Robert Roberts, Jr., son of Robert Roberts and Mary Elizabeth Carlton Roberts, was born February 9, 1884 in the New Zion community of Manatee (now Hardee) County, Florida. At New Zion in DeSoto County on December 29, 1901, he married Sarah Jane Hendry Cordell, daughter of Albert James Cordell and Lettie Ann (Cobb) Cordell, whose family had moved from Decatur County, Georgia to New Zion in 1882. Sarah Jane Hendry Cordell Roberts, nicknamed "Henri," was named Hendry after the Rev. James M. "Boss" Hendry, who gave her two heifers when she was born November 29, 1882 at New Zion.
The 1910 census of DeSoto County, 3rd and 4th days of May 1910, Castalia Precinct, Lily and Castalia Road, enumerated in household 196/201 Robert, Jr. and Sarah J. Roberts and four children, William D., 7; Ola, 6; Nina, 4; Beadie B., 2. Robert, a farmer, owned 136 acres. Neighbors included: Frank and Annie Chancey 190/195, Charles H. and Mary Roberts 191/196, Zachary T. and Sarah J. Duncan 192/197, 193/198: James M. and Martha F. Hendry, Naamon S. and Hattie J. McLeod 194/199, Daniel W. and Miriam D. Messer 195/200, Lewis and Nettie Albritton 197/202, Aaron R. and Elizabeth Albritton 198/203, Robert Sr. and Mary E. Roberts 199/204, Marion and Jessie S. Roberts 200/205, William G. and Frances Coker 201/206, James G. and Josephine Kersey 202/207.
Robert, to support his family, farmed, cowhunted for several years, and had cattle of his own. When first married, he began his cattle herd of twenty-one head, five of which were those of Henri. After the death of his father in 1912, he inherited additional cattle. Then, in December 1914, driving his herd, consisting of 200-300 head, Robert moved his family to Immokalee, Lee County (since May 8, 1923 Collier County). He traded places with Charles W. Garner.
The demise of the open range led to his purchase of grazing land in the spring of 1937. In 1939 or 1940, he purchased one Santa Gertrudis bull; thereafter, he continued with that breed. The breeding with his red poll and Devon cattle in time produced almost 100% solid red cattle. When he incorporated with his children, it was as "Red Cattle Company." At its peak, the company leased 128,000 acres. In 1981, when the family divided the land, they had almost 7,000 head of cattle.
Robert was active in the Florida Cattlemen's Association and was an honorary director in 1957. His older son, W. D. Roberts, was F. C. A. president in 1965 and 1966, while his younger son, Robert A. Roberts, has also been an active member. Robert was also affiliated with the local associations, including the Caloosahatchee Valley Association and later the Everglades Cattle Association, and in 1956 aided in the organization of the Collier County Association. The Roberts women were active in the CowBelles.
Robert and Henri were two of seven charter members of the First Baptist Church of Immokalee which began as a mission in 1916. Robert was the first elected county commissioner from the Immokalee district, Collier County.
Robert Roberts, Jr. died May 22, 1963, Fort Myers, Florida. Henri died July 11, 1966 at Immokalee. Robert and Henri are buried in the First Baptist Church Cemetery, Immokalee.
Robert in May 1957 wrote this self-profile:
“A brief, short biographical sketch of the life of R. Roberts, Immokalee, Florida, in the cattle business.
“My mother, being a Carlton, and her mother, a Hendry, gives me a heritage connection with the cattle business in Florida from the pioneer days, dating back over one hundred years.
“I was born February, 1884, in the vicinity now known as the New Zion Baptist Church area. Fort Green was the post office. Trading points were Plant City and then Bradentown (now Bradenton).
“Though only two years old, my first memory was the burning to death of my youngest sister in a stump hole, on or about, or during the 1886 freeze. My father was gone from home as he had carried a load of oranges to Plant City, getting one cent per orange delivered to Plant City.
“Sometime after the ‘86 freeze, and after the railroad was built to now Wauchula, and before I started to school, my father moved to the place now known as the A. G. Smith place, about one mile west of Wauchula. Clearing strips to set another grove, he cleared strips forty feet apart. He then set the trees forty feet in the rows; the only grove I ever saw set forty feet each way. Then we finished clearing the land after the trees were set.
“I went to school in Wauchula my first few school years.
“The 1894 freeze came between Christmas and New Year’s, and the 1895 freeze came the following February, freezing and killing the trees back to the ground in a greater portion of Florida that was produced at that time.
"The freeze, along with the Panic, they called it, the depression during Grover Cleveland’s administration, and the drought in 1898, the all-time driest that has ever been known in that part of the country, found our cattle sleeping in the bottom of mud lakes in Horse Creek.
“We didn’t make a grain of corn that year. After the showers began to come in the month of June, my father planted the whole place, even the grove out on Horse Creek.
“At this time in 1898, my father had sold the grove at Wauchula, and moved back to the place known as the old Roberts’ place where my father settled after the Civil War and was about the center of his cattle country. It was the place where I was born. There I finished what schooling I had.
“In December 1901, I married Henri Cordell. My wife was born and reared in the same community I was, we went to the same school and church of like faith, both fathers being Baptist deacons. Our social life was always in the school or church connections.
“Beginning our life together, I built a small boxed house, of which I cut the timber from the forty acres where the house was built, and the foundation of the house, and the shingles for the roof.
“As I casually tell the young today, we were married on Sunday night, went to our new home, and went to work. I began grubbing palmetto roots and burning stumps, clearing the land to cow-pen in the spring to plant potatoes, rice, chufas to fatten a few hogs to make meat and lard.
"My cattle start was four cows and calves and four cows and yearlings, a total of sixteen head. My wife had five head, giving us a grand total of twenty-one head to begin in the spring of 1902.
“Beginning the year, I made arrangements with the merchant that I get a year’s credit. At the end of the year, I owed him $96 and some cents.
“The youngsters don’t know what the word economy means today. We went along working, increasing in cattle slowly, and buying a cow or two along. I drew a nice little bunch of cattle in the division of my father’s cattle after his death in the year of 1912.
“During my early days, I worked with and for several large cattlemen in Florida. I worked for the Knights, Tom Knight who lived at Charlotte Harbor, and John Knight who lived in Manatee County. The cattle that were sold or shipped were shipped to Cuba. The cattle were loaded at then Fiddlers Point. Cuba, after the Spanish-American War, was the major outlet for Florida cattle.
“I helped to gather the entire stock of Cicero Platt’s cattle and ship them to Frank Knight in Cuba. Bob Whidden was born, lived, and died in the vicinity of Arcadia. At one time he was among the largest individual cattlemen in Florida; he marketed lots of his cattle in Tampa.
n&bsp; “As the years went by, I yearned and dreamed for a place to grow and spread. Finally I decided to look south of Caloosahatchee. There finding the small community of Immokalee and the vast, wide open spaces, I felt I could, with time enough, grow and develop a good cattle business.
“So, in the summer of 1914, I helped drive a bunch of steers, that we and others had sold to Tappen Mann, to LaBelle. Then riding to Immokalee looking for something, while in Immokalee, I found that the Baucom place was for sale and owned by Charles W. Garner.
“I gave Garner a small binder for six months, so as to give myself time to try and sell the place I owned then in DeSoto County (now Hardee County); in the meantime, Garner sold his cattle and decided to trade places with me. So that is what we did, and I moved my cattle to Immokalee, then in Lee County, now in Collier County. (Quite a part of my operations are now in Hendry County.)
“At the age of thirty years, my wife and I and seven children (I have two children born in Immokalee) moved to Immokalee. All children are well blessed and all are living.
“Along about this time, cattle died from what they called fever ticks, and there were several dipping vats built about over the country, but didn’t have a compulsory tick eradication until 1932.
“So along from the time I moved to this country, and not having enough cattle to utilize my time profitably, I worked for (then known as) the Lee County Consolidated Cattle Co., principally owned by the Hendrys, later owned by Lykes Brothers.
“The cattle business was largely beef cattle. These cattle were shipped to Cuba, all being steers and bulls. The steers were loaded separate to the bulls. Sometimes we would drive as many as a thousand head of each, driving one bunch one day behind the other. These cattle were shipped to Punta Rassa.
“Cows were shipped west until the state of Florida quarantined, I think about 1922 or 1923, and about that time the shipping to Cuba stopped too.
“About 1919 cow hides sold as high as fifty-five cents per pound. You could get about as much for the hide as the cow would sell for. That didn’t last long. Along during the Florida boom, cattle got very cheap; in fact, you just couldn’t hardly sell any cattle at any price.
“Then in 1928, Dr. Horn quit working for the government in tick eradication and began cleaning and clearing some cattle to go west. I sold Cary Carlton in March the first steers I had sold in several years for $20 per head and was glad to get it.
“Cattle sold good for two or three years, and then the Depression came in the early ‘30s and compulsory dip (tick eradication). Continuing in the cattle business through the good and tough years, I went into tick eradication in the spring of 1932 with about two thousand head of then commonly known as scrub cattle, staying under some degree of quarantine for fourteen years, dipping all or part of my cattle through three tick eradications; tick reinfestations are not a happy feeling I know or experience.
“Then as time began to bring the necessity of owning grazing lands, in the spring of 1937, I purchased the first land for cattle I own today.
“Then in the year of 1941, I began to try to improve some land for better grass. That is a slow and continuing process that will never end. As I began to try to have better grass, I began to purchase better bulls.
“Being an admirer of red cattle all my life and thinking that they were thrifty and good reproducers, referring to red poll and Devon cattle, in the year 1939 or 1940, I purchased one Santa Gertrudis bull. My cattle are almost 100% red cattle today, and when they are fat, they are pretty to me, as well as, good handling cattle and good doing cattle.
“When I incorporated my cattle business with my children, I gave the corporation the name, Red Cattle Company, now known as the Red Cattle Company.
“Now at the age of seventy-three, though not having been able to ride a horse for the past ten years due to a heart ailment that developed during the years of World War II when labor was so short and I continued to work so hard, I do drive over all my range and do quite a bit of minor work yet.
“Being a cattleman of the old school, being away from home, sometimes weeks and even as much as a month at a time, not ever having many days of the easy, luscious and comfortable things and places in life, sometimes I am prone to wonder if any man, too much like the cow in the lush green pasture with too much dark, cool shade, gets too comfortable to hustle as much as we should.
“I have so much enjoyed the way of my life, being a pioneer in a frontier country. The hardships and hard work have brought much pleasure in my life to me.
“Now with reference to the Florida Cattlemen’s Association, without the Association, I have often wondered what the cattlemen of Florida would have done.
“I have been affiliated with the different local associations that we have struggled to keep in action, or active. First back in the ‘30s, we organized the Caloosahatchee Valley Association, then later the Everglades Association. In 1956, we organized the Collier County Association. I have been a member and active most of the time, both in the local and state associations.
“Though I have enjoyed and continue the greatest and most enjoyable accomplishment in life, along with my good wife, is my nine children, and their grandchildren, God has so wonderfully blessed along the way.”
Robert, Jr. and Henri (Cordell) Roberts had the following children:
1. William Dius Roberts, born Oct. 30, 1902, Ona, FL; died March 5, 1988; married (1) June 24, 1931 Cynthia Edna Hudspath; div.; (2) June 1957 Ruth Boone Shuman, div.; (3) Aug. 1961 Sarah Lee Thompson Frizzell.
2. Ola Virginia Roberts, born Feb. 9, 1904, Ona, FL; died March 31, 1986; married on Sept. 4, 1923 Jesse Eugene Gallagher.
3. Nina Mae Roberts, born Aug. 22, 1905, Ona, FL; died May 23, 1994; married on April 3, 1924 Jack Carl Renfro.
4. Beadie Blye Roberts, born Oct. 3, 1907, Ona, FL; died Feb. 2, 1996; married (1) July 15, 1926 Ralph Barineau Hendry; (2) 1948 James Ernest Treadway.
5. Sarah Lois Roberts, born July 11, 1911, Ona, FL; died Nov. 18, 1985; married (1) May 29, 1932 Roy R. Bethea; div. 1943; (2) Aug. 20, 1947 Robert Henry "Bob" McCollum; (3) Edward T. Horton.
6. Mary Louise Roberts, born Nov. 24, 1912, Ona, FL; died July 22, 1997; married on July 31, 1936 Richard B. Floyd.
7. Lettie Josephine Roberts, born Sept. 5, 1914, Ona, FL; died January 17, 1984; married on Dec. 23, 1936 William Ellis Giddens.
8. Grace Mildred Roberts, born April 15, 1919, Immokalee, FL; married on Feb. 19, 1939 William Horace Sherrod.
9. Robert Albert "Bobby" Roberts, born Dec. 4, 1922, Immokalee, FL; married on Nov. 27, 1945 Sarah Margaret McLeroy.
Robert Roberts Jr, Robert Roberts Sr., Mary Elizabeth Carlton Roberts, 1888
Robert Roberts Jr., Henri and children, 1911
Seven Roberts Sisters, youngest to oldest L-R: Mildred, Josephine, Louise, Lois, Blye, Nina, Ola, 1950
Standing L-R: Bobby, Mildred, Josephine, Louise, Lois, Blye, Nina, Ola, Dius; Seated Robert Roberts, Jr. and Sarah Jane "Henri" Roberts, 60th wedding anniversary, Dec. 1961
L-R:Dius, Oloa, Nina, Blye, Lois, Louise, Josephine, Mildred, Bobby, 1976
Bobby Roberts
This article is adapted from this writer's edited self-profile of Robert Roberts, Jr., which was published in The Herald-Advocate (Wauchula, Fla.) of November 16, 1989, page 5-C, and Lineage of John Carlton, 1998. Mildred Sherrod provided the self-profile and other family data.
August 22, 2001, February 20, 2002, May 29, 2007, July 3, 2011