Note 20 — Chapter V

New-Smyrna is built on a high shelly bluff, on the west bank of the South branch of Mosquito river, about ten miles above the capes of that river, which is about thirty miles North of Cape Canaveral, Lat 28. I was there about ten years ago, when the surveyor run the lines or precincts of the colony, where there was neither habitation nor cleared field. It was then a famous Orange grove, the upper or South promontory of a ridge, nearly half a mile wide, and stretching North about forty miles, to the head of the North branch of the Musquito, to where the Tomoko river unites with it, nearly parallel to the sea coast, and not above two miles across to the sea beach. All this ridge was then one entire Orange grove, with Live Oaks, Mangolias, Palms, Red Bays and others: I observed then, near where New Smyrna now stands, a spacious Indian mount and avenue, which stood near the banks of the river: the avenue ran on a straight line back, through the groves, across the ridge, and terminated at the verge of natural savannas and ponds.