Editing Cedar Key, Florida (section)

===Civil War era===
With the advent of the [[American Civil War]] in 1861, [[Confederate States of America|Confederate]] agents extinguished the light at Seahorse Key and removed its supply of [[Whale oil|sperm whale oil]]. The defense of Cedar Key was assigned to the Columbia and New River Rifles, two companies of the 4th Florida Infantry Regiment, under the command of Lt. Colonel M. Whit Smith.<ref name="gahistoricnewspapers.galileo.usg.edu">{{cite web|title=Correspondent of the Daily Morning News|url= https://gahistoricnewspapers.galileo.usg.edu/lccn/sn87062317/1861-07-16/ed-1/seq-3/|publisher= gahistoricnewspapers.galileo.usg.edu|access-date=2018-08-21}}</ref> On July 3, 1861, four Federal [[prize (law)|war prize]] [[schooner]]s appeared off Cedar Key. The schooners, originally captured by the [[USS Massachusetts (1860)|USS Massachusetts]] off [[New Orleans]], were under the command of [[United States Navy|U. S. Navy]] Lieutenant George L. Selden, nephew of former [[Treasurer of the United States]] [[William Selden]], and manned by nineteen sailors.<ref>{{cite web|title=The schooners captured off Cedar Keys|url= https://www.newspapers.com/image/325546565/?terms=schooners%2Bcaptured%2Boff%2Bcedar%2Bkeys| publisher= Newspapers.com|access-date=2020-08-17}}</ref> Col. Smith led his two rifle [[company (military unit)|companies]] along with one six-pounder [[cannon]] twenty miles offshore on the steamer Madison and captured the schooners after firing two [[warning shot]]s. With the recovery, Col. Smith and his men liberated fifteen Confederate sailors, recovered the vessels' valuable cargo of railroad iron and [[turpentine]] and effected the first capture of a U. S. Naval officer at sea during the war.<ref name="gahistoricnewspapers.galileo.usg.edu"/>

The [[USS Hatteras (1861)|USS ''Hatteras'']] raided Cedar Key in January 1862, burning several ships loaded with cotton and turpentine and destroying the railroad's rolling stock and buildings on Way Key. Most of the Confederate troops guarding Cedar Key had been sent to Fernandina in anticipation of a Federal attack there. Cedar Key was an important source of salt for the Confederacy during the early part of the war. In October 1862, a [[Union (American Civil War)|Union]] raid destroyed sixty kettles on Salt Key capable of producing 150 bushels of salt a day. The Union occupied the Cedar Keys in early 1864, staying for the remainder of the war.{{sfn|McCarthy|2006|pp=24-5}}{{sfn|Turner|2003|p=34}}

In 1865, the [[Eberhard Faber]] mill was built on Atsena Otie Key. The [[Eagle Pencil Company]] mill was built on Way Key, and because Way Key had its railroad terminal built there, it surpassed Atsena Otie Key in population. Repairs to the Florida Railroad were completed in 1868, and freight and passenger traffic again flowed into Cedar Key. The "'''''Town of Cedar Keys'''''" was incorporated in 1869, and had a population of 400 in 1870.{{sfn|McCarthy|2006|pp=29-30}}

Early in his career as a naturalist, [[John Muir]] walked {{convert|1000|mi|km|-2}} from [[Louisville, Kentucky]], to Cedar Key in just two months in 1867. Muir contracted [[malaria]] while working in a [[sawmill]] in Cedar Key, and recovered in the house of the mill's superintendent. Muir recovered enough to sail from Cedar Key to [[Cuba]] in January 1868. He recorded his impressions of Cedar Key in his memoir ''A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf'', published in 1916, after his death.{{sfn|McCarthy|2006|p=28}}
{{Wide image|Cedar Key 1884b small.jpg|700px|1884 map of Cedar Key|box width|alignment|alt=alt text}}