"Burning of the town Pilak-li-ka-ha by Gen. Eustis." Pilak-li-ka-ha was also known as "Abraham's town," having served as his home and headquarters since the 1820s. General Eustis razed the village in 1836 in one of the only early military successes for the U.S. Army. From the Gray & James series of hand-colored lithographs on the
war (1837). Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division,
LC-USZC4-2727.
Porter adds the detail that Abraham and his allies watched the town burn from a secluded distance, although he cites no source for this information. Known more definitely was the existence of a large orange tree in the center of the town, near the home associated with the Seminole Indian chief Micanopy, who maintained a principal residence in Peliklakaha. Myer Cohen, an officer of the division that burned Peliklakaha, waxed poetic on the orange tree as he described its conflagration:
"Did the pond governor, (as [Micanopy] is at times called,) who cooly murdered the martyr Dade, prune and nurture this glorious tree, and pleasure in the beauty of its spotless blossoms, and the delicate verdure of its leaf, and the agreeable odour of both? Did the hand that pulled that cruel, fatal trigger, ever pluck hence a wreath to twine, like pearls, amid the raven and braided tresses of wife or daughter?
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