Into the Unknown

Before

The decade that almost ended the name

Thomas Cason was baptized June 26, 1608, at Digswell, Hertfordshire, the son of John Cason. Around 1628, he crossed the Atlantic to Virginia. He was twenty years old. The colony had existed for twenty-one years and had already consumed thousands of lives.

He survived. He built a tobacco plantation in Lynnhaven Parish, Lower Norfolk County. He married Elizabeth Alcott around 1635. He became Church Warden — a man the community trusted. When he died in 1651, his estate inventory listed 28,170 pounds of tobacco. His name is on the memorial wall at Jamestown. His widow Elizabeth received letters of administration on April 15, 1652, and remarried John Stratton that same year.

Thomas left three children: James (b. ~1634), Ruth (b. ~1638), and Thomas Jr. (b. after 1642). Thomas Jr. became a tobacco planter like his father, married Sarah Poole around 1654, and had one son — a boy they named James, born around 1655.

Then the decade of death.

Sarah Poole Cason died August 21, 1661. The boy James was six.

Thomas Cason Jr. died 1665. James was ten.

James the elder — Thomas Sr.'s firstborn son, the boy's uncle — also died in 1665. He had never married. He left no children.

Ruth had married into the Woodhouse family. She carried no Cason name forward.

We do not know who raised him. No guardianship record survives. What survives is what he did.

He married a woman named Anne around 1678 in Princess Anne County. He acquired 450 acres via headright — financing nine passages from England, investing in the same gamble his grandfather had made on himself. He had six children: Susannah, Thomas, James Jr., Elizabeth, Dynah, and William. On February 5, 1720, he wrote his will, parceling out hundreds of acres to his sons. It was probated August 1, 1722.

His son William moved the family to North Carolina in 1723. William's line produced Ransom. Ransom walked to Florida. And here we are.

This is the line that survived him.

Part I: The Atlantic Crossing

Thomas Cason — Hertfordshire to Virginia, c.1628

Thomas Cason was baptized June 26, 1608, at Digswell, Hertfordshire, the son of John Cason. The surname itself reaches back to Cawston in Norfolk — recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as "Caupstuna," from the Old English for calf-homestead.

The England he grew up in was collapsing. The population had doubled in a century — from 2.3 million to 4.8 million — and the country could not feed itself. Half the population lived at or below poverty. Young men wandered from town to town looking for work that did not exist. The fields were enclosed, the guilds were full, the cities were swelling with desperate people who had nowhere left to go.

Richard Hakluyt, the great colonial promoter, spoke plainly about what Virginia offered: a place to put England's "multitudes of loyterers and idle vagabondes." The pamphlets that circulated through London's taverns and churches promised something different — fertile land, abundant game, rivers teeming with fish. A New World where a man with nothing could become a man with everything.

The pamphlets lied. But Thomas Cason could not have known that.

What He Built

Thomas arrived around 1628 at age twenty. His name is listed on the memorial wall at the Jamestown museum. He settled in Lynnhaven Parish, Lower Norfolk County, married Elizabeth Alcott around 1635, and became a tobacco planter and slaveholder.

He did not merely survive. He thrived. Thomas was appointed Church Warden of Lynnhaven Parish — a position of community trust and standing. When he died in 1651, his estate inventory listed 28,170 pounds of tobacco. In an era when tobacco was currency, Thomas Cason had built real wealth from nothing, in a colony that killed most people who came to it. His widow Elizabeth received letters of administration April 15, 1652, and remarried John Stratton that same year.

He had three children — James (b. ~1634), Ruth (b. ~1638), and Thomas Jr. (b. after 1642). Within fourteen years of his death, both sons were dead. Ruth had married out of the name. The entire line funneled through Thomas Jr.'s orphaned son — a ten-year-old boy named James, alone in the colony by 1665. The prologue above tells that story.

Part II: The Chain

Five Generations from Virginia to the Edge of Florida

James Cason (c.1655-1722), the orphan, did not merely survive — he prospered. He married Anne around 1678 in Princess Anne County. He received 450 acres from the colonial government for paying the passage of nine people from England. The headright system: fifty acres for every passage you financed. James was investing in the same gamble his grandfather had made on himself. He had six children — Susannah, Thomas, James Jr., Elizabeth, Dynah, and William. His will, written February 5, 1720 and probated August 1, 1722, parceled out hundreds of acres to his sons.

James's son William Cason (c.1695-1764) made the next great move. He married Jane Cannon in 1721 and moved his family to Beaufort County, North Carolina in 1723. A 300-mile journey south, from established Virginia into Carolina frontier. He was granted land in 1740. By 1746, tax records show nine people in his household. He died around 1764 in Pitt County, leaving sons Cannon, William Jr., James, John, Henry, and Hillery.

The Unsolved Generation

William had at least six sons. What happened to each of them tells us who Ransom's father was — by process of elimination.

Cannon Sr. (c.1724) bought land from William in 1748, sold it by 1752, and left for Duplin County with his brother William Jr. He ended up in Fairfield County, South Carolina. Drew his will in 1779. His will does not name Ransom. Eliminated.

William Jr. left with Cannon for Duplin County by 1752. Died c.1769-1778. Never went to Georgia. Eliminated.

Henry (c.1732) received land via the 1758 deed of gift and never left Pitt County. Still there in 1813 selling land to Hillery's widow. On April 10, 1823, Henry executed four deeds of gift — land and enslaved people to his daughter Sarah Tire, granddaughters Lydia and Elizabeth Cason (who carry the Cason surname, proving he had an unnamed son who stayed local), and granddaughters Elizabeth and Ginny Moore. 250 acres on Grindal Creek, adjoining John Cason's line. No mention of Ransom or any of Ransom's known siblings. Henry had his own Pitt County branch. Unlikely but not impossible.

Hillery (1737-1810) served on the Pitt County Safety Committee and fought in the Revolution. He moved to Screven/Jefferson County, Georgia in 1792 — but that is interior Georgia on the Ogeechee River, not coastal Glynn County where Ransom settled. His children have completely different names (Gabriel, Wyriott, Frederick, Willis, Willoughby). However, one thread connects them: Hillery married Sarah Barrow Ormond, and Ransom's son James Green married Lucinda Barrow. The Barrow surname in both families is either coincidence or a deeper connection.

John (c.1728) stayed in Pitt County. On the 1790 census with 12 slaves — substantial wealth. Henry's 1823 deed references the dividing line between his land and "John Cason's." Possible, but no positive evidence connects him to Ransom.

James (c.1727) is the ghost. WikiTree notes "no deed transactions found between William and a son James." A man with no land record is a man with the most reason to leave — or whose sons would. Critically, a "James Cason Jr." (c.1750-c.1822) appears on WikiTree as Ransom's brother. If that designation is correct, it implies their father was also named James. The landless son whose children had nothing to stay for — exactly who ends up in Georgia claiming free land under the headright system.

The financial logic is clear. North Carolina soil was exhausted from generations of tobacco. Money was scarce after the Revolution. Georgia was giving away 200 acres per household head plus 50 per family member. Ransom appears on the 1794 Glynn County tax digest and received two land warrants in 1799: 200 acres on Turtle River, 200 on Beaver Dam Swamp. He went where the land was free because where he came from, there was nothing left.

Leading candidate: James (c.1727). The man with no land, whose son "James Jr." appears as Ransom's brother, in the county where Ransom was born. Secondary candidate: Henry (c.1732). Right location, naming patterns align, but his 1823 deeds show a separate local branch with no reference to Ransom's family. Y-DNA testing remains the path to certainty.

One year before William Cason died, in that same Pitt County, a boy named Ransom was born. The year was 1763. Whoever his father was, that father gave him nothing — no land, no inheritance, no reason to stay. And that is precisely what made Ransom dangerous. A man with nothing to lose is a man who moves.

The Evidence Board

Eliminating candidates for Ransom's father — William Cason's six sons

Henry Cason's 1823 Deed of Gift — Primary Source

Pitt County Deed Book CC, p. 229. April 10, 1823. Proved in open court.

Henry's deeds prove he had a separate Pitt County son-line — an unnamed son whose daughters Lydia and Elizabeth inherited the family land. This is a different branch than Ransom's family, who had been gone for 30 years by 1823. The complete absence of Ransom, Eli, William, James, or Henry Jr. from these deeds is not conclusive — you don't deed North Carolina land to a man in Florida — but it shows Henry's estate was oriented toward the family that stayed.

Part III: Into the Territory

Ransom Cason Sr. — North Carolina to Florida, 1823

After the Revolutionary War, Ransom moved south into Georgia — Glynn County, then deeper into the state. He married Phoebe Munden. His brother William married Phoebe's sister Ann — two Cason brothers, two Munden sisters. They raised eight children: John, William "Speckled Bill," James Green, Moses, Clementine, Martha, Phoebe, and Becky.

In 1822, Ransom began liquidating. He gave power of attorney to his son William to sell Lot 174 and Lot 172 in Munro County, Georgia. He sold Cherokee Lottery land in Houston County. A man does not sell everything unless he is going somewhere.

Florida, 1823: What He Walked Into

On February 22, 1821, the Adams-Onis Treaty took effect. Spain ceded Florida to the United States. Andrew Jackson arrived to establish the territorial government. What the United States acquired was approximately 8,000 people scattered across a wilderness the size of England.

John Randolph of Virginia, debating Florida statehood in Congress, called it "a land of swamps, of quagmires, of frogs, and alligators and mosquitoes" that could never be developed.

There were no roads. The Bellamy Road — the first federal highway in the territory — would not be authorized until 1824. When built, the contractor left tree stumps standing in the middle. Before that road existed, settlers navigated by trail, blazed trees, and guesswork.

The Okefenokee Swamp sat directly in the path. 438,000 acres of blackwater swamp and trembling peat bogs. The Creek called it "the land of trembling earth" — even their bravest warriors feared it, "filled with snakes, alligators and tygers."

Rivers had no bridges. Malaria exposure began the moment you entered the lowcountry. Yellow fever had been hitting St. Augustine since 1649 — weeks after the U.S. took possession in 1821, it struck again, killing 172 people. The town of St. Joseph held Florida's first Constitutional Convention in 1838 and was then erased by yellow fever — population dropped from 4,000 to a ghost town. An entire city killed by mosquitoes.

What He Built

The Casons settled near Newnansville, Alachua County — barely a place. A post office, eventually a church, a school, a hotel, a courthouse. The 1830 census shows Ransom living near relatives: King Douglas (who married his daughter Clementine), Michael Clements, and his son John. Seven of eight children had come to Florida. They were farmers and cattlemen — Florida Crackers. The term meant you had cracked a whip over cattle, cleared land with your own hands, and survived.

The War

The Second Seminole War erupted in December 1835. Seven years. $40 million. 1,500 soldiers dead. Alachua County was ground zero. Settlers abandoned their farms and fled to Newnansville — 300 civilians in tents around Fort Gilleland, 259 soldiers inside. You could not harvest corn without armed escort. In September 1836, 300 Seminole warriors were camped at San Felasco — four miles from town.

Ransom's son Moses survived a Seminole attack in 1842. His nephew William Cason served as Captain of the Florida Militia. The Casons were not bystanders. They were in it.

Ransom Cason Sr. died in 1853, at approximately ninety years of age. His will was probated November 12, 1853 — Alachua County Will Book A, pages 35-36 — naming Phoebe and all his children as heirs. In 2015, the Florida State Genealogical Society certified him as a Florida Pioneer (Certificate #2015S0027) — a man who arrived when Florida had 8,000 people, officially recognized 162 years after his death.

Part IV: The Generations Between

Five lives that carried the line from frontier to the Space Age

James Green Cason (c.1800-1878) — The Builder

Ransom Sr. planted the family in Florida. His son James Green Cason made it permanent. Born around 1800, James Green married Lucinda "Lucy" Barrow and raised at least nine children on the land his father had claimed north of Newnansville — Mary Ann, John Barrow, George Washington, and a boy they named Ransom after his grandfather. James Green's brother Ransom Jr. — also a son of the patriarch — was a separate person. The grandson they called Ransom 2.

James Green's generation was the one that turned a homestead into a community. His father had arrived when the county had 300 people. By the time James Green died in 1878, Alachua County had thousands. The Casons were no longer pioneers. They were established. The Cason Cemetery on CR 239 and North Pleasant Grove Cemetery sit barely half a mile apart — generations buried in the same soil, anchored to the same corridor between Newnansville and the Santa Fe River.

But James Green's generation also faced the thing his father never did. War.

Lt. Ransom Cason "2" (1835-1900) — The Grandson Who Marched

Ransom Sr.'s grandson — James Green's son, named for the patriarch — was known as Ransom 2 to distinguish him from his uncle Ransom Jr., who was James Green's brother. In April 1862, Ransom 2 was twenty-seven years old, married to Casey Ann, father of a five-year-old boy named Thadeous. He mustered into the 7th Regiment, Florida Infantry at Gainesville. The regiment was organized from men across Alachua, Bradford, Hillsborough, Manatee, and Marion counties, under the command of Colonel Madison Starke Perry, the former Governor of Florida and a prosperous Alachua County planter.

Ransom 2 rose to the rank of Lieutenant. He would not come home for three years.

The 7th Florida Infantry was assigned to the Army of Tennessee — the Western Theater, where the war was fought hardest and remembered least. What Lt. Ransom marched through reads like an atlas of devastation:

Chickamauga, Georgia — September 1863. Missionary Ridge, Tennessee — November 1863, where the regiment "suffered severely" and was driven from its entrenchments by overwhelming numbers. Dalton to Atlanta — the grinding campaign of 1864, including Resaca and Kennesaw Mountain. Franklin, Tennessee — November 1864, part of Hood's catastrophic invasion. Nashville — December 1864, where the Army of Tennessee was effectively destroyed.

At Bentonville, North Carolina — March 1865 — the regiment fought its last engagement with fewer than 100 men. On April 26, 1865, the 7th Florida surrendered with General Joseph Johnston at Bennett Place near Durham Station. One of the last Confederate units to lay down arms.

While Ransom Jr. fought, his family endured. Casey Ann and young Thadeous — age four when the war began, eight when it ended — lived through the Union naval blockade that strangled Florida's economy, through Confederate impressment agents who took their cattle, through the Battle of Gainesville fought twelve miles from their land. Florida was the main supplier of beef to the Confederacy, and Alachua County was cattle country. The family's livestock was not just property. It was strategic material.

Lt. Ransom came home to a county that had been economically gutted. Casey Ann died in 1871. He married Susan Holloway on February 14, 1872. He filed a Confederate Veterans pension — Application A00841, Alachua County, archived in the Florida Memory collection. He died July 29, 1900, and was buried at North Pleasant Grove Cemetery, half a mile from the Cason Cemetery where his grandfather Ransom Sr. lay.

Thadeous Calhoun Cason (1857-1945) — The Westward Move

Thadeous was a child of the war. Born 1857, he was four when his father Lt. Ransom left for Gainesville to join the 7th Florida. He was eight when the war ended. He grew up in Reconstruction-era Alachua County — the landscape his great-grandfather Ransom Sr. had walked into as wilderness, now scarred by a different kind of devastation.

On Christmas Eve, 1882, Thadeous married Georgia Quintine McKinney — daughter of George Washington McKinney and Kezziah "Kittie" Roland — in Columbia County. He was twenty-five. And he did something no Cason had done in sixty years: he moved.

Not far. Fifteen to twenty miles west, from the family corridor near Newnansville into Fort White, Columbia County. But the reason was the same reason Ransom Sr. had moved to Florida in the first place: opportunity.

Fort White had been a Seminole War outpost — built 1836 to protect the Cow Creek settlement. But in 1888, the railroad arrived, and everything changed. Phosphate deposits turned Fort White into the second-largest city in Columbia County, population nearly 2,000. Citrus orchards spread across the area. Cotton became a cash crop. The turpentine industry was booming in the pine forests. For a young man with a growing family, it was a boomtown.

Thadeous and Georgia had twelve to fourteen children — Lena Alice, Carrie Mae, James Johnson, Eddie Ross, Carl Columbus, Wilbur C., Tom Arthur, Julia Matilda, Timothy, and others. They built a life in the boom.

Then the boom ended. The freezes of 1895-1897 killed the citrus. Phosphate deposits ran out by 1910. The boll weevil destroyed the cotton before World War I. Fort White collapsed and never recovered. But the Casons stayed. Georgia Quintine died September 3, 1937. Thadeous lived to eighty-eight, dying in 1945. Both are buried at Tustenuggee Methodist Cemetery — a church established in 1845, on land some locals believe was once a Seminole burial ground. The name itself is Muskogee for "warrior."

Carl Columbus Cason (1903-1966) — Thirteen Children

Carl Columbus was born in 1903 into the ruins of Fort White's boom. The citrus was dead. The phosphate was gone. What remained was turpentine, timber, subsistence farming, and open-range cattle — the same Cracker economy that had sustained Alachua County families for generations.

He married Wilma Douglas and had thirteen children. Think about what that means in Depression-era rural North Florida. Relief payments in rural Florida were often less than seven dollars per month per family. A man raising thirteen children in Fort White would have done everything — turpentine work, logging, farming, cattle on the open range (Florida was the last state in the union to pass a mandatory fence law, in 1949), day labor, sawmill work. Every child old enough to work did work. Every acre of garden, every hog in the pen, every fish from the Santa Fe River mattered.

Carl Columbus died in 1966 at sixty-three. His thirteen children spread across north-central Florida — Dot to Lake City, Jake to Williston, Lawrence to Jacksonville and Guantanamo Bay, Robert to the Space Coast and back. The name kept moving.

Robert Randall Cason Sr. (b.1933) — The Space Coast

Robert Randall Cason Sr. was born in 1933 in the farmhouse on CR 778 — the same house that still stands today, a stone's throw from where his ashes now rest. He married Mary Nell. And then he did the thing his great-great-great-grandfather Ransom Sr. would have understood instantly and admired without question: he moved to a place where the United States of America was, with some difficulty, learning to leave the planet.

Titusville in the 1950s was a quiet fishing and citrus town on the Indian River. Then in 1949, President Truman established the missile testing range at Cape Canaveral. By 1958, NASA existed. By 1961, Kennedy had committed to the Moon. Brevard County grew faster than any other county in the nation — from 23,653 people in 1950 to 111,435 in 1960, a 371% explosion. Schools went from 13 to 46. Hotels sprang up in Cocoa Beach. Housing developments carpeted the barrier islands. Titusville called itself "Space City USA."

Robert and Mary Nell raised their family in Titusville — children born on the same Florida coast that Ransom Sr. had entered as uncharted wilderness 134 years earlier. The distance between a man walking through the Okefenokee to claim 160 acres and a man watching rockets arc over the Atlantic is not measured in miles. It is measured in what a family builds when it refuses to stop moving.

In time, Robert came home. Back to the farmhouse on CR 778. Back to the dirt road. Back to the same county Carl Columbus had farmed, that Thadeous had homesteaded into, that Lt. Ransom had returned to after Bentonville, that James Green had planted, that Ransom Sr. had walked into when there were eight thousand people in the whole territory. He is in that ground now. Mary Nell beside him. The farmhouse is still standing.

The Branches

Sibling lines at each generation — the full family, not just the direct thread

Generation 1-3: Virginia Roots

Generation 4-5: William's Sons — Who Stayed, Who Left

Generation 6-7: Ransom Sr.'s Eight Children

Generation 9-10: Lt. Ransom 2's Son — Thadeous & Georgia's Children

Married December 24, 1882, Columbia County, FL • 12-14 children

Generation 10-11: Carl Columbus & Wilma Douglas — 13 Children

Fort White, Columbia County, FL • Source: Jake Cason obituary (2014), 1940 Census

In 1957, Robert Sr. drove his family across the peninsula — from the Fort White farmhouse to the Space Coast. This is where the record closes. The line, of course, continued.