The Dead Zone - Sanford, Florida & St. Johns River I-4 Corridor...

[FloridaFishinFool]

Believe it or not...

[FloridaFishinFool]

According to this map, the graves are under the eastbound lanes of I-4 on the South bank. They are located just below the "4" in the shield, just below road 600 where the on and exit ramps are to I-4. The 4 in the shield is directly over top of the east bound lanes... so this is the dead zone... right in between the 4 in the shield and the number 431 below it.

This dead zone is right next to a large public boat ramp for the St. Johns river clearly seen in this photo just west of I-4 located right in the curve of road 600. A very popular boating and fishing location... how many knew of this???

[PassinBass]

When I read the title of this post I thought it was going to be a fishing report on the St Johns river where it meets Lake Monroe right under I-4. I thought the report was that there weren't any fish in this area, aka a dead zone. It piqued my interest as I was just fishing Lake Monroe two weekends ago and didn't even have a strike in a two hour time frame.

Living in Central Florida, I've driven this stretch of interstate probably hundreds of times and I've never heard of this. I'm not sure if anyone I know has ever heard of this. I bet that now I'm going to think of this every time I drive this through this area of I-4.

[Deadeye]

Having driven over that spot many many times, I can say that for no reason the traffic will be flying along at 75+ then Just As They Reach The Bridge it will slow down to as low as 30.

I always felt it was due to them not being able to see over the bridge, but maybe there is another reason. Who knows.

[Swede]

Spooky - I think I'll remain in NW Florida 

[FloridaFishinFool]

Spooky - I think I'll remain in NW Florida 

Actually there is a spot up your way which has more bad mojo than any other spot in Florida except for maybe St. Augustine... Here is an image of it... and it is not fort Gadsden shown at the bottom. It is actually the round octagonal fort shown at the top of this image:



What an incredible story! And in one carefully placed artillery shot, the entire fort was blown to smithereens including virtually all of the inhabitants killed instantly, some 270 of them.

Scholars are still debating this one to this day...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Negro_Fort

In 1814, during the War of 1812, the British Royal Marines established what was known as the Negro Fort on Prospect Bluff along the Spanish side of the Apalachicola River.[2] The garrison initially included around 1,000 Britons[citation needed] and several hundred African-Americans[citation needed] who were recruited as a detached unit of the Corps of Colonial Marines, with a strength of four infantry companies. Shortly after the end of the war in 1815, the British paid off the Colonial Marines, withdrew from the post, and left the black population in occupation. Over the next few years the fort became a colony for escaped slaves from Pensacola and Georgia.[1][3]

By 1816 over 800 freedmen and women had settled around the fort; there were also friendly natives in the area. Following the construction of Fort Scott on the Flint River by Colonel Duncan Lamont Clinch of the United States Army, Andrew Jackson decided that to resupply the post, they would have to use the navy to transport goods via the Apalachicola through the sovereign territory of Spain without their permission. During one of these resupply missions, a party of sailors from gunboats 149 and 154 stopped along the river near Negro Fort to fill their canteens with water. While doing so, they were attacked by the garrison of the fort and all but one of the Americans were killed.[1][3]

In response, Jackson requested permission to attack the fort, they then dispatched gunboats to reduce Negro Fort. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams justified the attack and subsequent seizure of Spanish Florida by Andrew Jackson as national "self-defense," a response to alleged Spanish and British complicity in fomenting the "Indian and Negro War." Adams even produced a letter from a Georgia planter complaining about "brigand Negroes" who made "this neighborhood extremely dangerous to a population like ours."

'It was daytime when Master Jarius Loomis ordered his gunners to open fire. After five to nine rounds were fired to check the range, the first round of hot shot cannonball, fired by US Navy Gunboat No. 154, entered the fort's powder magazine. The ensuing explosion was massive and destroyed the entire post. Almost all of the occupants were killed or wounded, the deadliest single cannon shot in U.S. history. Just afterward, the American troops and the Creeks charged and captured the surviving defenders. General Gaines later said that the "explosion was awful and the scene horrible beyond description." There apparently were no American casualties."

Seminole Chief "Neamathla, a leader of the Seminole at Fowlton, was angered by the death of some of his people at Negro Fort so he issued a warning to General Gaines that if any of his forces crossed the Flint River, they would be attacked and defeated. The threat provoked the general to send 250 men to arrest the chief in November 1817 but a battle arose and it became the official opening engagement of the First Seminole War."

And in a very strange and ironic twist in Florida history, guess where the revenge attack of Chief Neamathla actually took place???

Sanford, Florida very close to the dead zone of this thread... Chief Osceola's warriors who came in from the west, from their camp near Mount Plymouth/Sorrento at a place called Seminole Springs, had to walk across the very area of the dead zone to reach the fort they attacked with another larger force of Seminole warriors who had gathered at a camp on the north west side of Lake Harney where the river leaves the lake there is high bluff on the west side where their camp was located in 1837.

Supposedly at the time of this attack on camp Monroe- located on the Southern center shore of Lake Monroe- by some 300 Seminole warriors, about 100 under the command of Chief Osceola, and some 200 under the command of Chief Neamathla's son WildCat Cooacoochee, had his family and tribe hidden away on the islands located in the middle of West Lake Toho today- where from which he organized and planned the attack on then camp Monroe.

And on a cold morning Feb. 8, 1837 the Indians converged on a newly constructed fort yet unnamed until the Indians shot and killed one officer in the attack- a Capt. Charles Mellon- and it was named after him as Fort Mellon the following day.

One of the reasons the Indians attacked was because of revenge for the Negro Fort tragedy, and because the U.S. Army had just landed a Col. Harney and his dragoons at Camp Monroe threatening a deep invasion into central Florida home of the chief and his family and tribe. So he felt compelled to attack strongly and decisively, but not well planned...

The Seminole wanted to stop the army right then and there and failed miserably mainly because of the tactical genius of Col. Harney was vastly superior to the Seminole method.

For one, Col. Harney brought with him Creek Indian spies who he sent into the woods around Camp Monroe as soon as he landed on the South shore of the lake. Those Indian spies of his had the same blood, culture, language and background as the enemy he was facing and they easily mixed in with the local Seminole who were also from Creek tribes chased into Florida. And it was those spies of Col. Harney who came back to Camp Monroe and told him of the impending attack and Col. Harney immediately set about building a quick stockade fort made mostly of pine trees with a redoubt perimeter set up with sharp pointed tree trunks to prevent a running assault on the inside square fort walls.

The quick efforts of Col. Harney prevented a successful Seminole attack setting up the chase of the Indians further South into the everglades.

Highway 17-92 going South from Lake Monroe was once an old cow trail, then the Seminole used the cow trails, and eventually the U.S. Army would push into central Florida right down the same paths the Indians used creating what is today highway 17-92 to the next fort location Fort Maitland where our boat ramp is located today, and on down to Fort Gatlin which became Orlando...  and the list goes on...

Yes, I study Florida history as a hobby...a life long hobby.

Col. Harney became the Seminole's worst nightmare. And they tried to kill him more than once and failed and each time paid a heavy price for it.

[FloridaFishinFool]

In Fern Park is another ghostly dead zone...

https://books.google.com/books?id=6icr8PSno5MC&pg=PA171&dq=fern+park+ghost+story&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjZ16O4ioDWAhUJdyYKHWm0CIgQ6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&q=fern%20park%20ghost%20story&f=false

As said above hiway 17-92 was a path the U.S. Army used to access the center of Florida with their armies, forts, and war machines to go after the Seminole Indians.

One fact not well known is that about 50% of the Seminole Indian fighting force in Florida consisted of runaway slaves and their descendants who joined the Seminole tribe and fought viciously against the intruding federal forces making their way through Florida as they pursued the Indians Southward.

Well right at the corner of this old Indian trail now turned into a U.S. Army road, hiway 17-92 and South st. in Fern Park is the location of what was once a burial ground for the black people then living in Florida in the late 1700's and early 1800's.

So by the time the U.S. Army rolled on through and past this burial ground there was already hundreds of bodies scattered around the area for hundreds of feet in all directions from the present day location of Woodbridge cemetery which is to this day mainly a place only black people bury their dead.

But a community grew up around this burial ground and unmarked graves. Roads were built. Property sectioned off and sold off.

When the Winn Dixie shopping plaza was being built, the construction crews were constantly digging up and unearthing human bones and human graves.

So the plaza and all of it shops are today built on top of many graves. The storage facility on the other side, and the hotels on hiway 17-92, and even the houses behind the present day cemetery are all built right over top of numerous graves scattered all throughout the area.

No one knows how many people were buried there since before the 1920's virtually all of the graves were unmarked and mostly unknown until dug up.

So apparently the ghostly apparitions make their appearance today inside the Winn Dixie store! And you can read about it by the link I posted above to the chapter of a book describing it. But the author did not quite get the history of the area written into his book very well but it is still an interesting read...

I found out about this story because some years ago I bought a house in the neighborhood behind the Winn Dixie and researched its history. I still stop in and shop at that Winn Dixie from time to time. I like to support a local Florida company based out of my home town of Jacksonville.