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Hz'. J. J. O. Coeper Fernandina a.
The Srewatds located near what is now Duval Station.
Recently, a deiscyenliant') of Atm Thorp'', told me that in an old
house in the Carolinas owned by the family for many you're, she
hat found some letters in the attio telling -of this migration
to Amelia Island and their settlement there,' The letters
.stated they came into the little mpanish oity Of Fernandina -and
saw the Officers in oharqe and obtained their grants' the nest
day. The Spanish authorities told them they would have to live
on the land a certain time to obtain their final title from the
Spanish Government representatives at St. Augustine.
have found many old papers and made transcripts of the
papers of the Harrison family, who WW1 about 1790, and received
their grant in 1796. This testimony shows jnot what had been
raised the previous year on the Harrison Plantation and how
much money they had reoeived in Spanish gold for their orops
ries, cattle, sorn, sea /eland cotton, and the teetimony showed,
that this was one of the finest pluntatious in the eouth.
Another very interesting thing in connesotion with this
testimony was that it stated in one of the buildings they had
a machine for separating the seed from the Gotten.
I have been told that Ali Whitney, who invented the eotton
gin I believe in 1790 or probably 1792 visited an
ounberland Island about that time across from Fernandina and
it is Probable he met the plantation owners and that this one
of his early machines), was used on the Harrison plantation.
This transcript of testimony I turned over to Mrs. nm,
Harrison, of Jacksonville, Florida, whose husband is a direot
deseendant of this Sam Harrison.
a. a. o. 000por sernandina
4.
The eons of this first Harrison were Hobert, saw and
dpbrain. They dividodcup the land.
Robert.Harrison had a son who was a aojoi. Ii. married
nary Cooper who was a sister of Goneral Janos Cooper who wurriod4
the Vaughan girl.
•Tho first Hobert -Harrison was an officer of sone kind in
the lnglish army while his wife Mary's father was an °Moor
of the Hsvolutionary Army.
granddaughter
Hpbraia Morrison married Atli* Cooper, a Wiams of old
Co]. jOhn Cooper. Their son was -Saw Harrison, Sr., one of
whose sons was Roy Harrison, and the other is Co]. San Harrison,
now of the 4ilitoi State* Army in the Phil11111floO.
Robort Harrison bad a son, Hobert Harrison, who was a
UojOr in the Confederate Arny, serving with oonsiderable distilla-
tion, and spout the rest of his life after the War between the
States, on tbo old plantationrs
After the War was over, major Kobort Harrison deeded part
of one thousand sores which he had aoquirod just south of the
original Harrison plantation to different slaves he had owned
who remained faithful, and their desoeniants stiil live in this
land up towards the other end of the Island, known as Franklin
town.
node out a will for Bllsn Drummond, one of thee. ilOves,
bn May 25, 1929, in her nineties then, and she must have been
nosily a hundred when Oho diet. She spoke the most perfoot
Snglish. Aunt Allen, as everybody pallid her, said she acquired
her good oduaation by sitting in the back of the sohool-room
J. J. G. Cooper Pernandina
on the plantation while the ohildren were receiving their
odusation from private tutors, and she learned just us they did.
Norris DrumnOmd, one of Wum$ Ellea's sons, has the largest
sootion of this land and lives there now with some of his
ohil-
drin. His father was major Harrison's body servant during
the War, and his grandmother was wary Cooper's personal maid,
that she brought with her when she emus to be married.
In the oourthoues here in tho first book of deeds is a
re-reoord made in 1864 of a-Aesd made by the iirst lobar% Harrison
in trust to John Vaughan, his neighbor, also Col. John Cooper,
his father-in-law, and James, brother of Col. John Cooper,
Harrison reoiting that"whereas, on, June 13, 1810, ho was to be
married to Mary SW Cooper, of Darien, Georgia, that he mad*
this trust of all three plantations and one hundred slaves."
It was the custom in these days, when, wman was going to
be married, to put a oonsiderablo portion of his property in
trust for his wife, so that if h3 had any business reverses,
she woula be proteotod.
This deed was probably rsoordod in thi early days and the
recorda destroyed by fire, of iwhioh we have no data, and the
deed ro-reoorded in the first book of reoordO.(A little thin
book).
The fine oll homes of those plantations wore destroyed during
the War between the States by the Northern troops on one of their
visits to Amelia Island.
(To be oontinust)