Talk:Melrose, Florida

History of Melrose

I agree that the History section, which was unsourced, had serious problems. I will have Bonnie Melrose, The Early History of Melrose, Florida, by Zonira Hunter Tolles, in hand by Monday (4 days from now). That should let me do something about a new history section. -- Donald Albury 23:26, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

As it turns out, the library's only circulating copy of Tolles is missing. I have had one look at a non-circulating copy, and made some edits based on it. I didn't find any support for the second paragraph (the only mention I found of George C. Looney in Melrose is that he moved to Melrose to replace someone else as head of the Melrose school), but I will look at the Morris book before I make changes there. I also saw in the Tolles book that Melrose was incorporated in 1901, but I don't know when it was unincorporated. -- Donald Albury 13:55, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

And I just got a look at Florida place names earlier today, and discovered that all material added by one editor was directly copied from that book. I have accordingly deleted all those edits from article history. -- Donald Albury 16:38, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Claim of Vitachuco battlefield

I have removed the following section from the article:

In April 1909, evidence was found outside of Melrose that there was an Indian battlefield, which was part of a major battle between [[Hernando de Soto]] and his armed forces and local Native Americans fighting with the town (and under the power) of [[Vitachuco]], which took place some time in 1539.<ref>{{Cite web|url = http://www.genealogytrails.com/fla/IndianBattlefieldNearMelrose.htm|title = Florida State History|website = www.genealogytrails.com|access-date = 2016-03-24}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url = http://www.floridahistory.com/inset6.html|title = De Soto's Trails thru Florida, Part 3 of 4|last = Sheppard|first = Donald E|website = www.floridahistory.com|access-date = 2016-03-24}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/92501803/|title=De Soto and Vitachuco|last=|first=|date=|website=|publisher=|access-date=}}</ref> This provided key information about the Spanish exploration, conquest, and battles in Florida.

The first sentence mis-represents the contents of the first citation, which ultimately goes back to an article in The Florida Historical Quarterly, "An Indian Battlefield Near Melrose", by H. Von Noszky (The Florida Historical Quarterly: II:1, April, 1909, Pages: 47-48). The article claims only that some geographical features near Melrose resemble those given by Garcilasso de la Vega ("El Inca") as the location of the Vitachuco battlefield. Vitachuco is an identification found only in De La Vega's account, which apparantly results from a confusion by De La Vega between Napituca, which was near Live Oak, Florida, and Ivatichuco, in the Apalachee province.(Jerald T. Milanich and Charles Hudson, Hernando de Soto and the Indians of Florida, 1993, University Press of Florida, page 163). The second source cited also places Napituca/Vitachuca near the Suwannee River. The third citation is simply to the title of a book, with no indication that the editor consulted the book. While De Soto's expedition did pass through what is now Alachua County, there is no evidence that any part of it ventured as far east as Melrose. --Donald Albury 00:49, 21 November 2016 (UTC)