A Bit of History
Pilgrimage Destroyed
1835
Hostilities with the Seminoles continued to escalate with widespread destruction and panic. Many settlers moved their families to places of safety including Moses Levy who took up residence in St. Augustine leaving the Pilgrimage on their own when in the early morning hours of December 23rd disaster struck. Reported in the Tallahassee Floridian:
From the west we are informed by Mr. Rose, who left Micanopy on the 28th ult. that . . . The sugar works of Moses E. Levy, Esq. whose plantation is situated 2 miles N.W. of Micanopy were destroyed on the 23rd. Ult. Mr. Rose, who was manufacturing sugar at Mr. Levy’s plantation near Micanopy, arrived at this place on Saturday last. This gentleman gives the following account: “That on Wednesday, the 23d. at 2 A.M. a cry of fire was heard and on getting up the flames were observed just rising, but by the time he could go out, the whole building was on fire; he directly rode to Micanopy for help. At the day dawn, many persons went to the plantation, but saw no Indians, but they traced 2 tracks from the sugar house, to an oak tree in the woods, near the place in a westerly direction, where the persons appeared to have rested, with the dent of a gun next to the footsteps.”
The residents of Pilgrimage fled to Micanopy which had been barricaded and been turned into a fort but the safety of Micanopy was short lived when the U.S. Army abandoned the area and on August 24, 1836, rather to allow anything of value to benefit the Indians, Micanopy was burned to the ground. After fourteen years of struggle nothing remained of Levy’s utopia and Wanton’s settlement. It was estimated that Levy’s losses were twenty-five thousand dollars, over $900,000 in today’s dollars, a staggering amount. All that remained was the land, Levy, using the saying, was land-rich and cash-poor, and no one wanted to buy land in the middle of hostile Indian territory.