The Founding of Tallahassee

In June 1823, Florida’s Territorial Legislative Council authorized Governor William P. DuVal to appoint two commissioners to select the site for a new capital somewhere between the Ochlockonee and Suwanee rivers. Dr. William Hayne Simmons left St. Augustine on September 26th by an overland route. John Lee Williams left Pensacola on September 24th by sea. In late October, the two met at St. Marks, a settlement at the confluence of the St. Marks and Wakulla rivers. They travelled approximately 20 miles north to a Native American settlement under the leadership of Neamathla, known as “The Old Fields of Tallahassee.” Neamathla and other Native leaders had recently signed the Treaty of Moultrie Creek, which exchanged lands near Tallahassee for reservations elsewhere in the Florida Territory. Williams and Simmons later recommended Tallahassee as the location for the capital. Governor DuVal directed the legislative council to meet at the new capital in November 1824. Later that year, a log cabin was built to serve as Florida’s first capitol building. On December 11th, the legislative council adopted the existing Muscogee language placename “Tallahassee.”