Palatka, Florida

Pilatka is a city to the east of Gainsville situated where the St. Johns River narrows and begins a shallower, winding course upstream to Lake George and Lake Monroe. Long the home of the Timucuan nation, two tribes of which existed in the Palatka region under chiefs Saturiwa and Utina. They fished bass and mullets, or hunted deer, turkeys, bear and opossum. Others farmed beans, corn, melons, squash and tobacco. But war and disease devastated the tribes. Florida would then be taken over by the Seminole, who called the location Pilo-taikita, meaning “crossing over,” or “cows’ crossing.”

In the 18th century, with changes of sovereignty in Florida came numerous changes of ownership in Pilo-taikita, now contracted to Pilatka. In 1774, naturalist William Bartram noted an Indian village on the west bank, but it would vanish. After the United States acquired Florida in 1821, Nehemiah Brush established a ferry and the site became a distribution point, where goods were shipped by a New York company to supply immigrants at the Grant of Arredondo, which lay to the west.

The infusion of American settlers and slaves, however, created hostility among the Seminole people. When the government attempted to relocate the tribe starting in 1833, the Second Seminole War began. Pilatka was attacked and burned in 1835. Recognizing the site's strategic importance for control of the St. Johns River, the main artery into Central Florida, the military in 1838 established Fort Shannon, named for Captain Samuel Shannon. It included a garrison, supply depot and hospital. During 1842 the Seminole were driven from the area, and consequently Fort Shannon was abandoned by the army in 1843. But the piers and buildings it had erected (including 8 blockhouses, 5 of which burned in a fire of 1855) would spur development of the town. By 1847, it was growing rapidly. In 1849, Putnam County was created, with Pilatka the county seat and was incorporated as a city on January 8, 1853.