That might -- but only might -- be a description of going south on the St. Johns and then east through lakes Dexter, Woodruff and Spring Garden to what now is DeLeon Springs State Recreational Area.  There’s no real proof of that. But, for the last century, West Volusia tourism promoters have seized on the passage and used it to tout DeLeon Springs as the fabled Fountain of Youth that Ponce sought.

     Whether or not Ponce actually passed through West Volusia, his arrival meant the end of the Timucuan way of life. Other Spaniards followed and began building forts and missions along the river. The first Spanish named it Rio de Corrientes, or River of Currents, in honor of its northward-moving flow.

     With both the Spanish and French claiming the river, the Timucuans became caught up in the European power struggles that had been going on in one form or another since the barbarians first sacked Rome. Meanwhile, the Europeans brought over diseases for which the native population had no immunity.

     The Timucuans were doomed. Numbering at least 13,000 in 1600, within slightly more than a century they were as extinct as the mastodons that their ancestors had hunted. Meanwhile, the Spanish had run the French out of Florida. After regaining complete control of the river, Spaniards renamed it Rio de San Mateo, or St. Matthew’s River.

     After about a century, people started calling it after a mission, San Juan del Puerto, built near its mouth. Eventually, the name Rio de San Juan, or St. John’s River, stuck. Concentrating most of their efforts on the coast, the Spanish eventually abandoned their West Volusia plantation. With the Spanish uninterested and the Timucuans exterminated, the greater DeLand area was virtually uninhabited for about 200 years.