Florida Historical Markers Programs - Marker Detail

Description: After the second Battle of the Loxahatchee (January 24, 1838) during the Scond Seminole War (1835-1842), Major General Thomas S. Jesup directed Major William Lauderdale, Commander of the Tennessee Battalion of Volunteers to cut a trail south from Ft. Jupiter to the New River (present day Ft. Lauderdale). Major Lauderdale's mission was to caputre Seminoles who had escaped the Laxahatchee battle. ON March 2, 1838, Major Lauderdale, with approximately 200 Tennessee Volunteers and the U.S. 3rd Artillery Regiment, marched south, following the Seminoles. To avoid swamps and lagoons, they kept to the higher coastal pine ridge that extended from Ft. Jupiter to the New River, where Major Lauderdale built a fort. Because Major Lauderdale's command had blazed a trail covering 63 miles through overgrown terrain in only four days, the route was desiganted "Lauderdale's Trail." The trail was used for military operations through the end of the Third Seminole War in 1858, and became known as "Military Trail." Now a major commercial thoroughfare, Military Trail is a remnant of the long and dramatic history of the Sminole Wars in Florida.