The 1850 Census of St. Lucie County, of which the Sebastian River Area was then a part, ends with the statement that "The inhabitants of this County were driven from it on acct. of the Indian hostilities and only a few of them have as yet returned."

The original George Keyes Notebooks on the shelves of the Sebastian North Indian River County Library contain detailed transcriptions of the 1850, 1880, 1885, and 1900 censuses.

Excerpts from
Andrew P. Canova,
Life and Adventures in South Florida
Entered in the Library of Congress in l885
Published l906

[In Nov. l858 Andrew P. Canova, a native Floridian, and Ed Marr left Tampa Bay for Honey Branch, a location that had attracted his attention many years before.]

...near the mouth of the St. Sebastian.

The spot selected for our future home was a shady nook, in a cabbage palm grove, within a few feet of the river. The first act of our administration was to build a hut of poles and palm leaves, after cutting the necessary materials. Then we both went to work, and at the end of two days had a roof over our heads and a cosy place to sleep. After a day of brisk fishing and hunting, I lay down beneah a roof of fragrant palm leaves. It was perfectly watertight, and built to last ten years.

When we got our supplies, we had to take a boat and row about thirty miles southward to Ft. Caron, where Major William Russell kept a little grocery store. [1]

In the month of May [l859] it fell upon my lot to take such a journey. I entered the boat and taking enough dried venison,onions and roasted poatoes along to keep me alive for three days, set out for Ft. Capron.

[Canova and Marr attempted to plant a small orange grove.]

The spot selected for the scene of our operations was one which left nothing to be desired, as far as nature went. A cool spring of water lifted its crystal waves into the sunlight within easy reach of our door; Indian river, with its untold wealth of fish and fowl, spread out to the east of us, etc.

[The grove was a failure as they had cut off too much of the root system of the wild orange stock before planting.]

I was living on the Indian river, near the mouth of the St. Sebastian, and one fine, sunny day in early spring, two of my neighbors came to me and proposed that we go on a hunt for bee-trees.

[They shouldered guns and went to hunt deer and bear on the upper St. Johns.]

We reached Lake Winder [2] in the late afternoon. Near this lake we found a clump of fine cabbage palms, and heard a strange ripping sound, as we drew near. Looking up at one of the trees we were astonished to see a large bear sitting on top. trying to pull out the tender bud of the palm. He had flattened down the crown leaves so as to form a good lodgement for himself, and was untiring in his efforts to extract the sweet, tender bud. He had not observed us, and was too much absorbed, perhaps, in the anticipation of the delicious feast he was going to enjoy, to notice his surrundings. Finally the bud boke loose, and the bear swung backward with all his weight,, but the bud came out too easy. He had not calculated the sudden relaxation, and the result was that he lost his balance and came crashing to the ground.

We stayed there [St. Sebastian River] until the war broke out between the states, when I left for St. Augustine to join the army. Ed Marr remained at the hut etc.

[1] This is the same Major William Russell that was at Barker's Bluff when John Barker was killed by the Seminoles.

[2] Lake Winder is on the St. Johns River west of Rockledge.

[It is interesting to note that there were at least four people in the area of the Sebastian River during the time frame of l859-l86l]