Questionnaire: "History" Viola Muse Transcription Zariah Grant Encoding and edition Savannah Almond Edition Laura Heffernan Edition Tru Leverette Edition Clayton McCarl

This document was produced as part of the Viola Muse Digital Edition, based at the University of North Florida.

https://violamuse.unfdhi.org/items/show/42 USA Florida Jacksonville Jacksonville Historical Society Viola Muse Collection (1959-18) Folder 6, Item 6 A list of questions and instructions for gathering information about the history of African American communities, with specific references to North Florida

Typed, 2 pages

Document transcribed and encoded following the criteria of the Viola Muse Digital Edition (violamuse.unfdhi.org), based at the University of North Florida.
History

Give exact dates whenever possible.

Give as much information as possible regarding the Suarez grant and its relation to Negroes. (Note: The Suarez grant comprised the land which is Jacksonville proper.) Any other land grants affecting Negroes.

Make a search of old Superior Court Records (of East Florida) and gather data from them relative to Negroes. Note: Superior Court Records can be found at St. Augustine, Florida.

What records of Zephaniah Kingsley can you find in your dis–trict? For the life and ideas of Zephaniah Kingsley, who owned a plantation in what is now Jacksonville, Florida, see Daniel L. Schafer, Zephaniah Kingsley, Jr: Slave Trader, Plantation Owner, Emancipator, Gainesville: Univ. of Florida Press, 2013. Of Black Caesar? For the legand of the eighteenth-century pirate Black Caesar, see Kevin McCarthy, African American Sites in Florida, 2007, Sarasota, Pineapple Press, 2019, p. 155. A novel about Black Caesar was published in 1922, possibly accounting, in part, for the interest shown by the author or authors of this questionnaire. See Albert P. Terhune, Black Caesar's Clan: A Florida Mystery Story, New York, A.L. Burt, 1922.

Do any of the writing of HarriettHarriet Beecher Stowe and other great writers concern any person or places in your district? Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, lived in the village of Mandarin, near Jacksonville, Florida, 1867–1884. Her book Palmetto–leaves (Boston, James R. Osgood and Co, 1873), a collection of her writings about North Florida, is generally credited as representing a key moment in the transition of Florida into a tourist destination. See also the collection Calling Yankees to Florida: Harriet Beecher Stowe's Forgotten Tourist Articles, edited by John T. Foster and Sarah W. Foster, Cocoa, Florida, The Florida Historical Society Press, 2011. Can you locate any descendants of such persons.? (Any stories of her residence in Florida.)

Do the records of your district include any historical land grants to Negroes? Submit copies of them.

History
Additions

If you explain your mission when applying to an abstract com–pany for information, they will most probably be glad to give you the same.

(5) Make copies of original Spanish Grants. The Spanish began issuing land grants in 1790 in an attempt to populate Florida. The Florida Historical Records Survey published English translations of selected grants in Translations of Unique Spanish Land Grants and Deeds in the Field Note Division, Department of Agriculture, Jacksonville, Fla., 1937. The records are available in digital format through the State Archives and Library of Florida.

Probably some of these grants will be found in your district. ifIf not, most of the original Spanish Grants are kept at the General Land Grant Office in Gainesville, Florida. These grants should be furnished you upon request to copy.

(6) Make a list of all Negro men in the political life of Florida and also get a biographical sketch of individual.

(7) Get the biographies of all individuals of prominence, past and present, in your district.

Note: Authentic information as to persons connected with the police department, —city, county, or state —in most in–stances can be obtained from the department in which person was connected.

In most cases where the history of a family is desired, con–tact attorney of the family or some of the old attorneys who are located in the vicinity where family lived.

Sometimes it will be necessary to write to the Courthousecourthouse of counties in which persons have died to get data in regard to their death and affairs. If it is a matter of record, it History--#2 A technical limitation currently presents us from centering this header in the transcription. will be furnished free, but sometimes a small fee will be asked.

It will probably be necessary to visit the grave yardgraveyard in which body of deceased party in whom you might be in–terested, is interred to ascertain birth and death of said party. If there is a tombstone, the information sought will be in most cases inscribed thereon.