Page 85 - John Anderson

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The runaway Negro was in due course captured, shot, and his corpse
cremated. Captain Ormond's widow, Russell Ormond and son
Emanuel soon returned to their native Scotland to live with another
son, James Ormond II.

James Ormond II (179X - 1829)

James Ormond II was born in Scotland while his father was on one of
his seafaring voyages and lived with an aunt until his mother Russell
and brother Emanuel returned from Florida, after the unfortunate
death of his father in Smyrna. James Ormond II grew up in Scotland,
was educated in public schools and married in early adulthood,
having fathered four children with his wife Isabella Christie.
He was a junior partner in a firm which was engaged in the grain
trade in the Baltic, but at some time in the 1820's this firm failed. The
loss of his business brought financial ruin to James Ormond II and he
was forced to flee Scotland in order to escape a debtors' prison. A
decision was made to leave his family, Isabella and the four young
children in Scotland for a time until adequate housing could be
established on the Damietta plantation. His mother, Russell Ormond,
and brother Emanuel joined him in the exodus from Scotland to
Florida. They settled on the Damietta plantation, just above the
Tomoka River, which his father, James Ormond I, had left to them.
A few years later Emanuel returned to Scotland to bring James' wife,
Isabella, and his four children, James Ormond III, Russell, Helen and
Agnes, to Florida. Isabella was a tall, blonde, beautiful and talented
woman, but she had had a severe illness after her husband left
Scotland which the doctors called "brain fever." and from which she
"was left demented." In writing about this illness in “The
Reminiscences of James Ormond,” her son, James Ormond III wrote:
"She was worse on full moons and better at other times — less
violent."
The then nine-year-old James Ormond III discovered a new and
fascinating life in this strange, sunny new land of Florida which was
so different from his native, cloudy Scotland. Here were bright blue
skies, black slaves, Seminole Indians, and strange new foods such as

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