 1974 |
Newnansville, Florida was one of the first American settlements in the interior of Florida. It became the second county seat of Alachua County in 1828, and one of the central locations for activity during the Second Seminole War, during which time it was one of the largest cities in the State. In the 1850s, the Florida Railroad bypassed Newnansville, resulting in the county seat being moved to the new town of Gainesville in 1854. Consequently, Newnansville began to decline, and when a second railway bypassed the town in 1884, most of its residents relocated and formed the new City of Alachua. By 1900, Newnansville was deserted.
The site is approximately 1.5 miles northeast of Alachua, on S.R. 235 off of US 441. Containing partial walls of two cemeteries, the town site was added to the National Register of Historic Places on December 4, 1974.
History
Bellamy Road
In 1824, only five years after Florida became a United States territory (and the same year that Alachua County itself was created), Congress authorized the construction of its first federal highway. It would connect Pensacola to St. Augustine. The Territorial Council commissioned John Bellamy, a Monticello planter, to build it. The project took two years to complete, at a cost of $20,000. The route would become known as the Bellamy Avenue. It was a major highway until the Civil War, when other roads became preferred routes. A few of the places it passed were: the town of Traxler, the Santa Fe Taloca Spanish Mission, and what would become Newnansville.
Newnansville
The Dell brothers, who had earlier (during the "Patriot War") visited the Alachua County area, came back to settle there in 1814. They constructed a post office on the Bellamy Avenue in 1826, called Dell's, which became the nucleus of the new settlement. In 1828, the Council named the small community Newnansville (in honor of a Patriot War hero, Daniel Newnan), and made it the county seat. From 1835 through 1842, the town and nearby Fort Gilleland were refugee centers for many displaced by the Second Seminole War.
Following that, the town flourished, becoming the center for trade and plantation life in the area. It mainly produced corn, cotton, and, after the Civil War, citrus. Not including a period between 1832 and 1839, Newnansville was the Alachua County seat until 1854. At that time, it was relocated to the newly created railroad town of Gainesville. The courthouse was moved to Gainesville as well in 1856. This was the beginning of the end for Newnansville.
Two major factors contributed to its continuing decline. In 1884 the Savannah, Florida, and Western Railroad bypassed it by a mile and a half to the southwest. A new town, Alachua, grew up there. Then in the winter of 1886, a major freeze ruined the citrus crop. This, plus the lack of railway connections, led businesses and residents to move to the prospering communities of Alachua and Gainesville. By the middle of the twentieth century, all that was left of Newnansville were two cemeteries and the remains of a road.
