JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – There’s no shortage of natural beauty in Jacksonville’s Northside, where residents and visitors can find the 7 Creeks Recreation Park, a hidden gem made up of over 30 miles worth of trails.
RELATED: JAX set to soar with new terminal, more gates, improved amenities for smoother flight experience
Recommended Videos
Located not far off I-295 near the intersection of New Berlin and Cedar Point Roads, Cedar Creek offers people a chance to hike, bike, and explore the unique and diverse area.
However, before it became a recreation area, Cedar Creek played an important role in the area’s development.
“So Cedar Creek is actually classified as a string, but truly it is a river,” said City of Jacksonville Neighborhoods Department Director Thomas Waters. “It flows freely, and it is titled. It flows from the west to the east.
He continued, “The head of Cedar Creek begins somewhere beyond Duval Road, and it flows generally where Amazon is located...All of these areas are significant as they contribute to the timber trade, because timber was a big industry. You think about the early homes that were built here. They had lumber mills there. And there was an old lumber mill on the Cedar Creek, and that’s where a lot of the lumber for the North side came from.”
Additionally, Jacksonville’s Northside, which is known for its nature and wooded areas is also thought to be the site of the southernmost battle of the American Revolution.
Seaton Creek Historic Preserve, a 840-acre preservation park north of the airport off Gold Star Family Parkway that offers more than five miles of trails, also holds a piece of historical significance.
Historians say that on May 17th, 1777, the Battle of Thomas Creek was fought along the border of what is now Duval and Nassau counties.
A historic marker has been installed at the entrance to the preserve, which is believed to have been part of the battlefield.
Waters provided an in-depth history lesson on the matter.
“So there were bands of colonists who formed with natives and other folk who they could get to join to fight against the British,” Waters said. “And it is said that these battles took place in several spots along the border between Nassau County and Duval County, which happens to be Thomas Creek, [which] is a long body of water that extends at one site where you can see it... and here at Seton Creek, which is another location where they said the troops came across.”
A deeper dive into the area’s history reveals that just a few hundred yards from Seaton Creek, one can find the Seaton family cemetery.
Waters says that at the time, the family received the land from Spanish land grants, even adding that some of the descendants of the Seaton family still live in the area.