Newnansville Town Site - Alachua, FL
N 29° 48.223 W 082° 28.717
17R E 357102 N 3297952
Very little remains of Newnansville, Florida, which was a well-developed 19th century rural village that became the first seat of Alachua County in 1828. The posted coordinates are for a Newnansville Town Site historical marker.
Waymark Code: WMBYDA
Location: Florida, United States
Date Posted: 07/04/2011
Views: 3
"Newnansville was the site of a well-developed nineteenth century rural village which became the first county seat in Alachua in 1828. Standing at the junction of several important roads, it prospered as a commercial center for the corn, cotton and citrus industries of the expanding Middle Florida frontier. In 1854 the county seat was moved to Gainesville and the town declined in population and importance. When a new railway line, built in 1884, bypassed the town, Newnansville was abandoned. Today all that survive are two cemeteries and the remains of a road."
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"NEWNANSVILLE TOWN SITE 1.5 mi. NE of Alachua on Fl. 235. 1824-1890. Site of well-developed 19th-century rural community. Contains remains of road, 2 cemeteries, 2 wooden structures. First county seat, but decline began when county seat moved to Gainesville in 1854 and accelerated when the railroad bypassed it in 1884. Public-Private. N.R. 1974."
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A Florida historical marker about the Newnansville Town Site reads:
SIDE 1: At the end of 1824, Alachua County was organized as a political unit of the new Territory of Florida. The Seminole inhabitants of the Alachua region had recently been ordered to a reservation, and land was available there for white settlers. Early in 1826, a post office was established in this area called "Dell's P.O." It derived its name from the Dell brothers, who had first visited the Alachua region during the "Patriot War" (1812-14) and had later returned to settle there. In 1828, the settlement near Dell's P.O. was officially made the Alachua County seat and named "Newnansville" in honor of a Patriot War hero, Daniel Newnan. Newnansville became the junction of several important trails through frontier Florida. This marker stands on the site of the Bellamy Road, a cross-Florida route authorized by Congress in 1824 as the first federal road in the new territory. During the Second Seminole War (1835-42), hundreds of displaced refugee settlers were sheltered at Newnansville and also at Ft. Gilleland, a nearby military post built in 1836.
SIDE 2: After the hostilities were concluded, Newnansville prospered as a commercial center for the expanding Middle Florida frontier. The chief products of the area were corn, cotton, and after the Civil War, citrus. Except for a few years between 1832 and 1839, Newnansville served as the Alachua County seat until 1854. In that year, the political center of the county was moved to the new railroad town of Gainesville. During the next three decades, Newnansville slowly declined in population and importance. The community was dealt a final blow in 1884 when the Savannah, Florida and Western Railroad bypassed it. A new town, Alachua, grew up near that railroad. As the years passed, the residents of Newnansville moved there or elsewhere. By the 1970's only a few traces remained of the former community. In 1974, the Newnansville Town Site was placed on the National Register of Historic Places as an historic district in recognition of the importance of that nineteenth century community.