In 1774, noted botanist William Bartram traveled across what is now the southeastern corner of Alachua County along an old Indian and trading trail, a route later used by English-speaking settlers in Florida's territorial period as a frontier road. By 1840, another road from the north crossed that trail near present-day Hawthorne, and in 1848 Morrison had begun operating a mill there on what Bartram had described as a "rapid brook." A United States post office called Morrison's Mills was established at that site in 1853 to serve the area's increasing population. In 1879, the Peninsular Railroad was completed from Waldo to Ocala, bypassing Morrison's Mills, and that year a new town grew up nearer the railroad. The village was first called Jamestown, but in 1880 its name was changed to Hawthorne, and both names honored local landowner James M. Hawthorn. In 1881, the Florida Southern Railway was completed from Palatka to Gainesville, crossing the Peninsular Railroad at Hawthorne. In the 1880s, the community was also known unofficially as Wait's Crossing in reference to another family living in the area. In 1883, a stone quarry near Hawthorne became the site of Florida's earliest phosphate mill, operated for two years by Dr. C. A. Simmons, who in 1879 had been the first person to recognize phosphate in Florida. The Hawthorne area's most important resources, however, have been its agricultural and forestry products, including sea island cotton and turpentine.