Tampa FLA

Sept 25th 1867

Lieut Allen H. Jackson

A.A.A.G & D.O.B.R.F & A.L

Jacksonville FLA

            Sir:

            Major Combra has shown me an extract from a communication from Headquarters, stating that there are many Freedmen at Brooksville who wish to take homesteads, and directing him to see me and have the matter attended to as soon as possible. 

            I have accordingly written Judge Wall requesting him to take the names of such persons and send word to me as soon as he had a sufficient number to make it worthwhile to make the journey.

            I am somewhat surprised that their desire to enter land should have been made known at Headquarters instead of to me for I have advertised, and taken every other method at hand, to make my presence and business here known throughout the country.  But I presume the Freedmen should not read, and of course nobody would tell them.

            It has been, and still is, too wet to survey land or even to travel, but will be driven.

            Since my last report I have sent to the Land Office three applications for Homesteads.

Very respectfully

Your OBS Servt

 

**This letter shows the issues that have been made due to the flooding of the land throughout the area.  This letter also states that many Freedmen at Brooksville desire to apply for land.  The Brooksville office serviced all of Hernando County, which included present day Pasco and Citrus Counties.  Any freedmen in Hernando County would have to travel to the Brooksville office for any provisions or to apply for land since this was the Freedmen’s Office in their area.  There were also offices in Tampa, Ocala, Cedar Key, Key West and throughout towns all the way to Jacksonville, Tallahassee, and Pensacola these are only a few of the office throughout Florida.  According to Dr. Cantor Brown with Florida A & M University, there are some of the Freedmen’s Records for Florida that cannot be located and it is not known what happened to them however there are records that are available to the public, as you can read above, give a view into the volume and number of freedmen throughout what is today known as Pasco and Hernando Counties.  According to the 1860 Hernando County Tax Book there were 853 slaves that were taxed that year and by 1865 those 853 slaves had been made free by the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment.

 

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