Page 64 - John Anderson

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The Lost Causeway
One of the many interests of
versatile John Anderson was the
historic plantation ruins located
deep in the woods along the
Halifax and Tomoka rivers he
had heard about and discovered
on his journeys around Volusia
County as Tax
Accessor/Collector. The story is
told that an old cattleman, Joe
Bryan, told Charles Bostrom
about an old forgotten
causeway he had stumbled
across while hunting stray
cattle, and when John Anderson
heard about it, he was
determined to go out and find it.
Soon after hearing the story,
John and Charles Bostrom
struck out northwest through the woods above Ormond on the
mainland side of the river, until they arrived at Thompson's Creek.
Across the golden marshland that bordered the creek they saw an
"even line of palmettoes ... There could be no mistaking it - it was the
Lost Causeway." On closer inspection the men discovered that
palmettoes grew thickly along the old causeway, and in the center of
it was a giant live oak. Apparently, Anderson and Charles Bostrom did
not know its history, but this was one of the causeways originally built
by the British in the late 1700's, and later used by the planters of the
Second Spanish period. It was a part of the original British King's
Road system, which was now mostly overgrown. The causeway had
not been in use after the Second Seminole Indian War in 1835 –
1842 when plantations, bridges and fields were destroyed throughout
the Florida east coast.
Back in the late 1700’s Richard Oswald had developed five
plantations on his huge 20,000 acre land grant in Florida. His most

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