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	Record Group Number:	800000
	Series/Collection Number:	.L 660
	Creator:	Florida. Circuit Court (3rd Circuit : Madison County)
	Title, Dates:	Turpentine leases, 1900s.
	Amount:	156 gigabytes 1,024 files (167,731,249,052 bytes)
	Medium Included:	Electronic records
	Organization/Arrangement:	Chronological
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	Biographical/Historical:	Madison County was created by an act of the State Legislature on December 26, 1827. It was formed from the eastern part of Jefferson County. In 1856, the southern half was divided to create Taylor and Layfayette counties (Chap. 806, Laws). The Clerk of the Circuit Court in each county serves as the official custodian of deed, marriage, and probate records. While the labor involved in fulfilling the leases is not documented in these records, the turpentine industry in north Florida was in large part driven by convicts, primarily Blacks, who were in turn leased out to the companies listed in these leases. Convict laborers worked in harsh conditions for little compensation. The industry collapsed in the region in the aftermath of the death of Martin Tabert, a convict who had been arrested for vagrancy and was beaten to death on the job in Dixie County in 1923.
	Summary:	These records document the leases and rights of the local turpentine industry in Madison County, Florida. Turpentine, produced by tapping the insides of trees for their resin, was used mainly as a solvent in the 19th and 20th centuries and was thus highly valuable. The records typically concern the allocation of land with trees that could be milled for turpentine as well as when and where the lessees could distribute the turpentine distilled from this process. The leases indicate the location of the land, the names of the mill owners and land owners, the duration of the lease period (they were frequently renewed), the agreed payments to be made at the onset of the lease and any profit sharing that was to occur during the period of the agreement. No information about the convict labor force is included in these leases.
	Finding Aids:	Folder Listing Available 0
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	Location of Originals/Duplicates:	Circuit Court, Third Judicial Circuit, Madison County. Office of the Clerk. Madison, Florida.
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	Electronic Records Access:
	Subject Access Fields:	Business development. Business regulation. Trees. Convict labor Florida Turpentine industry and trade Florida Electronic records (digital records). aat Madison County (Fla.)
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