| 11.SAMUEL AUGUSTUS FLOYD born 30 January 1814 in GA; never married. At the 1837 regatta held at Frederica on St. Simons Island, he entered his boat, Volant, in the third race where there
was "much excitement and considerable betting" ("Boating As A Sport In The Old South," by E. Merton Coulter - GA Hist. Quarterly Sept. 1943). Samuel A. Floyd was a fine musician who played both the piano & the violin. He was listed on the 1850 CCG census: Occupation - Musician; Head of household; his mother was living with him. From Henry Hamilton Floyd's "Journal": On 23 March 1852 - "Samuel A. Floyd ripped his violin, 'The Black Joke,' and has glued it all together again. This old instrument has been behaving badly for some time, and Sam'l supposed there was something wrong in the inside, which proved to be true. The strip fastened to the top as a strengthener was split. I glued a violin for Sam'l, which Dr. Francis W. Sams sent him some time ago." On 08 July 1852 - "After an early supper Sam'l A. Floyd & myself fire hunted. Went up the Shelby Road & around Coopers Swamp, returning on Black Point Road. Did not see an eye." On 09 August 1852 - "Clear. Sam'l A. Floyd & myself hunted this morning. Drove the left from here, of the Far Point Field & three bucks were started. Two of them took to the marsh, & the other, a good peg horn buck came out to Sam'l who killed him on the spot, 50 yards, the first shot." On 11 August 1852 - "The three deer killed by Sam'l this week had in each only one shot, & two of them hit about the head & neck." While it was in existence, he was a member of the Camden Hunting Club - by 1833 members had built a clubhouse at Bear Hammock on Floyd property ("Hunting is a way of life in Camden," by Eloise Bailey, Camden County Tribune - December 1984). After his mother's death in 1859, he inherited the Bellevue homesite - his estate was valued at $800 in 1850; & valued at $38,000 [error?] in 1860. After the Civil War, he continued to live in Camden, dividing his time between Bellevue and St. Marys (Letter from M. H. Floyd to Hazlehurst R. Noyes, 21 May 1932). On the 1870 CCG census, P.O. St. Marys, he was listed: Head of household - Invalid; value of his real estate diminished to $375.00; a female servant in household; living with him:
POLLY GREEN age 48, mulatto (part Indian?), seamstress, b. GA; & six mulatto children - all b. in GA: Ellen Floyd age 23-at home, John Floyd age 21-cripple, Eugenia Floyd age 15-at home, Cornelia Floyd age 9, Mary Floyd age 7,Henry H. Floyd
age 5. "I called on Uncle Sam, & found them all very dull. Maum Polly told me it was very hard for them to make a support, so many persons in town had S. Machines that they got very little to do" ("Diary," by Augusta Gallie Floyd - on 13 September 1872, as she was leaving St. Marys for Tocoi on the St. Johns River in FL). At that time Georgia Law prohibited miscegenation. Implications by family members that he exhibited peculiar behavior persist as part of his historical background: "I have heard that Samuel Floyd was a very talented musician, a violinist in fact, who would on occasion wander through the woods in Camden County Floyd Plantations stark naked with bow to fiddle" (Letter from Picot Floyd to Eudora De Renne Roebling on 02 March 1972). On Camden County Tax Digests another family member always acted as "Agent" for him as well as for the entire Floyd estate. There is a lack of sufficient documentation in [my] attempting to answer the question of Samuel Floyd's mental status. To what degree the disturbance or the difficulty, whether mental or physical - is limited to ambiguous assessment (Marguerite Marree Mathews, Raleigh, NC). On 10 May 1877, he sold "Bellevue Place" to Pompey Floyd, a former slave who had been living on the property. The parcel line started at Schooner Landing; it included a spring, one hundred acres of high ground, and marsh land between Floyd's Creek & Todd's Creek - for $100.00 (CCG Deed Bk. GG p. 161 & GG p. 589 & 590). Samuel Augustus Floyd died 16 February 1878 in St. Marys, GA.
|
