The name "Westcott" is well known in Tallahassee. Florida State University's administration building bears that name. But the significance of the Westcott name is deeply imbedded in American history.
The person who would find herself tracking down that history didn't start out as an historian or genealogist. Christy Broderick Emmanuel was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. By a strange quirk of fate, her writing and research skills were honed at Florida State University.
"When I was at FSU getting my MBA, I had 2 internships that really developed my research and writing skills. One was, I was a legislative intern in the Florida House of Representatives HRS Committee. I did that for a year and I was also a research assistant for a marketing professor in the business school at FSU."
Emmanuel eventually settled in Pensacola, Florida. She says the deepest roots of her own family tree were by no means of great interest to her. Until the day her phone rang.
"I received a phone call from a woman named Suzy Newcomb from Walnut Creek, California, telling me that her husband and my mother were first cousins. That their mothers were sisters and descendants of a family called the Westcotts."
Emmanuel had recently edited a book and Newcomb asked if she'd consider documenting the Westcott clan, since she indeed part of that lineage herself. Intrigued by the prospect, Emmanuel agreed IF Newcomb could supply her with some background material.
"Four boxes arrived at my doorstep. It was what I like to call a 'genealogical mother lode.' Pun intended in part because it's my maternal line. It included 4 books that had been published by family historians as early as early as 1886."
Emmanuel found the Westcotts went back much further. Twenty-two generations, or nearly 800 years. The first to leave the English homeland would head for the New World in 1630. In America, Emmanuel says, it seemed a Westcott was involved in nearly every important event. One accompanied George Washington on that famous boat trip across the Delaware River. Another became the acting territorial governor of Florida. Which brings us to the Westcott whose name is so familiar in Tallahassee.
"James Diament Westcott III went to West Florida Seminary. He died without issue, being the youngest jurist ever in the Florida Supreme Court. He went in at age 29. When he died, he willed his estate to the West Florida Seminary. His family contested his will. The case went all the way to the Florida Supreme Court where James III had presided and the university prevailed. Which I believe in today's dollars would be about $3 million that he bequeathed to the university. So FSU named the university administration building after him."
That's not the end of the Westcott story. Emmanuel's two-volume work brings it nearly up to the present day. She'll be bringing the entire tale to Tallahassee in person this Saturday with a talk and book signing at the Barnes and Noble in the Centre of Tallahassee between noon and 2 p.m.
