[4] The earliest documented colonizer to inhabit the area near McIntosh was in the early 1820s by Colonel John Houstoun McIntosh, who lived in a plantation until it was destroyed by Seminoles, along with them burning his sugar mill, during the Second Seminole War.

[1] On February 2, 1849, a merchant from Baltimore named Nehemiah Brush, bought a large portion of land at a government auction in Micanopy, which included 4,000 acres of the Arrendondo Spanish land grant that today encompasses McIntosh.

His son, Colonel Charles Brush, along with his brother-in-law Eugene Van Ness and sister Julia Brush (née Van Ness) developed present-day McIntosh, into building lots and ten-acre plots for citrus crops.

According to the United States Census Bureau, McIntosh has a total area of 0.7 square miles (1.8 km2), all land.

[3] The climate in this area is characterized by hot, humid summers and generally mild winters.

As of the 2020 United States census, there were 463 people, 148 households, and 86 families residing in the town.