Abstract
Moving from Baltimore to the wilds of Florida in 1827 held for Thomas and Laura Wirt Randall both promise and uncertainty. He had practiced law in Maryland and would preside as a superior court judge in Florida. Laura, the daughter of United States Attorney General William Wirt, came from a similarly cloistered background and was ill-prepared for life on the frontier. The recently married couple settled in Jefferson County, in the heart of Middle Florida, a region bounded on the east and west by the Suwanee and Appalachicola rivers and containing some of the South’s more fertile soil.1 It was here, in what Randall refers to as the “woods country,” that they built a home and named the new residence Belmont.
Recommended Citation
Rogers, Jr., William Warren
(1996)
""As to the People": Thomas and Laura Randall's Observations on Life and Labor in Early Middle Florida,"
Florida Historical Quarterly: Vol. 75:
No.
4, Article 6.
Available at:
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/fhq/vol75/iss4/6
