General Van der Voort rode from Port La Gloria to the camp on horseback, a hard trip, for the road had not improved. The mud and water and debris made it a slow and exhausting journey. He assumed charge of the company's business in the colony at once. Arrangements were made for a prompt allotment of the land, and a committee of nine colonists, with Dr. W. P. Peirce of Hoopeston, Ill., as chairman, was chosen to devise a plan of distribution. After several prolonged sessions, the committee unanimously reported a scheme by which those present should select their land from the official map in the order of the priority of their purchases. After these, the investors having authorized representatives on the ground, the latter holding powers of attorney, were to have their chance. In this second class, also, priority of purchase governed the order of selection. The report further provided that the investor should be allowed a second choice if he found his land to be unsatisfactory. This plan, which I believed then and believe now was the best that could have been devised, was adopted by the colonists with but a single dissenting vote.
On Saturday, January 13, the allotment began, in what was known as headquarters tent. The committee which had formulated the plan of distribution was in charge, assisted by Chief Engineer Kelly, Architect Neff, and others. The town lots were given out first, and by night nearly all who were entitled to make selections in these classes had been served. The town lot distribution was completed Monday morning, the 15th. The town was one mile square, and had been laid out and surveyed under the supervision of M. A. Custer Neff, civil engineer and architect. It was traversed and counter-traversed by streets and avenues, appropriately named. These were as yet, for the most part, only surveyors' paths cut through the forest, but they were much used as thoroughfares to reach town lots and the plantation lands beyond. They were rough roads, filled with mud, water, stumps, stubble, and roots, but with the advent of the dry season they became more easily passable. The highway running through the centre of the town to and from the coast was known as Central avenue, and the road passing through the centre at right angles was called Dewey street. Around the intersecting point, the exact centre of the town, space had been reserved for a large plaza. Central avenue and Dewey street were each designed to be one hundred feet wide, and were naturally the paths most used by the colonists. The former actually extended from the rear line of the town northward to the bay, five miles away, while the latter continued from the side lines of the town out into the plantation lands to the east and west. The town site was well chosen. It has a fair elevation above the sea, a firm, hard soil, with steadily rising ground. The front line of the town is about twenty feet above tidewater; the centre about one hundred feet, and the rear line nearly or quite two hundred feet. Around the town was a belt of land a quarter of a mile wide reserved by the company; then came the plantations on every side.