This text was obtained via automated optical character recognition.
It has not been edited and may therefore contain several errors.

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Before closing the unusually long letter, Sarah mused about a name for the house: ?You perceive we have yet found no name for our place. We cannot all be pleased with the same one. I proposed as yours was bird song our should be sea song, but Samuel did not like it - Pa says Ocean Wild, Samuel Ocean View, I Idle Hall with many more I wish some of you could settle it for us ?
A year later, Sarah again wrote to Rachel. This letter is datelined ?Sea Song, July 16,
1860.? She described bathing from the 600-foot long pier that Pa had built, telling of the white caps and the large bath house. As she reported that ?John has just returned from the Bay with your sweet letter,? it is evident that mail service was now from ?the Bay,? rather than Gainesville, as it was for Samuel at Clifton.
Courthouse Documentation
There is documentation in the early deed books of the Hancock County courthouse. Not only do the records pinpoint the exact location of the Jackson property, but they also make clear a fundamental change in the family and their residence. This is found partly in an 1861 deed involving ?the late residence of the said Andrew Jackson.? In that transfer, Roderick Seal obtains property in a sheriffs sale of four parcels that had been owned by Jackson.
The sale apparently was directed by a circuit court order dated May 1, 1861, but not recorded until February 7, 1870.
The time elapsed is obviously not representative of the usual ?law?s delay.? One can only imagine the effects of the Civil War on many aspects of life during Reconstruction.
The first parcel listed in the document is clearly delineated as ?the property of the said defendant Andrew Jackson to wit the fractional section (16) sixteen Township No. 9 Range (14) fourteen west containing by computation three hundred and eighteen 318 7/10 acres situated on the sea shore of the Gulf of Mexico.? The sale price was $1,000.
The above legal description is almost exactly like today?s Buccaneer Park, with the exception of 86 acres to the north, which the park service owns. Of the park?s total of 398 acres, subtracting out the said 86 acres leaves a present dimension of 312 acres under a 99-year lease. This includes the large marsh which Samuel had estimated at 200 acres in his early letter recommending the Russ Place.
Of the other parcels ordered sold by the court, one piece of 40 acres and another of 80 abut the Mitchell site on Lower Bay Road. The smaller of the two seems to be occupied by Tennessee Gas. Sale prices were $40 and $100, respectively.
The final parcel to be auctioned was the Clifton Plantation, for which Seal paid $3,650. It consisted of 640 acres with a very complex legal description abutting Mulatto Bayou. It
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