Carson's

On March 17, the Expedition party was southeast of Ft. Myers "... crossing the Allen Prairie, a fine body of land some 25 miles long by 3 to 6 miles wide lying between the Okaloacoochee Swamp and The Big Cypress from a point 2 miles east of place known as 'Carson's.'" It is likely that this is a reference to the homestead of Robert A. Carson, which was near Allen's Place. In the mid-1880s, Carson was growing sugar cane and vegetables about 25 miles southeast of Fort Myers. In addition to farming, he also was cattle rancher and a minister. He and his wife, Georgia Ann (Carlton) Carson, had nine children. The family lived in Polk County in the 1860s and 1870s, and then moved to Ft. Myers by 1880. Carson had a log cabin near Half-Way Pond. They evidently lived seven miles northwest of present-day Immokalee (formerly Allen's Place) at a site known as Carson's Gully.

• Birth: July 24, 1837, Mississippi
• Death: July 24, 1893, Florida

Note about confidence of this information:

Unable to locate sources definitively identifying Robert A. Carson as the "Carson" referenced in the texts. However, given that the location of the Carson family homestead matches the location in the texts, confidence is high.

Name Variations:

• Rev. Robert Anderson Carson

Sources:

• Findagrave.com
• "Carson Family," by Spessard Stone, Ancestry.com (includes photo of Carson)
• "Memories of a Pioneer Girl," by Morning Elizabeth McDaniel, Tampa Bay History, Vol. 5, No. 2, 1983
• The Story of Fort Myers by Karl H. Grismer, 1949

References in the Texts:

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• March 17, Thursday

For other topics referenced in the Expedition texts, please refer to the Index to Subjects and Names.
1892 Everglades Exploration Expedition : Three Digital Texts, 2015