Submitted by Descendants: Katherine Grace and Nancy K. EVANS; Josephine Searle KING
William Gorman was born in Camden, County, Georgia, about 1790 and purchased land in the Waukeenah vicinity of Jefferson County, Florida, in 1826. A Leon County, Florida, marriage book shows an entry for William Gorman and Elizabeth Carney on 23 February 1827. Elizabeth was born on Amelia Island, Florida, in 1801. She appears to have received land in Jefferson County as part of her dowry and in June of 1831. William sold 240 acres that Elizabeth had relinquished from this dowry.
Mustering into the Florida Militia’s 9th Regiment, William fought in the Second Indian War. He was sworn in as the Justice of the Peace in April 1842 and voted in the first statewide election in May 1845.
Through the early 1840’s, William continued to purchase land in Jefferson and Gadsden Counties. His death occurred in March of 1857 in Jefferson County, and his will named their firstorn, Robert as the executor for his extensive estate.
Robert Gorman was born circa 1829 in Florida and grew up on his family’s cotton plantation in Jefferson County. He received his Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Maryland in 1852 and returned to Florida. In the early 1850s Robert married a woman named Virginia E. The middle name for two of their eight children is Morgan, the possible surname of their mother Virginia.
In June 1854 rober was appointed delegate from Jefferson County to the Democratic State Convention. By 1859 he had moved his family to Loudoun County, Virginia, where he started a medical practice, continuing to administer the Florida properties from his father’s estate.
Robert’s mother, Elizabeth, had moved to Gadsden County after William’s death and lived with her second son, William C. After William C. died during the Civil War, Elizabeth then moved to Virginia to live with Robert.
Upon Robert’s death in 1879, Elizabeth returned to her farm in Gadsden County where she was joined by two of her daughters. At the age of 81, Elizabeth died on 18 March 1881 in Gadsden County.
Robert Gorman, William Gorman and Elizabeth Carney were
first established as Florida Pioneers in 2010