Thomas Jefferson Land
Submitted by Descendants: Charles Edward and Scarlett Estella SCOTT
Sumter Land may have been born in South Carolina, but Florida was his home for many years. He is shown as a signer on an 1831 petition to the United States Congress requesting an arsenal be built near the town of Ocheesee on the Apalachicola River to make the area more secure for the few settlers living there.
According to family history, he was, ironically, killed and scalped by two renegade Indians on 18 May 1840 when his homestead was raided. Sumter and his twenty year old son Thomas were in the fields when he saw the Indians approaching his home. Thomas, who was wounded in the initial attack, was sent to alert the family while Sumter lured the Indians towards himself. Sumter’s wife Sarah was bathing the smaller children, so she threw water and towels on the fire to make thick smoke. Twelve year old James and baby Stephen were put on one horse and the rest of the children on the other horse and the family walked about 12 miles to safety at Fort Gadsden. Men from the fort rode quickly to the farm where they found Sumter’s body and everything destroyed and burned.
The son Thomas voted in the first State of Florida election in 1845 and became an attorney in Jackson County, and in Calhoun County, he was census enumerator in 1850, sheriff from 1852-1855 and Property Appraiser and Tax Collector in 1852 and 1853. He joined the Confederate Army, assigned to the 2nd Florida Calvary, Companies E and G, where he served as Sergeant.
About 1850, he married Catherine N. Clark and they had eleven children, nine living to adulthood. It is believed Thomas died in 1859 and is buried in Calhoun County.
Sumter Land was first established as Florida Pioneers in 2008
Thomas Jefferson Land was first established as Florida Pioneers in 2008