Welcome
to
Hernando County
a proud member of
Welcome to the
AGHP Hernando County website. My name is Laverne Hammock Tornow and I will
be your host for this site. I am a 6th generation Florida Cracker, with ties
to several Pioneer Families of the Florida; among them the Hammock and Sparkman
Families. I was born and educated in Hernando County having returned to Hernando
County from Sarasota 3 years ago. My father Wilson Hammock was an ice deliveryman
for the Atlantic ice Company for many years and many of the older residents
of the county were familiar with him.
If you have any information you would like to donate, or would like to become a LOOK UP VOLUNTEER, please contact me. Click here to email me.
The Hernando County Florida INDEPENDENT History & Genealogy Site is a not-for-profit genealogical/historical research project hosted by USGenNet (http://usgennet.org/), a nonprofit, tax-exempt public benefit corporation. This project makes no claim to the copyrights of individual submitters, and is in full compliance with USGenNet's Conditions of Use.
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In 1821 Andrew
Jackson returned to Florida to establish a territorial Government for the United States.
At that time Florida was a vast wilderness sparsely populated by Native American
Indians, African Americans and Spaniards. Florida was very attractive to
the plantationers of the Carolinas, Virginia and Georgia, with many arriving
to claim lands and start new plantations.
At the time of the United States taking possession of Florida, Florida was
divided in half, East and West Florida. The capitol of East florida was St.
Augustine and the capitol of West Florida was Pensacola. These were then
merged with Tallahassee being chosen for the new capitol of the Territory of
Florida. Tallahassee's main attraction being that it was roughly halfway
between the two.
By 1840 the white residents of the Florida Territory were developing the
territory and pushing for Statehood. Florida was divided into 3 areas: east
Florida, bounded on the east by the Atlantic Ocean, and The Suwannee River
on the west; Middle Florida bounded by the Suwannee on the east and the
Appalachicola River on the west; and West Florida from the Appalachicola on
the east and the Perdido River on the west. The southern area of the state,
basically south of present day Gainesville was extremely sparsely settled
with an agrarian economy. The majority of the plantations were in the Middle
Florida District, and it was this area that wielded the political clout.
On March 3, 1845, Florida became the 27th state in the Union with William D.
Moseley being elected the first Governor. Hernando County was established
as DeSoto County on February 24, 1843 two years prior to Statehood. Shortly
afterward it was renamed Benton County in honor of Thomas Hart Benton,
US Senate, Missouri; who had sponsored the 1842 Florida Armed Occupation Act.
After his stance on the Missouri Compromise, which angered some of the Florida
Politicos, Benton County was once again renamed on December 24, 1850 in honor
of Hernando DeSoto, this time taking DeSoto's first name.
On May 26, 1845 Florida held its first ever election. Some of the voters whose descendants still reside in Hernando County were:
Joshua Mizell
Baker, Aepheus
Baker, James
Baker, James W.
Boyet, Edward Sr.
Crum, A. A.
Crum, D. D.
Crum, Richard R.
Hope, David
Hope, William
Law, P. N.
Mizell, Joshua
Mizell, Morgan
Selph, Ezekiel
Selph, John
Sparkman, N. K.
Stringer,Alex
Tucker, A. J.
Tucker, Wm. W.
Whitehurst, D. S.
Whitehurst, John
Hernando County is situated 50 miles north of Tampa, 50 miles west of Orlando
on the Central Gulf coast of Florida, also called the Nature Coast for its many
miles of beautiful natural coastline. A part of the a larger area known as the
ANNUTALGA HAMMOCK. Hernando County was once known for its bountiful Citrus Groves,
and much of the county's economy was based on these groves. Due to changes in
weather patterns resulting in several years of hard freezes, the once agrarian
and phosphate mining economy has been replaced by a tourism and service based economy.
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