Visitors to Daytona Beach soon find that the county they are visiting is much, much more than just Daytona International Speedway, and "The World's Most Famous Beach." They in fact are visiting "Volusia County," a sprawling area covering over 1,400 square miles of land and water features, which in my not so humble opinion is one of the most beautiful parts of Florida. That is saying a lot for a state so filled with natural beauty, of both land and sea, freshwater lakes and rivers, and a climate that satisfies and pampers the mind and body year-round.
Like many parts of Florida, and even the United States in general, the etymology of many of the names we take for granted come from our Native-American roots. When I first realized what county I was living in, that's what I assumed was the origin of the name "Volusia" as well, but not so fast.
It seems that in the case of Volusia County, it's not quite so simple, as there are several theories, none of which have been accepted as the whole truth and nothing but the truth. What follows are some of the theories of where the word "Volusia" actually originated.
Volusia County was founded in 1854, and named after the community of Volusia, currently an unincorporated community on the eastern shore of the St. Johns River. Volusia is one of the oldest settlements in Florida dating back to 1558, when Spanish explorers first encountered the Mayaca, a tribe of indigenous people. Its value as a trading post and strategic military placement along the St. Johns river prompted the Spanish, the British, and later Americans to build and maintain trading posts and forts at the settlement.
The first historical use of the name Volusia, is noted in a Spanish Land Grant and Confirmed Claims from 1815 in which a plantation was referred to as "Volucia." A later Land Grant in 1817 referred to the land as "Velutia." A man by the name of H. Dexter is noted on a legal "claim" from 1821, of 2,000 acres referred to as the "settlement of Volusia."
When the Florida Territory was ceded to the United States in the Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819, it took another two years before it was ratified by the United States. On March 3rd, 1845, Congress voted to admit the Florida Territory as the 27th state. Nine years later, the Florida State Legislature created Volusia County which at the time had about 600 inhabitants, when they divided it from Orange county, and named it Volusia County, after the largest settlement in the area.
So we do know where the county's name originated, but the mystery still remains on where the settlement's name originated? What follows are the debated theories of the "Volusia" etymology, in the order of which seems the most plausible to this small mind:
I think this one is a bit of a stretch, but it comes from the Spanish who were the first European explorers who reached the area and put their cartographers to work mapping it out. The story goes that the Spanish explorers named the settlement after Lucius Volusius Maecianus, a celebrated jurist of the day, tutor of the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, and author of 30 books. Explorers did name things after places and people they admired, but the fact that it's a Roman Emperor gets my suspicion up a bit.
Another that dates back to the origins of settlement in the area, is that "Volusia" is a word that means "land of the Euchee." The Euchee Indians were in the general vicinity in the early 1700's. My big question on that one is from which language does the word originate? That's a question for another day.
One that seems somewhat plausible as well ,comes from a British settler who owned a plantation on the St. Johns River in the late 1700's by the name of "Voluz." Though it's just the first part of the word, that is another occurrence that was fairly common during the early settlement days. A perfect example of that is just down the road a piece in Daytona. When the city incorporated in 1876, they decided to call it "Daytona," after Mathias Day Jr. who had built a hotel to really get his 3,200 acre plot going, despite the fact that Day lost his land due to financial troubles. Who came up with the "tona" and why, I would love to one day find out. Again, another day, another dollar.
Another theory is that the town was established by a man named Jere Volusia. Now that dude was spot on as far as his name goes, but for me to accept him as the culprit, I would need to find out when he was around and from whence he came. In the words of Jeremy Hillary Boob Phd., "Ad hoc, ad loc, and quid pro quo. So little time, so much to know."
The last theory posited is that "Volusia" is the anglicized pronunciation and spelling of "Veluche." Monsieur Veluche was the French or Franco-Belgian owner of a trading post in the area around 1818, during British rule. To some this may seem pretty far-fetched, but it is something our English-speaking cultures have done for centuries.
So there you have it. We may never solve the mystery of "Volusia," but that's alright by me, as long as we can still enjoy her natural beauty, pleasing climate and eclectic inhabitants, what more could we ask for from a hunk of land?
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