Croom, Cicero Stephens, 1839-1883

A prominent southern family orignailly from North Carolina, the Crooms settles in Quincy, Florida, in the 1830's. William Whitfield Croom was a cotton commission merchant and broker, real estate speculator, and plantation owner. Due to his business endeavors, the family lived in Georgia, New York, Mississippi, and Alabama prior to the Civil War. He and his wife, Julia Stephens Croom, has two children, Cicero Stephens Croom and Elizabeth Whitfield Croom Bellamy.

Stephens graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1859 and served in several theaters of the Civil War as a staff officer in the Confederate Army. He practiced law in Mobile, Alabama, from 1866 until his death in 1884. He was elected Mobile City Attorney in 1875 and Commissioner of the Port of Mobile in 1880. Elizabeth Bellamy, a nationally known author, operated a girls' school in Mobile with her sister in law, Mary Marshall Croom.