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Francis Council
Groom, the second son of Council (b.1786, NC) and Elizabeth Lofton (b.1792,
SC), left his home in Todd Ct. Ky., in 1833, when he was 22 years old. He
traveled to Stewart County. Ga., near the town of Lumpkin .
He had two Aunts (Daughters of his Grand Parents, Elijah Groom (Croom) and Caty
Herring, living in Stewart Ct. The Aunts were named Mary Groom Miller and
Zeptha Ann Groom Crumbly. Frances
had eight siblings and all except one have recorded descendants with names,
Watson, Clark, McGuirk, Gandy, Collins, Posey and of
course Groom. Frances’s
parents along with his younger brother Andrew Jackson Groom lived out their
lives in Coosa, Ct. Al. and are buried there.
While living in
Stewart Ct., Ga. Frances
met and married (1844) Catherine Elizabeth Adams (b. 1830, GA.) daughter of
Miles Adams (1790) and Ann Mayo (1794). In 1853 a group of people, including
Frances and Elizabeth, moved from Stewart Ct.
to Thomas County. Ga. They settled in an area about four miles north of the town of
Boston. About 1855, The Frances
Groom family moved once again to the area of Camillia, Mitchell County, Ga., where Frances
purchased a farm and continued his lifelong role of planter and grower.
During 1863,
Frances Groom found the political climate in Mitchell
County, too harsh to endure. He was not a Confederate
sympathizer and apparently just wanted to be left alone. The pressure from his
neighbors and the new laws that made military service mandatory, forced his
hand and he sold his farm for 20 pieces of gold. He packed his family and
belongings and moved by wagon almost due south to the extreme southern part of
Jefferson County, Fl.
Florida
had achieved statehood in 1845 which was about the same time as the great expansion of the cotton culture in the southeastern United
States. This resulted in a land boom in that
part of Florida composed of clay
hills and loam soil; this area became known as “Middle Florida”. Most of the
arable land in that part of Middle Florida that became Leon,
Jefferson,Madison and Suwannee Counties
was quickly acquired by the monied settlers who came from Maryland,
Virginia and the Carolinas.
These planters came prepared to practice agriculture in the grand manner of the
cotton growing states and they bought their culture of slave ownership with
them. Two things pushed Frances
to the isolated southern tip of Jefferson County;
1st – Privacy; 2nd – The only available land.
This was the Florida
that Frances
moved his growing family into in 1863.
The area where Frances
settled was known as ‘Big Muddy” around a natural depression later called Groom
Sink. This was in an area just south of
the village of Wacissa,
near the old salt road from Magnolia to the St. Marks River. In this isolated
area, Frances found a community of other dissidents (many were deserters from
the Confederate Army) who were called rogues, outlaws and henchmen by the more
refined citizens of Jefferson County. Originally this rogue group just took
advantage of any chance encounter that might fill there lauder but as time went
by they became more organized and were eventually formed into a military unit
let by another deserter, William Strickland. Frances Groome’s name is found on
the roster of this unit and the story of his transition from henchman to
soldier is quiet interesting.
The group of
renegades who later became Stricklands Rangers had been a constant (if minor)
problem for the district military commander in Tallahassee.
Many actions had been taken to try and round up the rogues with very little
success. Early in 1864 an order was circulated offering pardon to any outlaw who would join
the Confederate Army and serve their country. If not, you would be shot on
sight, your property would be seized or destroyed and your family would be held
accountable for your actions. History doesn’t record how many men took this
offer but the actions of the Confederates indicate that most did not. The homes
of Francis Groom and about twenty other men were destroyed and the families
were arrested and transported to Fort Smith,
near Tallahassee. One of the
results of this action was that Frances
traveled to St. Simmons, Ga,
where a Union Regiment held a toehold on the coast of Georgia.
Frances changed
from a volunteer local militiaman to a professional soldier by joining the
Regular Union Army. Frances
was transported around Florida to
the Union camp at Cedar Key, Florida.
This unit was assigned the duty of disrupting the salt mining operations going
on along the gulf coast.
After only several weeks in Cedar Key, Frances
was stricken down by dysentery and was buried in the military cemetery in Cedar
Key. (On a sad note, this cemetery was laid out on one of the barrier islands
and has been almost totally lost to storm erosion.) For years locals would pick
up wooden grave markers along the waterfront.
After a short incarceration, the wives of Strickland’s
Rangers petitioned the Governor of Florida saying, “they were not responsible
for their husband’s political leanings but their husbands were responsible for
supporting them and their children.” Whether the Governor was moved by their
words or because there were desperately short on provisions, the Governor
ordered the release of the prisoners and the rough trip back to the Big Muddy
started. In Elizabeth’s case the
trip was even more daunting, she had heard about Frances
joining the Union Army and she had nothing to go back to in Jefferson
Ct., so she secured a mule and wagon and started
off for Cedar Key. There were no modern roads and very few bridges so the trip
from Tallahassee to Cedar Key could
take a week or longer. As Elizabeth
was passing thru Taylor County.,
she received news that Frances
was dead. With nowhere to go, she decided to return to Jefferson
County and try to start over. Just west of Perry, Fl.,
the exhaustion finally overtook Elizabeth.
Luckily she found an abandoned house that was fully provisioned and she decided
to rest awhile.
Several days later Samuel Blue arrived and reclaimed his
house. He had recently lost his wife, Susannah, and had been staying with
relatives who could help care for his young children. Apparently an agreement
was reached that Elizabeth would
care for Samuel’s children in exchange for room and board for herself and her
children. Out of this agreement came the
marriage of Elizabeth and Samuel Blue within a year. One child was born to this
union, Melinda Blue (b.1868). Samuel’s oldest son, Colin, married (1865) Elizabeth’s
oldest daughter, Elizabeth Ann. From this union came a large family and the
beginning of the relationship of the Groom/Blue families of Taylor
and Jefferson Counties.
From the safety of 5 generations removed from the Big Muddy
it’s easy to pass judgment on complicated times and circumstances: I don’t
think that Frances and Elizabeth are heroes in the classic sense. I think they
were simple people who got caught up in events that were probably way over
their heads. There is no evidence that Frances
was a deep thinker and no writings of his have ever been found. The Groom and
Blue families both owned slaves, they both probably rustled some cattle and
they probably did what ever was necessary to put food on the table. There is no
evidence of high moral thoughts, no evidence of superior pursuits or interest.
They were just simple “dirt farmers”. God Fearing poor people who just wanted
to find the next meal and love their children. They were survivors and for that
I am eternally grateful. By the way, Frances
was an extremely frugal man. After the war, the family still had 16 of the
original 20 gold pieces from selling the family farm in Georgia,
to divide up and start over.
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