Black Family Property Deed

Black Family Property Deed

Black Family Deed

Sanford (Fla.)

Seminole County (Fla.)

Property--Florida

Deeds--Florida

A deed for the property owned by Pilgrim Black (1905-2002) and his wife, Lula Mae Haynes Black (1917-2007). The property is one of the homes built and owned by Maggie Benjamin Black (ca. 1870-ca. 1934) in the 1800s. Maggie and her husband Harry Black (d. 1911) were the parents of parents of Leckward Black, Mustar Black, Malachi Black, Leatha Black Walker (1889-1976), Pilgrim Black, Margaret Black Jones (1889-1976), and Harriett Black Lawson. In 1911, Harry owned a grocery store at 206 South Sanford Avenue. One day, he came home from work with pneumonia and passed away shortly thereafter. Pilgrim was nine years old when his father passed away. Maggie was the daughter of former slaves, Isaac and Roseanna Benjamin, and the sister of Nathan Benjamin, Pledge Benjamin, Sam Benjamin, Loui Benjamin, Chainey Benjamin, Lara Benjamin, Melvina Benjamin, and Katie Benjamin.

Pilgrim had to quit school at age 11 in order to provide for his mother, originally working in a mill house until he was 18 years old. After declining a management position, he traveled to Wayne County to pick cherries, apples, pears, and other crops. He broke a bone after falling from an apple tree his first year and decided to try farm labor on a potato farm in Red Creek, New York, instead. Don Holdridge, the farmer who owned the land, noted Pilgrim's high rate of productivity and offered him a management position supervising up to thirty workers at once, which he accepted.

While in Sanford, Pilgrim also worked as a foreman in Sanford for Chase & Company for over 30 years. He married Lula in 1937 and they had several children together, including Vivian Louise Black (1940-); Lula Yvonne Black (1942-); Charles Samuel Black (1945-); Pilgrim Black, Jr. (ca. 1947-), and Patricia Ann Black (1956-).

Original property deed, June 21, 1946: Florida Internal Improvement Fund: Private Collection of Patricia Ann Black.

Florida Internal Improvement Fund

1946-06-21

1946-06-21

Digital reproduction of original deed, June 21, 1946: Florida Internal Improvement Fund.

Patricia Black Collection, RICHES of Central Florida.

image/tiff

99.9 MB

1-page deed

eng

Text

Georgetown, Sanford, Florida

Donation

History Teacher

Geography Teacher

Originally created by the Florida Internal Improvement Fund and owned by Pilgrim Black.

Inherited by Patricia Ann Black in 2002.

Copyright to the resource is held by Patricia Ann Black and is provided here by RICHES of Central Florida for educational purposes only.

Cepero, Laura

Private Collection of Patricia Ann Black

Coles, Robert. Uprooted Children; The Early Life of Migrant Farm Workers. [Pittsburgh]: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1970.

Piore, Michael J. Birds of Passage: Migrant Labor and Industrial Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979.

Flewellyn, Valada S. African Americans of Sanford Charleston, SC: Arcadia Pub, 2009.

1-page deed