Casa de Laga Plantation was a forced-labor farm of located in west central Leon County,

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

, United States established by George Alexander Croom. It was also known as the Ball and McCabe Place and later as Shidzuoka. In 1860, 70

enslaved people Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

worked the land, which was primarily devoted to producing cotton as a

cash crop A cash crop or profit crop is an Agriculture, agricultural crop which is grown to sell for profit. It is typically purchased by parties separate from a farm. The term is used to differentiate marketed crops from staple crop (or "subsistence crop") ...

Location

Casa de Laga was located along the southwest shores of Lake Jackson. Today the plantation's grounds are the neighborhoods surrounding Harriet Drive, Longview Drive, Faulk Drive, Shady Oaks Drive, and slightly across N. Monroe Street or U.S. Highway 27.

1860 plantation specifics

The Leon County Florida 1860 Agricultural Census shows that the Casa de Laga Plantation had the following: * Improved Land: * Unimproved Land: * Cash value of plantation: $15,000 * Cash value of farm implements/machinery: $500 * Cash value of farm animals: $5850 * Number of slaves: 70 * Bushels of corn: 3,000 * Bales of cotton: 200 Croom had 96 head of cattle, 100 sheep and 100 swine. He also produced 200 pounds of wool and slaughtered livestock valued at $3000.

Owners

George Alexander Croom, was born October 7, 1821. He married Julia M. Church, who was the daughter of

Alonzo Church Alonzo Church (June 14, 1903 – August 11, 1995) was an American mathematician, computer scientist, logician, philosopher, professor and editor who made major contributions to mathematical logic and the foundations of theoretical computer scienc ...

, the sixth president of the

University of Georgia , mottoeng = "To teach, to serve, and to inquire into the nature of things.""To serve" was later added to the motto without changing the seal; the Latin motto directly translates as "To teach and to inquire into the nature of things." , establ ...

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...

on February 13, 1843. George Alexander Croom was the father of Alonzo Church Croom, Comptroller of the State of Florida from 1900 until his death on December 7, 1912 and the brother of Hardy Bryan Croom, a planter and recognized naturalist, who discovered the rare

Florida torreya ''Torreya taxifolia'', commonly known as Florida torreya or stinking-cedar, but also sometimes as Florida nutmeg or gopher wood, is an endangered subcanopy tree of the yew family, Taxaceae. It is native to only a small glacial refugium in the s ...

tree and established Goodwood Plantation. He died July 5, 1890. In 1883 Casa de Laga was sold to H. D. McColloch of

Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

. McColloch then sold the plantation 6 months later to Professor E. Warren Clark of

Narragansett Pier, Rhode Island Narragansett Pier is an unincorporated village and a census-designated place (CDP) in the town of Narragansett in Washington County, Rhode Island, United States. The population was 3,409 at the 2010 census. Geography Narragansett Pier is locate ...

and Austn M. Purvis of

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

. Clark would eventually turn the plantation into a game preserve. In 1891, a Charles T. Wilson of Cincinnati opened the Lake Jackson Hunting Lodge on the property.

External links

Rootsweb Plantations

{{coord missing, Florida Plantations in Leon County, Florida Cotton plantations in Florida

Location

1860 plantation specifics

Owners

See also

Further reading

External links