A Bit of History
Lost Hope Hill
While Levy was spending time establishing Pilgrimage, his original plantation on Hope Hill on the St. Johns River had doing well with a store set up for Indian trade but this caused tension for the Hope Hill was situated directly across the St. Johns River from Volusia (now Volusia County) which was the residence of the trader Horatio Dexter who went by the traditional frontier agreement of “one-trader-one-town.” This is the same Dexter who entered into the arrangement with Edward Wanton, which after a falling out, Dexter sent a band of Indians to burn Wanton’s place down. While on the surface Dexter maintained gentlemanly airs, he possessed a frontiersman ruthless and sometimes a malevolent side which could be vengeful as was shown with Wanton. After an “accident” occurred at Hope Hill with Dexter was of suspect, most of Hope Hill was burned to the ground. With Hope Hill gone, Levy salvaged what farming implements and supplies he could and turned his focus to Pilgrimage. Later in while St. Augustine Levey confronted Dexter where he publicly denounced him as “an assassin, an incendiary, a scoundrel and a rascal.”