CHARLESTON MERCURY
Charleston, South Carolina
May 18, 1836

It is known … that there is a party of Indians 150 in number (how many negroes not known) … who commonly prowl over the country lying South of St. Augustine, between the St. Johns River and the Atlantic, committing depredations upon property wherever they can find it, and sparing the lives of no white who fall into their hands.

The other day trails were discovered near this town (St. Augustine), over which a large party of Indians had recently passed, and yesterday morning a worthy resident of this town, Mr. Abraham DuPont, who upon the faith that the war would be prosecuted against the enemy until they were driven from the country, or peace established, was cultivating his land, and endeavoring to make a crop, came into town at daylight, with his two little sons, bringing intelligence that the Indians had surrounded his house, killed a Mr. Long, who was spending the night with him, carried off his negroes, and destroyed his buildings—thus having swept the only plantation left unburnt South of St. Augustine.

And those trails near the town were seen, and this recent desolation of Mr. DuPont’s place occurs, while Genls. Scott and Eustis, with a large portion of the troops just marched across the Territory, and are yet here in St. Augustine.