in 1837, Major Thomas Child took over command of the post. During his tenure, one "Colonel Dill", claiming that he was seeking escaped slaves, was detained and was ordered to return to his residence. Jesup ordered that all government employees and express riders were barred from passing through Fort Armstrong for the purpose of looking for slaves. This was to allow black Seminoles to enter the fort and to be eventually deported to reservations west of the Mississippi River. In 1984, after several years’ work, the Sumter County Historical Society would place a marker at the site of Fort Armstrong. Early 1900s Attempts at preserving the Dade massacre site began in 1897 with a bill introduced in the United States Congress which called for the creation of a national park on the Dade massacre battleground and its inclusion in a national park system. Florida congressman Stephen Sparkman began efforts to preserve the Dade Massacre site on January 27, 1904, with the introduction of another bill in the United States House of Representatives seeking to create a national park on the battle's site. In 1907 and again in 1912, Sparkman re-introduced legislation that provided funding for a marker and for the preservation of the battleground. In 1919, United States representative Henry Jackson Drane of Florida, who had visited the Dade Battlefield area in 1884, introduced another bill for the creation of a memorial at the site. 1920s In 1910, two Florida newspapers, the Leesburg Commercial and the St. Lucie Tribune, encouraged legislators to place a marker on the site of the massacre. At the state level, an attempt to create a memorial park on the site of the Dade Massacre was made in the early 1920s. Before his term in the Florida Legislature, Lake County judge J. C. B. Koonce held pre-trial hearings at the park's site. Fascinated by the battle, Lake County judge Koonce began to develop the area into a park in 1908. In 1921, as the Sumter County representative in the Florida House, Koonce, state senator W. M. Igou of Eustis, state representative L. D. Edge of Groveland, state representative T. G. Futch of Leesburg, and United States Senator Duncan Fletcher urged the Florida legislature to preserve the site. In 1921, the state of Florida appointed Koonce, Fred C. Cubberly (the author of the book The Dade Massacre), and Mrs. A. M. Roland as commissioners of the Dade