William H. Ward
Florida Pioneer
William
H. Ward was born on October 5, 1794 in South Carolina.
His family moved to Coffee Co. Georgia when he was
just a child. He grew up, came to Florida and married
Rosetta Jones, born in 1796 in South Carolina and later from Nassau County Florida. In
1818 they settled at Middleburg in Clay County Florida where his
seven children were born, the youngest being Emra Priest Ward. About 1840 he moved his family from
Middleburg in a covered wagon and settled on a homestead on the Sante
Fe River
near the present site of Brooker, Florida. This
settlement was first known as Fort Ward, as he
established a fort there during the Seminole Indian Wars.
The land on which he settled was homesteaded
from the Federal Government.
William
Ward was a brave and courageous man. In
pioneer days the houses were built of logs
and the kitchens were usually built away from the main dwelling. The well was dug off to one side about the
same distance from both the kitchen and house.
Each morning, William would rise at the crack of dawn, go to the
well
and draw a bucket of water to wash his face and hands.
Once while he was drawing water, an Indian,
hiding behind a peach tree with a gun, raised the gun to shoot Ward. Just at that instant a Negro slave walked up
to the Indian from the rear and snatched the gun away saving his
master’s life.
This did not seem to faze William and he
went about his work as usual until after breakfast when he picked up
his gun
and went away for a few hours. When he
returned, he put up his gun and went back to his work without a word. A few days later a dead Indian was found in
the swamp behind his large plantation.
This was near the close of the Indian War and as far as is
known, this
was the last Indian killed in that territory.
After
the war was over an Indian came to see him one
day and told how the Indians had feared him, and of the many times they
had
tried to kill him and had failed.
William had a piece of his ear
bitten off during a fight with an Indian and this redskin told him that
he was
the one who did it, and complimented him on being such a brave fighter.
During
his early years as a Florida pioneer he
was one of the signers of a petition to the President of the United States in 1832 asking for an
appointment of
Colonel James Gadsden to the position of Governor of Florida. After
Florida became a
state and the first elections were held on May 26, 1845, William
Ward was recorded as voter # 40 at Precinct #1, which was the home of
John
Dryden in Columbia County.
In the
1850 census of
Florida, still living in Columbia County, those listed in the
household
of William H. Ward were William, age 54; Rosetta, age 54; Elizabeth,
age 21;
John G., age 20; Amanda, age 18; and Emra, age 14. Other
children born to them were: William H.
(1826), Emma (1826), and Richard (1821).
Columbia County later was
named New
River
and then named Bradford County.
William
Ward, his wife Rosetta, and some of their
children are buried at old New Hope Primitive Baptist Church in the
northern edge of Alachua County on the
Sante Fe River. His last resting place
is less than ten miles from where he staked out his homestead in 1840
as one of
the town’s earliest settlers and lived his life as a pioneer citizen.
Emra Priest Ward and Margaret
Godwin
Emra
Priest Ward was born May 17, 1836 in Middleburg, Florida. He
was the youngest child of William H.
Ward. He went with his family in a
covered wagon to settle near Brooker, Florida in New River County. On
October 24, 1861 he married Margaret Godwin,
born July 10, 1846, and the
daughter of Robert Jacob Godwin and Elizabeth Curry.
In 1862 he enlisted in the Confederate Army
and served in the 2nd Regimental Cavalry.
He fought at the Battle of Olustee
and finished out his service as a guard at Andersonville, the famed
prison camp in Georgia. When
the war was over he returned to his home
and began his family. Emra and his wife
Margaret had ten children. They were
Laura (b. 1865), William (b.1868), Thomas (b. 1870), Emra (b. 1872),
John (b.
1874), Olive J. (b. 1876), James (b. 1880), Margaret (b. 1884), Rosetta
(b.
1886) and Samuel (b.1888). A child, Ana,
was born in 1882 and died in 1883.
In 1892
Emra deeded the right-of-way through his
property to the Ambler Lumber Company of Jacksonville for the sum of
one dollar
to encourage the building of a railroad through the area, providing the
rail be
built within three years from the date of the deed.
There was a gentleman’s agreement that the
station would be named Ward City. Thus
Brooker, Florida was first known as Ward
City and later was incorporated as Brooker.
The railroad line was completed in 1895 from Starke to the Suwannee River, passing
through Sampson City, Brooker,
LaCrosse, Alachua, and Bell.
Emra
Ward served as a member of the Florida Legislature
in the House of Representatives from Bradford County in the 1897
session during the second term of Governor W. D. Bloxham.
Emra P.
Ward and his wife Margaret Godwin are buried
in the family plot at Ward City Baptist Church in Brooker
where they were both members for many years.
Margaret
Godwin Ward was the daughter of Robert Jacob
Godwin and Elizabeth Curry. Robert Jacob
Godwin was born in Washington Co., Georgia on March
18, 1807. He was the son of Solomon
Godwin born November 12, 1771who married Mary Reid, daughter of Murray Reid and
Susannah Patton on November 12, 1801.
Solomon died February 10, 1820 in Georgia and around 1825, Mary
Godwin
brought her young family to Columbia County, Florida where she raised
her children;
Samuel, Micager Thomas, Robert Jacob, Susannah, Richard Jefferson,
Murray, and
Soloman.
Robert
Jacob Godwin, son of Soloman and Mary Godwin,
and father of Margaret Godwin married Elizabeth Sparkman, born January
20, 1819
in Duval Co. Florida, daughter of James Sparkman and Carey Tison, and
they had
a son, James Madison Godwin. Elizabeth died in
1834. Jacob fought in the Seminole
Indian Wars of 1836, appears in the American State Papers in 1839, and
Territorial papers dated January 26, 1839.
He also signed the petition to divide the Territory into
distinct
governments of East, Middle and West Florida dated August
24, 1839. Jacob married Elizabeth Curry, born 1820 in
Georgia, on Dec. 12, 1843. They had
seven children; Hardy, Margaret, Elizabeth, Thomas, Jane, Rhoda, and
Mariah.
Jacob
and his brother moved to New River where he
had a mill on the Sante Fe and New Rivers. He
also had a blacksmith shop and a
horse-operated cotton gin. He was a
pillar of the new River Primitive Baptist Church and his log house,
which had
gun ports, was a refuge from Indians for the people of the neighborhood. He was very talented mechanically and made
everything needed by the family, including the looms on which the women
wove their
cloth. He died
on January 13, 1872 at New River, Bradford County. He
is buried on the old Newton Johns place
along the river.
Emra
Priest Ward and Margaret Godwin had many
children, and their daughter Rosetta Frances Ward was born November 25,
1886 in
Brooker, Florida. She
married James Alphonso Abbott, Jr. on February
3, 1907
at the
courthouse in Starke, Florida in
Bradford, County. James and Rosetta had
six children all born in Brooker except the youngest child Elizabeth
who was
born in Plant City, Florida. James
died at Plant City, FL on May
25, 1969. Rosetta died at Plant City, FL on
March 4, 1972. They are both buried at
Memorial Park Cemetery, Plant City, FL.
The
children of James A. Abbott and Rosetta Ward are:
Gerald
Emery ABBOTT b. Jun 17, 1908 in Brooker, FL, d.
Oct 2, 1987, married Gladys Louise ELLIS
Margaret
ABBOTT born May 4, 1910 in Brooker, FL, d. 1995,
married Truett SEWELL
Lucille
ABBOTT, born Nov 26, 1912 in Brooker, FL,
married (1) Zack BARRINGTON, (2) Howard SMITH, (3) Harry RIDDLING
Melba
ABBOTT, born Jan. 7, 1916, Brooker, FL, married
Paul WOODALL
James
Marvin ABBOTT, born Nov 17, 1920, married Inez
(unknown)
Elizabeth
ABBOTT, born Jan 8, 1922 in Plant City, FL,
married (1) Nolan CANOVA, (2) George Morris BLAIR