I wanted to get back to this thread. When we went to the state museum there learned some information on John Muir. He was the noted naturalist and conservation leader. He especially known in California. He came to Cedar Key in October 1867. He had been on trip from Indiana for a "thousand mile walk to the Gulf". In Muir's Journal account of his adventure which was published in 1916 ( two years after his death), he includes interesting glimpses of the quality of life in the post war South. He writes "the traces of war are not only apparent on the broken fields, mills, and woods ruthlessly slaughtered, but also on the countenances of the people".
Florida deeply impressed the 29 year old Muir. He remembered the "watery and vine-tied" land where "the streams are still young". which he had seen and sampled on his way from Fernandina. It was while recovering from a bout with malaria in Cedar Key that Muir first expressed his belief that nature was valuable for its own sake, not only because it was useful to man. This principle guided John Muir throughout his life.
In early 1868 he left Cedar Key and eventually settled in California, where he helped establish Yosemite National Park and in 1892 the Sierra Club.