Wanderings of Moses

I shared some maps of the homesteads my great grandfather Green settled in Taylor County Florida last week. This time I thought I would highlight homesteads of my great great grandfather Moses Wilson.

The Bureau of Land Management maintains records of the first land owner in many States so you can identify the homesteads and land purchases from the 1800s granted to early settlers.

My cousin Cindy, who lives in St. Petersburg says everyone who was born in that part of Florida is related to the Wilson family. Moses had at least 25 children by two wives, so she could be right. Moses, like his namesake, moved around for a while before he found his promised land.

Moses Wilson was born in North Carolina in 1813, moved to Alabama soon after it was opened up to settlement in the 1820s and then moved to Florida when the Civil War started.

1835 Alabama Homestead

In 1835 he obtained a 42 acre homestead in Montgomery County Alabama. It is near the Ramer community, west of Hwy 231. We drive that road several times every year going to Florida. His land is the dark orange box in each of the pictures.


I spent an afternoon in this rural area about five years ago, looking for a cemetery where several Wilson relatives were buried. At the time I thought Moses's father was buried there but now know he wasn't.

1837 Alabama Homestead

In 1837 Moses obtained a 40 acre homestead just south of the first parcel in Montgomery County.


He moved to Florida in 1861 and settled in what is now Pasco County. He originally bought land and lived adjacent to several children.



1883 Florida Homestead

In 1883 he obtained an 80 acre homestead just south of Dade City, Florida. It is near Hwy 301, which they call Old Lakeland Highway on the map. If you follow that highway south you would pass close to the property my parents lived on in Manatee County.


Moses died on April 17, 1896 and I think he was buried in the Dade City Cemetery, just north of his property. There is no marker for him, but several of his children are buried there. There are many old graves with illegible markers. The cemetery was originally called Oak Grove Cemetery, named for the nearby Baptist Church, where he was a member.

Moving to the Sandhill

It is always interesting to find the land where your ancestor lived. Using the mapping features of web pages makes it very easy today to do it from the comfort of your home.

In this particular case I had found the property several years ago in person but just didn't know it at the time.

My Great grandfather, Andrew Jackson Green moved to Taylor County Florida in the 1860s when he was only  a few years old. In 1888 he obtained a 40 acre homestead in the Shady Grove area, in the north part of the County. It was fortunate that he did so, since my grandmother Ila Rowell lived close by and I am sure that proximity led to her meeting my grandfather, Millard Fillmore Green. After my grandparents got married they lived in Shady Grove until about 1910.

Andrew's 1888 land in Shady Grove

I had written about this land before because of the water feature. There is a large lake called Adrew's Lake on the property. I wondered if he named it because it was on his property. A Rowell cousin who lives nearby thinks it was named for a subsequent landowner. I'm still looking for a map from the turn of the century to see if it shows a name. This maps shows his 40 acre homestead in the orange box.


In 1903 Andrew Green moved near his father in law, James Henderson Hogan. He obtained a 121 acre homestead in the southern part of Taylor county, where the present day county road 422 runs.

Andrew's 1903 Homestead

It is also just north of the Sandhill Cemetery. I've driven this desolate timber company property area twice trying to find the cemetery because my great grandmother Rebecca Hogan Green was buried there. On the 2nd try, three years after the first one, I found the cemetery.

I didn't realize until now that my great grandparent's property was just north of the cemetery. This map shows their property in two the dark boxes.

I don't know what the land looked like in 1903, but assume it had virgin timber on it and was good farmland since many families moved down there about the same time. They named the area Sandhill so there was some signs of the current state. Today it is mostly clear cut or with new pine trees planted to be harvested by the next generation and the sandy soil doesn't look like it would grow much, other than pine trees.

Stepmother for a time

My dad's mother died when he was three years old so he didn't have many memories of her. Soon after his mother died his father found a woman to live in the house and help take care of his five sons. She was called a housekeeper but the unusual thing about the arrangement is that she brought three boys of her own. So for at least five years there were eight boys under age 15 living with the two adults.

Sarah Holden with boys abt 1916
Front row Floyd & Clyde Green & Riley Holden 

Sarah Jane Dean Holden was born July 31, 1883 in Brooks County Georgia to Mitchell and Cordelia Murdock Dean. She died March 17, 1973 in Flora City, Florida and was buried in the Hills of Rest Cemetery.


She married Riley George Holden on May 5, 1898 in Hamilton County, Florida and they moved to Taylor County soon afterwards. They had three sons, Charles Jackson Holden born in 1905, George Alston Holden born in 1909 and Riley George Holden, Jr. born in 1912.

Sarah and Riley split up about 1915 and he married Olive Lucille Beasley Bass of Jefferson County Florida in 1929.

Sarah Holden never married again and moved to Citrus County Florida about 1928. Two of her sons ended up there too. She died just a few months before my grandfather in 1973. I'm not sure if they stayed in touch over the fifty years after they lived together. I don't recall my dad ever visiting with her or the Holden family in the Taylor County area.

Riley Holden, Jr. Clyde Green & George Holden abt 1920

The youngest son, Riley George Holden Jr. was just a couple months older than my dad so they were in the same grade in school. His mother moved to Citrus County when he was in high school.


Riley Jr. joined the Navy after high school and served on Submarines. Shortly before he died in 2011 he was honored as the oldest member of the "Holland Club" the US Navy Submarine Veterans organization for those men with over 50 years designated as qualified submariners.

Hurricane Arthur

Hurricane Arthur, the fast developing Cat 2 storm with 100 mph winds, made landfall last night at Cape Lookout, North Carolina. This barrier island off the coast of Beaufort, NC has become one of our favorite places since we first visited in 2003.

It is only inhabited by fishermen who rent cabins by the night or setup tents on the beach and volunteers who man the Cape Lookout Lighthouse for the National Park Service. Being a Cape Lookout Lighthouse Keeper Volunteer is still on our bucket list.


All the people on the island were evacuated before the storm so as I write, there is no word on any damage. The 150 year old Cape Lookout Lighthouse is made of brick and has taken the force of stronger winds without a problem. The old houses, part of a former fishing village that was taken over by the government, walkways over the dunes and other wood structures on the island may not have fared as well.

The land for the Lighthouse was donated to the Government in 1805 by one of my gg grandfather's Joseph Fulford and his brother in law, Elijah Pigott.

We will be in the area later this month and hope to go out to the island.