In September 1812, Colonel Daniel Newnan led a troop of the Georgia militia on a raid into the area in an attempt to annex Florida to the United States during the War of 1812, and the raiders fought a force of Seminole Indians under Seminole chief King Payne in a fierce battle that killed several soldiers and Indians, including King Payne. Fort Crane, named for Lieutenant Colonel Ichabod Crane, commander of the U.S. Army District of Northeast Florida, was built just south of Rochelle in January 1837 during the Second Seminole War and was commanded by Lieutenant John H. Winder, who later served in the Mexican War. By the 1840s, settlers from South Carolina and Georgia had moved into the area, including the Perry, Rochelle, Tillman, and Zetrouer families, and early roads were heavily traveled by settlers and the military, including an important route linking Saint Augustine with Newnansville. In August 1864, Union troops passed near the site en route to Gainesville, where Confederate cavalry led by Captain J.J. Dickison defeated them. The community of Rochelle, about one mile south, was first called Perry Junction and grew around the plantation of Madison Starke Perry, Governor of Florida from 1857 to 1861. In 1854, Perry donated land for Oak Ridge Cemetery between Rochelle and Micanopy, where he and many pioneer families are buried. The town was renamed Gruelle in 1881 and Rochelle in 1884 in honor of the parents of Perry's wife, Martha Perry. Rochelle became a hub of the Florida Southern Railway in 1882 and later stood on the main line of the Plant Railway System as a daily stopover between Jacksonville and Saint Petersburg. By 1888, twenty-four trains a day passed through the community of about 100 residents. Rochelle became a citrus center, but the Great Freeze of 1894-95 destroyed the citrus crop and caused many inhabitants to leave. Only a few buildings remain from the once thriving settlement, including the Rochelle School, or Martha Perry Institute, built in 1885, which served the community until 1935 and was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.