claimed that site was the highest on Apalachee Bay, above the highest tides. The Apalachee Bay Storm of 1837 apparently had not seriously flooded the site. The Port Leon, Florida Hurricane of 1843 struck Port Leon in September of that year. The hurricane was accompanied by a storm surge of . While only one person was killed, every structure in the town was destroyed or severely damaged. The bridge across the St. Marks River was carried upstream past the town of St. Marks. The town of St. Marks also suffered damage from the storm. Many residents of Port Leon moved to a new town north of St. Marks, Newport. The railroad company quickly repaired its line into St. Marks, and made it the new shipping terminal for the line. Port Leon then faded away. Operations Trains on the railroad were pulled by horses or mules for many years. The company had purchased two locomotives (the Tallahassee Floridan reported the purchase of one locomotive in December, 1837), but could not use them because of the poor condition of the track. As of 1839, besides the two unused locomotives, the railroad owned three passenger cars (the first of which could hold only eight passengers), 45 freight cars, 35 horses and mules, and 23 slaves. The railroad also owned a sawmill, of woodlands, a plantation for raising fodder for the horses and mules, and the town of Port Leon. Slaves performed most of the work on the railroad and the plantation. Daily passenger service in each direction was provided with a single car pulled by two horses. The horses were changed at the half-way mark, and the one-way trip took two-and-a-half hours at a speed of about . Passenger fare was $1.50 per passenger, and some 4,000 passengers were carried in 1838. Freight trains of five to eight cars also ran in each direction once a day. The freight trains were pulled by six horses or mules at a speed of . Most of the freight carried from Tallahassee to the seaports was cotton, about 14,000 bales of cotton (a bale weighed ) out of carried in 1838. About of goods were carried from the seaports to Tallahassee that year. The freight charge for a bale of cotton was 75 cents. The condition of the railroad remained poor throughout the almost 20 years that the original owners of the Tallahassee Railroad operated the