Frenchtown: freedpeople's town on Lafayette's land grant (Tallahassee, 1825–present)
Record: the document says itPattern: documents line upLens: our readingOpen: not yet proven
Year: 1825 · Places: Florida, Europe, Africa
SUMMARYFrenchtown: freedpeople's town on Lafayette's land grant (Tallahassee, 1825–present) [Connections: Tallahassee & Orlando, Nov 5, 2026]
RECORDThe July 4, 1825, Lafayette Land Grant gave the Marquis de Lafayette a township of his choice; his 1824 grant covered 36 square miles, "including much of present-day Tallahassee." After the Civil War, newly freed African Americans moved into Frenchtown because its low-lying land was undesirable; it is described as "the oldest surviving community of its kind in Florida." Old Lincoln High School closed in 1969; residents and advocates now cite FSU-driven gentrification and displacement
PATTERNCongress gave a French nobleman a township of land that, a few years earlier, held Native towns; freedpeople made a home on its least wanted corner
LENS (WW9)A Frenchman got the land as a gift; the people born of this soil got the swamp
OPENWhether any Frenchtown founding families carried Native descent needs deep research (1870 census, Freedmen's Bureau records)
SOURCEFrenchtown (Wikipedia)), citing Hare (2006) and Goñi-Lessan (2024); Tallahassee (Wikipedia).