|
a.
|
Note: HI8388
Note: (Research):John Thomas homesteaded the area now known as Plant City, in Hillsborough County, Florida. His family was from Georgia, first stopping in Columbia County before moving to Hillsborough County about 1844. He settled and later bought from the state the land platted for Plant City in 1883. Source: p. 30, Quintilla Geer Bruton and David E. Bailey Jr., Plant City: Its Origin and History, Hunter Publishing Co., Winston Salem, NC.
Very little was known about Plant City's first family until 1975, when The Mt. Enon Cemetery Memorial Association published the History of the Absolute Mt. Enon Association. This publication contained a letter, written many years before, by deacon E. I. Wiggins. His mother and father traveled to Plant City at the same time as his Uncle John G. Thomas. John G. Thomas' wife was a half-sister to Mr. Wiggins mother. He wrote,
"Now my Father was borned in 1813 and Mother in 1818. Mother's maiden name was Raulerson, she had two own Brothers, named Rabon and John. Two half brothers and three half sister. Those people were borned and reared in South Georgia and when they grew up to be men and women, a man by the name of John Thomas married one of Mother's half sisters. John Futch married another one and a man named Curry married the third one. Uncle Rabon married a Miss Whitten [Whidden] and Uncle John married a Miss Friar.
Now these people always followed up the Frontier and lived close to the Indians and after the Indians had been driven out of Georgia back into Florida and were peaceable, those people moved over to Columbia County, Florida, about where Lake City now stands. People kept moving in from Georgia and settling in that section until finally then moved in enough Old Primitive Baptist to constitute a Church in that neighborhood and Father, Mother, Uncle Rabon and Uncle John Thomas and their wives became members of that church. Uncle John Raulerson has not joined any church as yet.
This church prospered and grew in number as people kept moving over there from Georgia but finally the old Missionary split struck that church and they had division. Part of them went off with the Missionaries but Father, Mother, Uncle Rabon and John Thomas and their wives stood with the old Predestinarian Baptist. Uncle John Raulerson by this time had joined the Missionaries and they ordained him to the Deaconship of their church and appointed him to take up a collection and he refused to do so and bid them to take his name off of their church book for he had no further use for them and left them right there.
Now in the meantime the Indians broke out and went to war with the Whites and they had to fight Indians from there to the Everglades in South Florida. After this war was over and the Indians were at peace again, Father, Uncle Rabon, Uncle John Raulerson and Uncle John Thomas decided to move to the frontier in South Florida, so in 1844 they gathered up all of their stock and drove them down to South Florida and stopped them about twenty five miles east of Old Ft. Brooke where Tampa now stands. [Their stop east of Ft. Brooke was where Plant City developed.] There were a few people who settled around the old Fort and had one or two stores there and gave it the name of Tampa. Now after they got here they turned their cattle loose on the range and rode over the country for a few days looking for the best location but they decided that they had stopped in as good a place as they could find so they went out and each one selected his place for settlement. As Uncle Rabon Raulerson brought his family with him when they came, Father, Uncle John Raulerson and Uncle John Thomas left their stock in his care and went back to Columbia County after their families. So after they got back and fixed up all their business, they went to the church and called for all their letters which was granted, six in all. In 1845 they landed back in South Florida and each one drove out to his selected place for settlement and unloaded their families and furniture out in the wild woods without a shelter or a tent to deep them dry.
The forest was full of wild beast such as Bear, Panther, Wolves, and other smaller animals but they went to work and soon had up shelters and Log Cabins, then they commenced clearing and fencing in land and penned their cattle on their land at night in order to protect them from the wild beasts while it made their land rich and they were soon having nice gardens and plenty of sweet potatoes and rice. As for milk, butter and wild honey, they had more than they could consume and as for meat, it was no object, Wild Turkey and Deer were in abundance and plenty of fish. Their Hogs and cattle were fat and increased while the Bear, Panther and Wolves caught some of the young stock, but they protected them pretty well with their dogs and old flint and steel rifles. They soon had good size fields and making plenty of corn and sugar cane. They cut down live oak and sawed blocks off and put them up in a frame and turned out mill Rolers and ground their cane on wooden Mills.
People kept moving down from Georgia, Alabama and other places from year to year and being mostly stockmen they settled pretty far apart, from five to ten, twenty and forty miles apart so every year they kept adding more settlers to those little settlements and up to 1856 they had little settlements started all about over the country but the Indians got mad and went to war and the people in each settlement had to come together at one place or kind to fort up so the Government could put guards around them while the army pursued the Indians and after this little war was over, the country settled up more and more every year from Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina and in the meantime a few more old Baptist moved down and settled some twenty or twenty-five miles farther on south of us and by this time the Missionaries and Methodist had churches established in different settlements all through the country and the Missionaries put in to win over those few old Baptists to join in with them but they could not move them."
Source: pp. 32-33, Quintilla Geer Bruton and David E. Bailey Jr., Plant City: Its Origin and History, Hunter Publishing Co., Winston Salem, NC
SELECTED RESIDENTS OF OLD COLUMBIA, HAMILTON AND ALACHUA COUNTIES (c. 1830 - 1832) Page 351 Florida's Peace River by Canter Brown
Many of the settlers in the area just to the north of the Indian Reservation in the late 1820's and early 1830's were men, or descendants of men, who had fought for possession of Florida in the Patriot War of 1812-1814 and who had waited in Georgia and the backcountry of remote north eastern Florida for the opportunity to return to their dream of a new life to the south. Many of them or their descendants would move in the following two decades to South Florida and pioneer the settlement of the Peace River area.
From 1830 to 1832 the following settlers were living in that area of Alachua County about to become Columbia County: Rigdon Brown; John Powell; Jesse Pennington; Thomas Ellis; William Raulerson; Burris Brewer; William A. Summerall; Aran Vickers; William Hare; JOHN THOMAS; Willoughby Tillis;John Cason; Luke Parker; MAXFIELD WHIDDEN; Levi Pearce; Simeon Sparkman, Elisha Green; Zachariah Roberts; WILLOUGHBY WHIDDEN; WILLIAM WIGGINS; William Brown; and JOHN M. BRANNEN.
************************************* He enlisted in Capt. Francis M. Durrance's Company of Florida Mounted Volunteers during the Third Seminole Indian War. His term of enlistment was from 29 December 1855 to December 1857.
Served in Company B, 1st Battalion, Florida Special Cavalry, C.S.A. from April 2, 1863 to June 8, 1863.
|
