May, Philip Stockton, 1891-

Zephaniah Kingsley, son of Zephaniah Kingsley, Sr. and Isabella Johnstone, was of Scottish descent and was born in Bristol, England, on December 4, 1765 as the second of eight children. His parents moved to Charleston, South Carolina in 1773 where he received an extensive education and later became a successful slave trader with both Brazil and the West Indies. He settled in Spanish East Florida in 1803. He bought property at Laurel Grove in northeast Florida, and later, in 1813, took over a plantation on Fort George Island which would become his family's primary residence.

In a slaving trip to Havana, Cuba, in 1806, Kingsley purchased the woman who would become his first wife, Anna Madgigine Jai (Kingsley), who had been captured and put in slavery in the Senegal area of West Africa, then sent to the Americas. During the course of his life, Kingsley had at least two other wives, both of whom had children by him: Flora H. Kingsley, Sarah M. Kingsley. However, Anna would be the principal head of the family; she and her children lived at Fort George Island until 1838 when they went to Haiti, and later returned to Florida in 1846. In addition to the property on Fort George Island, Kingsley accumulated property on the St. Johns River including the present day Duval County areas of St. John's Bluff, San Jose, and Beauclerc.

Kingsley was an advocate of the institution of slavery. In 1828 he published a treatise in its defense, arguing that it was advantageous to the slave, the owner, and the state's economic prosperity. Later editions of this treatise were published in 1829 and 1834.

On the way back from visiting his wife Anna and children in Haiti on Sept. 13, 1843, Kingsley died in New York from what was declared pulmonary disease.

Sources: May, Philip S., "Zephaniah Kingsley, Nonconformist (1765-1843)," The Florida Historical Quarterly 23(3) Jan. (1945): 145-159. And: Schafer, Daniel L. Anna Madgigine Jai Kingsley, African Princess, Florida Slave, Plantation Slaveowner . University Press of Florida, 2003.

In 1942 Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings published Cross Creek, her autobiographical account of life in rural Florida. The book featured many of her neighbors and friends, including her longtime maid, Idella Parker, her friend Zelma Cason, her tenants the Mickens family, and her nearby neighbors the Bass and Glisson families. In 1943, Rawlings was surprised when Zelma Cason sued her for libel and invasion of privacy for the manner in which the author had portrayed Cason in Cross Creek . Although Rawlings won the initial case, the trial went to appeal and she was ordered to pay Cason $1 in damages. The case proved to be a great distraction, and it greatly soured Rawlings towards Cross Creek and the region. Rawlings and her husband Norton Baskin were represented by attorney Philip Stockton May of Jacksonville.

An account of the trial may be found in Patricia Nassif Acton's Invasion of Privacy: The Cross Creek Trial of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1988).