A Bit of History
Pilgrimage
At the time there was considerable interest in Florida land by capitalists in the north, some of which created the Florida Association based out of New York City of which Levy played an important role in its founding. Moses Levy sold a portion of his land in the Arrendondo Grant to The Florida Association who assumed responsibility for development and colonization of Micanopy including funds for a physician and clergyman. While Levy’s main objective was his Jewish settlement Pilgrimage, Micanopy, just a few miles west, provided access to supplies and labor. By February of 1823 the Florida Association had completed a forty-five-mile road from Micanopy to the present-day Palatka on the St. Johns River. What was, although well-established, just an Indian trail became a road with eight bridges and traversable by wagons. It became the furthest point from the east coast westward that could accommodate wagons and carriages. Soon after the road completion, Fredrick Warburg arrived with twenty-one settlers from New York who had responded to advertisements in the New York newspapers. The new arrivals were not destined for Pilgrimage as their agreement required them to settle in Micanopy for one year. Six years after their meeting in London, Levy and Warburg met in the Florida wilderness, their dream was coming to fruition.
Even with eight bridges to cross the numerous rivers and creeks, the road was not ideal, in dry areas, the ground was sandy and soft, in the wet areas it was even softer motivating Dexter to find a somewhat circuitous route. After considerable effort, logs were cleared from Orange Creek opening the way for small shallow draft boats to travel from the St Johns River to the Oklawaha River, to Orange Creek, to Orange Lake which from the northwest corner of the lake was five miles cross land to Micanopy. Being traversable only by small boats, it was only marginally better than the new road. Even so Dexter was pleased enough with it that in 1825 he became one of the first of many Floridians to propose a cross-Florida barge canal. It wasn’t until 1964 that construction of such a canal was started. After much controversy over the environmental impact of the canal which had destroyed much of the natural beauty of the of the Oklawaha River, construction was halted in 1971.
But Pilgrimage still needed settlers, which needed housing but a scarcity of housing in Pilgrimage prevented some forty to fifty potential settlers from departing from Europe. This turned out to be fortuitous as the sudden arrival of settlers agitated the Indians in the area. While Edward Wanton and his mixed-race family were welcome, the newcomers were not. Then there was the scoundrel Dexter, who had issues with both Wanton and Levy, escalating anger with his Indian friends then showing up at Micanopy with a dozen Indians and threatened to burn the entire town down. But Wanton, who had been for warned was prepared and joined by Levy to held talks with the Indians and were persuaded to not burn the town down and leave. Once again, Wanton, with his relationship with the Indians, outmaneuvered Dexter. By six months the town had twenty-five houses with plans to build another ten. Micanopy was becoming a real town.
Pilgrimage also progressed but not as fast as Micanopy. Warburg did establish “five heads of families” at Pilgrimage who all were given land as well as places to live although there was a problem, none of the new settlers had and farming experience. Levy wrote, “It is not easy to transform old clothes men [street peddlers] or stock brokers into practical farmers.” The majority of Levy’s potential Jewish settlers remain in Europe while some had arrived and remained in New York waiting to travel to Florida.
By this time Levy had considerable expenditures for settlement, land, transportation, farming implements, and so on and the lack of funds slowed development of Pilgrimage and the arrival of new settlers. Levy’s original plan was to sell some of his considerable land holdings in Florida to offset expenses, but much of his land was part of the Spanish land grants and could not be sold until the matter of ownership was resolved in the courts. Levy’s finical situation deteriorated rapidly. It would be many years until the Spanish land grant issue was resolved.
Records show that Levy established a trading relationship with Chief Micanopy’s who lived in a Seminoles village about sixty miles to the south of Pilgrimage in present-day Sumter County. The naming of the town Micanopy was in part to appease the chief and acknowledge his authority over the land, although the chief was never known to have lived there. From this relationship Levy obtained livestock and hired Black Seminoles as laborers. Levy himself divested all his slaves in 1839.
In 1834, after nearly depleting all his funds, Levy left Florida to obtain additional funding first traveling to New York then to London