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5 unusual facts about East Florida


East Florida

The most powerful lubricant between the East Florida speculators and the Nova Scotia speculators was Col. Thomas Thoroton of Flintham, Nottinghamshire.

Thoroton, the stepbrother of Levett Blackborne, had married an illegitimate daughter of the Duke of Rutland and often lived at Belvoir Castle, where he acted as principal agent to the Duke, who, along with his son the Marquis of Granby, were heavily involved in overseas ventures.

The apportionment of lands in the new colonies fell to the same group of English and Scottish entrepreneurs and merchant interests, led chiefly by the Englishman Richard Oswald, later a diplomat, and the British General James Grant, who would later become governor of East Florida.

Grant David Yeats

Born in Florida, he was the son of David Yeats, a physician who was the Secretary of the East Florida Colony in Florida.

Johann David Schoepff

Determined to study the Americas as a scientist once the war ended, he travelled for two years in the United States, British East Florida, and the Bahamas.


Francis Levett

Francis Levett was an English trader, who worked as factor at Livorno, Italy, for the Levant Company until he lit out for East Florida in 1769 where his brother-in-law Patrick Tonyn of the British Army had been appointed Governor of the English colony.

Saint Augustine Blues

Many of the members of the Saint Augustine Blues were descendants of settlers from Minorca and a smaller group of Italians and Greeks from Italy and Greece collectively referred to in this instance as the Minorcans, that fled Andrew Turnbull's failed colony at New Smyrna and were granted sanctuary in St. Augustine by the governor of then British East Florida Patrick Tonyn.

Sawpit Bluff, Florida

Sawpit Bluff was a small settlement in East Florida during the American Revolutionary War, on the site of a plantation at the mouth of Sawpit Creek where it discharges into Nassau Sound opposite the south end of Amelia Island.


see also

Patrick Tonyn

During his tenure as governor of East Florida the colony enjoyed peace with the neighboring Indians, primarily due to his positive relationship with Ahaya the Cowkeeper, chief of the Alachua band of the Seminole tribe.

William Stork

A manuscript work by John William Gerard de Brahm, in the library of Harvard University, listing the residents of East Florida up to 1771, refers to him as "William Stork, Esq., historian".