Gordon is a community in northern

Alachua County Alachua County ( ) is a county in the north central portion of the U.S. state of Florida. As of the 2020 census, the population was 278,468. The county seat is Gainesville, the home of the University of Florida since 1906, when the campus ope ...

, Florida. Garth Wilkinson "Wilkie" James established a cotton plantation in Gordon after the

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

. James was a younger brother of

Henry James Henry James ( – ) was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the ...

and

William James William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher, historian, and psychologist, and the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States. James is considered to be a leading thinker of the lat ...

, and an abolitionist. He served as an officer with the

54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment The 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment was an infantry regiment that saw extensive service in the Union Army during the American Civil War. The unit was the second African-American regiment, following the 1st Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry ...

in the Civil War and was severely wounded at the

Battle of Fort Wagner The Second Battle of Fort Wagner, also known as the Second Assault on Morris Island or the Battle of Fort Wagner, Morris Island, was fought on July 18, 1863, during the American Civil War. Union Army troops commanded by Brig. Gen. Quincy Gill ...

. He returned to service with the 54th before the end of the war, when the regiment was in Florida. After the Civil War,

John Murray Forbes John Murray Forbes (February 23, 1813 – October 12, 1898) was an American railroad magnate, merchant, philanthropist and abolitionist. He was president of both the Michigan Central railroad and the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad in ...

, a staunch abolitionist and a friend of Wilkie James' father,

Henry James Sr. Henry James Sr. (June 3, 1811December 18, 1882) was an American theologian, father of the philosopher William James, the novelist Henry James, and the diarist Alice James. Following a dramatic moment of spiritual enlightenment, he became deepl ...

, advocated the development of cotton farming in the South using the labor of

freedmen A freedman or freedwoman is a formerly enslaved person who has been released from slavery, usually by legal means. Historically, enslaved people were freed by manumission (granted freedom by their captor-owners), abolitionism, emancipation (gra ...

. With funds from Forbes and from his father, James began buying largely undeveloped land in Gordon in February 1866. He eventually spent $40,000 for about of land, which was then cleared and planted in cotton. James' aunt, Catherine James Temple, also invested in the plantation, but most of the funds came from Henry James Sr., eventually taking a large part of his wealth. James hoped that the plantation would help bring equality and education to the freedmen, writing that "the freed negro under decent and just treatment can be worked to profit by employer and employee". The plantation included a school serving white and black students. A post office was opened in 1866, with James serving as postmaster, and closed in 1869. Like thousands of other northerners who bought up cheap land in the South and tried to create new plantations employing freedmen, Wilkie James had no experience farming. In the Autumn of 1867 Wilkie returned to his parents' home suffering from malaria. The cotton crop had done very poorly that year, due to ''incessant rains and catterpillars''. The price of cotton had greatly fallen, from $1.00 per pound at the end of the Civil War to 14 cents a pound in 1867. Neighboring whites were hostile to James's treatment of blacks as equals, and night riders harassed the black workers on the plantation. The cotton crop failed again in 1868 and 1869. James was able to return Forbe's investment within a couple of years. Wilkie was also able to repay his aunt Kate, but was unable to return his father's investment. Wilkie was hospitalized for his malaria in the summer of 1869. He then returned to Florida to sell off what he could of the failed plantation. James left the state in 1871. By the 1880s, Gordon was described as a fairly prosperous farming community. Monteocha Park is a county park located in Gordon ( Monteocha is another community adjacent to Gordon).

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Sources

* * * * Unincorporated communities in Florida Alachua County, Florida {{AlachuaCountyFL-geo-stub