Community Profile - Micanopy's Enduring Charm

BOB BROWN/Alachua County Today

Micanopy's Cholokka Boulevard offers a picturesque backdrop of moss-draped oak trees and historic buildings.

MICANOPY – Small and unassuming, but with a rich history and beautiful Spanish moss-draped live oaks, the Town of Micanopy is a Florida treasure.

The second-smallest community in the county is considered the oldest inland town in the state, claiming 1821 as its founding date.

Native American settlements predated any European or American communities by hundreds of years. A nearby important Seminole village accounted for both Micanopy’s initial American settlement and eventual name.

Moses Levy, the father of future Florida railroad magnate and U.S. Senator David Yulee, purchased thousands of acres that included the future site of Micanopy with the intent of establishing a refuge community for European Jews according to Micanopy resident Chris Monaco’s book, “Moses Levy of Florida: Jewish Utopian and Antebellum Reformer.”

A trading post was started primarily by Edward Wanton, an agent sent by Spanish land owner Don Fernando de la Maza Arredondo, which was eventually named after the local Seminole chief, whose title was “Micanopy,” which loosely translated as “head chief” in the native language.

In 1822, Levy and 23 Jewish settlers that had been gathered by Levy’s partner Frederick Warburg settled near Wanton’s post, completing construction of 13 houses by 1823. An additional 25 Jewish settlers arrived that year.

This initial settlement was ultimately doomed, however, by the outbreak of the Second Seminole War in 1835. Micanopy was on the very outskirts of Seminole territory, and the community was abandoned during the war while two forts were established nearby: Fort Defiance, which was likewise abandoned early in the war, followed by Fort Micanopy.

The area surrounding the Micanopy vicinity was a major theater in the war, with several battles taking place nearby. Most citizens sought refuge during the war further north in Alachua County at Newnansville near present-day Alachua.

After the war ended in 1843, Micanopy quickly became a thriving community once more. Along with Newnansville, it was the largest community in North Central Florida.

The Methodist Church established the East Florida Seminary there in 1852 (not to be confused with the East Florida State Seminary which later became part of the University of Florida), the first attempt by Methodists to establish a school in Florida, but it closed permanently with the outbreak of the Civil War. The original building’s cornerstone is kept at the Methodist’s Florida Southern College in Lakeland.

While the population of Gainesville began to drastically increase after the Civil War concluded and the City of High Springs quickly sprang into existence as the second largest community in the county in the late 1890s, Micanopy’s population has remained remarkably consistent for over 100 years, maintaining the size it reached at the turn of the 19^th Century.

Today, Micanopy is a center for antique shopping along its primary street, Cholokka Boulevard. Numerous historic buildings are preserved with care, and the Micanopy Historical Society has one of the more extensive local history museums on display, open daily from 1 p.m. – 4 pm.

Micanopy remains a small but vibrant, living and breathing time capsule from Florida’s native and earliest American past.

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