Lost at Sea - The Croom Family Legal Odyssey

NBHS Historian/Claudia Houston

William Croom of Lenoir County played a key role in defending New Bern during the Revolutionary War. His post-war investments in Florida land made him a wealthy man. His son, Hardy Bryan Croom, born in 1797, graduated from UNC with a law degree. Hardy became an attorney in New Bern, although he showed little interest in the profession.  But he did pursue his passion for science, particularly geology and botany.

In 1821, Hardy married Frances Smith, daughter of New Bern merchant Nathan Smith, and the couple had three children. Though Hardy briefly served in the North Carolina Senate in 1828, he resigned to manage his father’s real estate.  In 1831, Hardy sold his Lenoir County plantation and relocated his enslaved labor force to Florida, where he began establishing Goodwood Plantation near Tallahassee. Frances and the children remained in New Bern.

While in Florida, Hardy discovered a rare tree species that he named Torreya, as well as a plant later identified as Croomia. His work earned him international recognition and membership in scientific societies.

In October 1837, the  Croom family arrived in New York City to celebrate the graduation of their sixteen-year-old daughter, Henrietta. They boarded the steamship Home, bound for Charleston. Tragically, the ship encountered a hurricane off Cape Hatteras and broke apart. Frances and her daughter Justina were swept away immediately, but the entire Croom family, along with over ninety others, perished.

The legal battle over Hardy’s vast estate lasted nearly twenty years. Hardy had died without a will. His mother-in-law, Henrietta Smith, and her sister, Elizabeth Armistead, sued Hardy’s younger brother, Bryan Croom, who had assumed control of the estate, claiming Hardy’s domicile was Florida.

The case hinged on two key questions: who died last in the family, and where was the family’s legal residence, or domicile? If Hardy outlived his wife and children, his siblings stood to inherit. If Frances or one of the children survived him, her family could claim the estate if their legal residence was still in North Carolina.

The initial case was decided in favor of Bryan,  and the complaint was dismissed. The women filed an appeal, and in 1857, the Florida Supreme Court reviewed the case, reversing the previous finding.

Eyewitnesses claimed Frances and Justina died first, followed by Hardy, then Henrietta, and finally William. The Florida Supreme Court ruled that Hardy did survive Frances and Justina, but not his other children. William was ruled to be the last of the family to perish.

The court also ruled that the family’s legal domicile remained in North Carolina, not Florida. This meant that under North Carolina law, Frances Smith’s family received all personal property and a share of the land. Mrs. Smith received 1/8 of the real estate; Mrs. Armistead another 1/8; and the remaining ¾ went to Hardy’s heirs. Real estate was governed by Florida law, but personal property followed North Carolina statutes.

Why did it take twenty years for a verdict to be rendered?  No one knows, but the state was sparsely populated with few attorneys. All testimony and case decision-making, along with copies, were recorded by hand.  There were at least eleven survivors of the shipwreck from across the country who were located and testified,  as well as twenty-five additional witnesses who knew Hardy Croom during his lifetime in  North Carolina and Florida. Sixty-seven pieces of correspondence relating to the issues in this case were also in the file.

Goodwood Plantation passed to Frances’s mother, forcing Bryan Croom to move.  The personal property she inherited included over two hundred enslaved people who helped run the plantation.  She sold Goodwood two years later. Frances, Justina, and William were interred in Cedar Grove Cemetery in New Bern in the family vault of Nathan Smith. The bodies of Hardy and Henrietta were never found.

Today, Goodwood Plantation is a museum listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  A monument to the Croom family stands at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Tallahassee.

This twenty-year legal odyssey over the Croom estate became one of the longest inheritance cases of the 19th century and remains a subject studied in law schools to this day.