Lafayette Land Grant

photo from www.waymarking.com

The property of Goodwood, as you know, was originally part of the Lafayette Land Grant.  Hardy Croom purchased several sections of this grant in the 1830s from the heirs of General Lafayette.  Other parts of Tallahassee lay claim to Lafayette fame, including Lafayette Neighborhood Association.  They include a very nice history of their neighborhood on their website.

More about the grant:

• Full name and dates for Lafayette:  Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette (1754-1834)
• From France, he served as a Major General in the Continental Army during the American Revolution
• Congress awarded Lafayette $200,000 and a township of 36 square miles of land in 1824
• Lafayette chose property near his friend, Richard Keith Call (who owned The Grove plantation)
• Florida had just become a territory (1821) and there was potential for the property to increase in value
• The warrant for the land grant was signed by President John Quincy Adams on July 4, 1825
• The property was then known as "Lafayette Plantation"
• Lafayette never visited Florida
• In 1831, he sent men to Tallahassee to grow limes, olives, and mulberry trees without the use of slaves
• This free community failed and most of the people moved back to France but those that stayed lived in the area of town that is still called Frenchtown
• By 1855 all 23,000 acres of the Lafayette township had been sold