A Bit of History
Edward Mills Wanton
1823 Survey of
Wanton’s outpost in Alachua later to become Micanopy
The area “Pine Land” is the present day Price’s Scrub State Park
Click map to see land on present day map
Born in South Carolina between 1766 and 1769, Edward Wanton’s family were British loyalists. After the American Revolution, Edward’s mother Hannah Moore and his brother William Havey decided to take their chances with the Spanish in Florida then remain in the new United States. By 1790, Hanna Moore had obtained considerable land along the St. John’s River which her elder son William farmed and managed. Meanwhile, Edward worked in the mercantile business and by 1798 was a clerk in the international enterprise, Panton, Leslie & Company which had a fleet of ships that operated between Pensacola, St. Augustine, Havana, London and other ports. Part of the company’s ventures was Indian trade which the Spanish granted an almost exclusive right. From working with the company, Edward gain considerable experience with negotiation with the Indians.
At the time, mixed racial marriages in East Florida were fairly common and such families prospered including Edward Wanton had a relationship with a freed black mulatto named Peggy, which bore him at least ten children. Wanton prospered in Florida until 1914 when Patriots from Georgia crossed into Florida and plundered Wanton’s plantation killing six slaves, destroying stores of corn and cotton, livestock, his home, and farm equipment. Wanton estimated he had losses amounting to $6,445 ($116,328.95 today). Edward sided with the Spanish during the Patriot war, providing them with information including that the Seminoles would rally to Spain and help drive the Patriots out. His troubles didn’t end there when in 1915 American slave traders from Georgia kidnapped his eldest son’s black wife and children but fortunately Georgia cooperated with the Spanish authorities and the family was returned. For their cooperation, in 1817 the Spanish granted Edward 307 acres on which he rebuilt his estate.
Andrew Jackson’s raid on Indian lands in 1818 made the Indians hostile to the Americans as well as the Spanish who seldom dared to cross the St. Johans River. This caused a significant problem for Fernando del la Mazza Arrendondo’s grant in Alachua, which for him to keep, had the stipulations of having Indian permission and to have 200 families settled within three years. With Spain ceding Florida to the United States, time was running out.
In December of 1820 a new opportunity arrived for Wanton in the person of Horatio S. Dexter. Dexter was an influential person who, like Arrendondo, was one of twelve important merchants in St. Augustine and had received land grant along the St. Johns River from which he engaged in trade with the Seminoles. Having such experience, Arrendondo’s agent engaged Dexter to get approval from the Seminoles for settlement in his grant in Alachua. To help with this task, Dexter engaged Edward Wanton, who was described as charming and smooth-talking. Wanton arranged to meet with the new Seminole Chief Micanopy to explain their plans for settlement and get the chief’s approval. For Seminoles, inheritance is passed along the matrilineal lines from the chief to his sister’s son with Micanopy being the nephew of King Payne who was the nephew of chief Cowkeeper who William Bartram described in his 1773 travels to Florida.
By early 1821 Wanton received a somewhat tentative approval for settlement but was cautious and advised that no other white men should join him but did have his eldest son Billy and some slaves begin building a settlement. Approval was in part granted because there were few Seminoles remaining in the Alachua area with most having moved further south. Micanopy’s own settlement was some seventy miles south near the present-day Dade City. Wanton proposing naming the new town “Micanopy” in the chief’s honor likely helped in getting approval. Micanopy became the first distinct American town founded within the new U.S. territory.