On Saturday, the 21st of August, 1830, a small but beautiful brig left the harbour of Charleston, South Carolina, bound for Tampa Bay, Florida. On board were nine passengers; Dr. Gordon, his three children, Robert, Mary, and Frank; his sister's son, Harold McIntosh, and four servants. Dr. Gordon was a wealthy physician, who resided, during the winter, upon the seaboard of Georgia, and during the summer upon a farm in the mountains of that beautifully varied and thriving State. His wife was a Carolinian, from the neighbourhood of Charleston. Anna Gordon, his sister, married a Col. McIntosh, who, after residing for twelve years upon a plantation near the city of Montgomery, in Alabama, died, leaving his widow with three children, and an encumbered estate. Soon after her widowhood, Dr. Gordon paid her a visit, for the two-fold purpose of condolence and of aiding in the settlement of her affairs. She was so greatly pleased with the gentlemanly bearing and the decided intelligence of Robert, who on this occasion accompanied his father, that she requested the privilege of placing her son Harold under her brother's care, until some other arrangement could be made for his education. Dr. Gordon was equally prepossessed with the frank manners and manly aspect of his nephew, and it was with peculiar pleasure that he acceded to the request. Harold had been with his uncle about a month previous to the period at which this history begins.