Shadrack Taylor

Quick Facts

Significance:

Florida Homesteader

Place of Birth:

Georgia

Date of Birth:

About 1827

Place of Death:

Live Oak, Suwannee County, Florida

Date of Death:

September/October 1883

How and when Shadrack and Jane Taylor came to Florida is not known. However, they were in Suwannee County, Florida, by October 8, 1866, when Shadrack filed Homestead Application 209 with Justice of the Peace W.A. Brimson for "eighty acres of land said land being the North Half of the South East quarter of Section Twelve (12) Range (13) Thirteen Township (2) Two South and East".

Taylor's application was written entirely by hand by the Justice of the Peace and signed with Taylor's mark. In four-days’ time it made its way nearly 90 miles to the Tallahassee, Florida Land Office. There the Receiver's Receipt was officially issued for a fee of $2.00. The land entry on this receipt was originally written with a land description of "North Half of South East Quarter of Section Twelve (12) in Township Two (2) South of Range Thirteen (13) East". The total acreage is not listed on this receipt.

The Tallahassee Land Office tract book shows Taylor's land entry as N1/2 of SE1/4 of Section 12, Township 2S, Range 13E at 39.89 acres. This shows a clerical error since the original application was for 80 acres, with the same land description. Going back to the October 12th Receiver's Receipt, the original "North Half" of the South East quarter was crossed out at a later time, and "North West" was written above, which reduced the acreage by 40 acres. It is also worth mentioning that at the bottom of the original handwritten application, the claim was noted as 79.78 acres.

Three years later, on May 20th, 1869, Taylor filled out an amendment to his Homestead Application, also number 209, to embrace only the NW1/4 of SE1/4 of Section 12 in Township 2S, Range 13E, containing 39.89 acres, signed with Shadrack Taylor's mark, and issued by Register Chad Mundee at the Tallahassee Land Office. It is not known at this time if this was Taylor’s choice to amend or a way to correct the clerical error; overall, it officially reduced the claim by 40 acres.

Shadrack and his wife appeared in the 1880 census, both reportedly born in Georgia about 1827 and 1828, respectively. They lived next door to, Randel Farnell, also a Black Florida homesteader. Shadrack states in the 1880 census that his father was from the District of Columbia, and his mother was from Spain. However, he does not appear in the federal census again.

According to an affidavit made on July 22, 1884, by Taylor's wife Jane, Shadrack had died in October 1883. She stated that they lived on the land when he filed for the application in 1866. She stated that they had built a house, fenced the land, cleared, and cultivated it, living continuously on the land until Shadrack’s death. Mrs. Taylor goes on to state that she had continued to live on the land after his death until the present. However, she stated that due to his “illiteracy” and his “ignorance of the law,” Taylor had failed to “prove up” and make “final proof,” of his “continuous occupation and cultivation” of his said homestead within the “statutory period.” Therefore, the claim had been cancelled on March 13, 1876.

Subsequently, on April 22, 1879, “May Rigon” made Application 7148, on the same land as Shadrack Taylor’s. Jane goes on to attest that May Rigon had not lived one single day on the property and that she had, in fact, left the state of Florida shortly after filing and resided in Georgia ever since. Mrs. Taylor said, however, that she had continuously resided on the homestead claim noted in her husband’s Application 209. Therefore, she was requesting that May Rigon’s application be set aside in favor of Shadrack’s, and that she, as his widow, should be allowed to make final proof and complete the application.

Mrs. Taylor was represented by John Bynum, son of William Forsyth Bynum, Deputy Clerk of the Court. Bynum had witnessed for Black Homesteader Henry McGehee, who also acquired Homestead property in Section 12. John Bynum also a Homestead property claimant in Section 12. On the same day that Jane Taylor testified, Elijah Smith (a Black Homesteader in Section 2, not 12) and Edward “Ned” Wilson (hyperlink) (another Black Homesteader in Section 12) gave testimony on Jane’s behalf. They testified that everything she had said was true.

Mrs. Taylor would not live to see resolution because by October 1884, she too had died. The probate Judge, R. W. Phillips, certified on February 8, 1886, that Adelice Goldwire was one of the heirs of Shadrack Taylor. However, the day Adelice testified she was unable to produce the Receiver’s Receipt for Shadrack’s Application 209. Nothing more is known about Adelice currently.

On February 17, 1886, a receipt for $97.73 was issued to the “Heirs of Shadrack Taylor,” who lived in Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia. The heirs commuted Taylor's homestead to a Cash Entry on the public domain, Application 11102, for 79.78 acres described as the North ½ of the SE ¼ of Section 12. This is the same original land description for Shadrack’s 1866 homestead. A Cash Entry patent was finally issued on June 26, 1889. However, the patent was not registered with the Suwannee County Registrar of Deeds until June 29, 1909.

Patent Details - BLM GLO Records

~ Contributed by Margo Lee Williams

Margo Lee Williams

More about the contributor: Margo Lee Williams is the great granddaughter of Florida Homesteader, Randel Farnell and his wife, Sallie Jacobs Farnell. Williams is an award-winning author and genealogist/family historian, having published three books. She is currently the Deputy Registrar for the Sons and Daughters of the United States Middle Passage (SDUSMP), and a former editor of the Journal of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society. She recently contributed three Florida Homestead stories to the book, Black Homesteaders of the South, by Bernice Alexander Bennett (The History Press, 2022). Williams is a graduate of Marquette University and has her M. A. degree in Sociology from Hunter College, and an M. A. in Religious Education from The Catholic University of America. She worked as a Religious Education director for over 20 years at various Washington, D. C., area churches and another eight years as a National Service Officer with Vietnam Veterans of America. Though born and raised in New York City, she currently lives in Maryland.