This former land of the Indigenous people called Timucua, became a Florida State Park in 1945. On May 7, 1973, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. The long-vanished Timucua are commemorated with an huge public art installation from 1957 by Fredrick Dana Marsh. Called “Legend of Tomokie,” it features Chief Tomokie at the top of a wall of warriors. While there is no historical evidence of a real Chief Tomokie, the monument is a reminder that this area was once populated by Native Americans who lived and fished these waters for centuries before Europeans arrived.
The Tomoka River and the Halifax River (the Intracoastal Waterway) meet at the north end of the park forming a natural peninsula. With 12 miles of shoreline, the park’s 2,000 plus acres covers maritime hammock and estuarine salt marshes. The vast Tomoka Basin watershed has provided man and animal with food and shelter since its earliest inhabitants thousands of years ago. The name Tomoka comes from the Timucua, an Indigenous people who primarily lived in northeast Florida centuries ago. Today, visitors can picnic, hike and camp beneath the same ancient live oaks that shaded them. Visitors can canoe and fish in the surrounding waters just as they did in a time before European colonization.
Tomoka Point is where the Timucuan village known as Nocoroco (Nōcō-rōcō) may have stood from approximately 1,000 years ago until at least the arrival of the Spanish. The village was first visited by Spanish explorers led by Alvaro Mexia in the early 1600s. The explorer wrote that the Timucua were “of goodly stature and covered in many tattoos.” The Timucuans lived throughout northeast and central Florida, making them the predominant Native American group in the area. Nocoroco was one of the largest villages visited by the invading colonizers in Florida.
The village once covered the Tomoka Point area where the freshwater Tomoka River meets the saltwater Halifax River. The nearby salt marsh is home to a variety of animals and plants, many of which were a part of the Timucuan diet, such as oysters and clams. The Timucuans left remnants of their daily catch, turning this land into a giant shell midden rising 40 feet above the shoreline. Along the shore of the Tomoka River you can still see the sloped earth and mounds of oyster and clam shells along the riverbank. These shells are the last remaining artifacts of Nocoroco. The Timucuan population was devastated by exposure to European diseases for which they had no natural immunity. By the late 1700s, it is likely that the Timucua people were completely gone. When you visit the park, do no disturb any artifacts and show respect for the land.
Tomoka State Park is noted for its live oak hammock with arching limbs covered in Spanish moss, resurrection fern and green-fly orchids. Indian pipe, spring coralroot and Florida coontie grow under the hammock canopy, while wild coffee and tropical sage can be found on the shell middens. Visitors may explore the green world of this hammock on the half-mile nature trail. Salt marshes adjacent to the rivers flourish with plant life, including black needlerush, spartina and glasswort. These marshes, flooded daily by tides, provide habitat, food and breeding grounds for oysters, snails, fiddler crabs and fish. Wading birds and hawks forage the marshes for their meals. Over 160 bird species have been documented. During the summer, manatees take refuge with their young in the Tomoka River. Bottlenose dolphins occasionally surface, while the American alligator is a familiar resident. Campers often see raccoons, bobcats, white-tailed deer and otters that come out at dusk.
The Tomoka Trail is a half-mile trail that travels along the Tomoka Point peninsula. At the time of the first European visit to the Tomoka Point in 1605, the land was a maritime hammock (hammock is a Seminole word meaning shady place). As you walk the trail you can still see crooked salt-pruned maritime oak trees. In the 1770s, the land was an indigo plantation known as Mount Oswald. The first settler noted that the area was the highest spot in the Tomoka Basin and aptly named it as a small mountain. Valuable indigo was the only source of blue dye, and Europeans of high status coveted blue-dyed clothes. Indigo plants can be seen throughout the park and especially in the southern end of the trail. Native wild coffee plants thrive in the shady areas under the trees. The plant produces small red berries that contain two seeds, and birds in the area feed on those seeds. Wild coffee berries were once brewed into coffee by early settlers; however, the berries do not contain caffeine. If you look at the shaded branches of the oaks in the hammock, you will see ferns growing in their bark. These are known as resurrection ferns. They become dry and brown during drought conditions and green in the rainy season.
Birds that can be seen on the trail include woodpecker, cardinals, catbirds, mockingbirds and blue jays. During the winter you often can see American bald eagles perched in the pine trees. There are three eagle nests within 3 miles of the trail, as the eagles are attracted to Tomoka Point for access to fish and as a great vantage point to the entire area.
page information credit: Florida State Parks, Friends of the Tomoka Basin State Parks, City of Ormond Beach, Florida, floridahikes.com, floridarambler.com, discoverfla.com
photos from the sources listed above, as well as publicly posted online sites with thanks to the contributors