TO FLORIDA ON AN EAR Numerous reasons and circumstances prompted the
journeys of pre-statehood families to Florida. Some were sent from Spain to colonize
the first permanent European settlement on the mainland of what is now the
United States and stayed on through 20 years of British possession and 36 years
of Spanish repossession before Florida became a permanent possession of the
United States in 1819. Some came to populate the new British provinces
of East and West Florida with English speaking people after Spain relinquished
ownership in 1763 to Great Britain. Many Greek, Italian, and Spanish families,
seeking to break the bonds of poverty, accompanied Dr. Andrew Turnbull to New
Smyrna as indentured servants in 1768. The Revolution sent numerous Loyalists and their
families scurrying from the colonies, most of them from Georgia, to the safety
of the British controlled provinces of East and West Florida. Loyalists families
who were willing to pledge loyalty to Spain for grants of land remained after
Great Britain ceded Florida back to Spain in 1783. And for countless others, Florida was the last
leg of long treks from northern climes down waterways and overland roads, along
which they left remnants of kin strewn through the Carolinas and Georgia, in
their quest for a place in the sun.
Incredibly, the loss of an ear set in motion a
chain of events that culminated in the arrival of one family whose ancestors had
already left their mark on Florida history and whose multitudinous descendants
today contribute considerably to the population of practically every county of
the state and have spilled over into many other states, a family which has
produced leaders in practically every field of endeavor. In April, 1731, Juan de
Leon Fandino, a captain in the Spanish coast guard, boarded suspected smuggling
ship Rebecca and cut off the ear of her captain, Robert Jenkins. Eight
and a half years later, in October 1739, display of the ear in the British
Parliament prompted Great Britain to declare against Spain the war that is
popularly known as the War of Jenkin’s Ear. General James Oglethorpe, political and military
leader of Georgia, wishing to stop once and for all the frequent raiding forays
into the lower British colonies by the Spanish of St. Augustine, forged the
chain's next link when in the early summer of 1740 he lead an unsuccessful
expedition against the “Castle” at St. Augustine. His failed attempt served only
to intensify the determination of the Spanish to rid the Southeastern coast, an
area they strongly considered to be rightfully theirs, of the lower English
colonies. They immediately increased hostile activities against their unwelcome
neighbors, especially on the high seas. Another link, in the form of the merchant ship
Ancona, entered Charles Town harbor
August 16, 1740 from Cowes, England, where she had delivered barrels of Carolina Gold (rice). Aboard her was
David Cutler Braddock. It was not by the smile of Lady Luck that the 24 year old
of Long Island, New York had the responsible position of ship’s mate on a
merchant ship at such a young age. His grandfather, John Braddick I, was a sea
captain from England who had settled in America in the mid-1600’s. David’s
father, John Braddick II, had also been a sea captain who sailed commercially
between Long Island and colonial and foreign ports. During Queen Anne’s War
Captain Braddick II served with distinction at Fort William Henry on Long Island
and later delivered a shipload of bread to Connecticut “for the subsistence of
the men belonging to this colony, now going against Canada, &c.” In 1721 he
rescued a slave boy from a “piratical ship” and landed him in New London. He
lived by the sea and died by the sea: Peter Zenger’s February 18, 1734 issue of
the New York Weekly Journal reported,
“Braddock, Capt. and son killed on board ship by an Indian.” The son killed was
David’s younger brother Peter. David’s older half-brother John Braddick III was
a ship captain as was his son, John Braddick IV, who delivered supplies to
Continental ships in New England waters during the Revolution, including the Alfred, John Paul Jones’s ship before
the Bohomme Richard.
Although not a man of the sea, David’s maternal
grandfather, John Cutler, who had changed his name from Johannes DeMesmaker to
its English equivalent when he arrived in Hingham, Massachusetts from his native
Holland in the mid-1600’s, contributed even more fortitude in the face of danger
to his grandson’s genes. He served as a surgeon attached to the Massachusetts
regiment in the colony’s great battle with the Narragansett’s in King Philip's
War. Dr. Cutler’s great-grandson, Benjamin Clarke Cutler, married the niece of
General Francis Marion, the Swamp Fox. Their granddaughter, Julia Ward Howe,
wrote the Battle Hymn of the
Republic. The Ancona sailed from Charles Town in
November, 1740, her holds bulging with barrels of rice. Whatever her intended
destination, she did not make it. A Spanish privateer sloop commanded by Captain
Hosea captured her and took her and her crew into St. Augustine. By January 31,
1741, David had escaped and made his way a hundred miles northward to Georgia to
Oglethorpe’s headquarters at Fort Frederica on St. Simon’s and had written a
deposition of his experience: Deposition of David
Cutler Braddock Mate of the Ancona Merchant & taken
Prisoner on board the Same by
a Spanish Privateer sloop from St.
Augustine commanded by Capt. Hosea. This Deponent being examined under oath declares that on his first being
carried into Augustin & having the Liberty of going about the sd Town &
free Liberty of talking to the Inhabitants there, he heard from several persons
but more especially from John Delorem who was born in Italy, and speaks English,
Spanish, and French, that at the latter end of the siege commanded by General
Oglethorpe the Soldiers were so reduced that for want of Provisions they were
forced to kill and eat Catts, & that if they had not received Provisions by
certain Vessells getting in safe at ye latter end of ye sd Siege,
they wo'd have been obliged through want to have surrendered up ye town and Castle to General Oglethorpe in a
very little time, for that when the sd Vessels arrived they had such numbers of
Indians, Negroes Women and Children in ye Town that they had not Provisions
enough in Town and Castle to keep them alive one week. This Deponent farther says that ye Mate of the Privateer Sloop which took
him Prisoner was an Irishman called Augustus Barrington who told this Deponent
yt they came from Campeachy to ye Havannah where they got a Commission from the Govr. who put Provs. on board them
for Augustine, &c sent her as a
Guard Sloop to several other Vessels loaded wth. Provs. for the Relief of the garrison of Augustine, and that they, with the other vessells
arrived at ye Musquetoes, and after they were got safe in there, they saw an
Englishman of War cruizing that Bar for 2 to 3 Days, & that the Galleys and
other Boats helped to unload them & they got into Augustine safe with all
the Provisions, The said Augustus Barrington said that their Sloop lay Guard
Sloop out ward most at ye Musquetoes, & that he ran away with intent to get
to General Oglethorpe but he was retaken by the Spands. & threatened to be
shott. He said, If he co'd. have got to
General Oglethorpe and have given notice where they lay so as to stop the
Provisions from getting in,
the Spaniards Necessity at
Augustine was so great that they must
have surrendered in a weeks time. And
all the People and Soldiers that this deponent conversed with at Augustine,
confirmed ye accots. of their being drove to the last necessity at the time that
the said Vessels arrived, And that to his own they had eaten up ye Prov'isns.
then received and again were drove to great want, about a week before he made
his Escape. He often heard the people
Say that during the siege and even all the while that he was Prisoner there that
they durst not go abroad to get any Provisions from the Land Side, and were
obliged to depend on Provisions brought by Sea. He further says that whilst he was there was a Mutiny amongst those men
which were called Watchinungoes who are condemned Men, or Transports for a time,
chiefly from New Spain, and that they attempted to take the Castle but that they
were discovered & prevented, &
they confessed yt if they had succeeded, their Intention was to send to General
Oglethorpe. He further says that the Castle is garrisond by 35 men only, w'ch. is a
Guard commanded by a Sergeant and who relieves every day; and that there is a
Lieutent. of the Castle and a Gunner who constantly reside there that the rest
of the garrison is quartered in Barracks at a distance and in the Town. And that the Watchimimgoes said that if they
had taken the Castle, they thought they could have defended it till they could
have got Succors from General Oglethorpe.
David Cutler Braddock Sworn to before me this 31st. day
ofJanuary1741
(Endorsed) John Calwell
in Mr. Oglethorpe's
Letter to A. S.
Apparently impressed by the pluck of the young
mariner, Oglethorpe sent him to Charles Town to pick up the schooner Norfolk, outfit her as a privateer, and
enlist a crew for her. By early spring of 1742, he had her ready enough to sail
with a party of Indians to the vicinity of St Augustine “to get some prisoners
for intelligence.” He returned shortly with six Spaniards and three scalps. David and the Norfolk were in Charles Town June 22,
1742 when a Spanish fleet suddenly appeared off St. Simon’s and proceeded to
disembark a force of invading soldiers. He and a small flotilla of South
Carolina vessels, delayed by Lieutenant Governor Bull’s difficulty in rounding
up sufficient crewmen, arrived off St. Simon’s just in time to chase the
retreating Spanish ships bearing the soundly defeated army back to St. Augustine
and lob a few nine-pound shot at the “Castle.” A year and a half earlier the South Carolina
government had ordered that two half-galleys of a draft capable of pursuing
raiding Spanish galleys through the shallows of the colony’s coastal waters be
built. The first, the Charles Town,
was completed in time to be in the flotilla sent to Oglethorpe’s aid. She was
under the capable command of Captain William Lyford, Sr. He also had overall
command of South Carolina’s provincial navy consisting of, in addition to the Charles Town, the second half-galley Beaufort and two scout boats. It was old
sea dogs like Lyford who gave truth to the first half of the aphorism, “In the
olden days, they had wooden ships and iron men, today we have wooden men and
iron ships.” A commercial mariner from Jamaica, he had met and married the
daughter of William Spatches, a well-to-do ship owner who was at one time
president of the Bahamas, and had settled on New Providence Island. Captured by
Spanish privateers in 1726 and taken into Havana, Lyford escaped and made his
way back to the Bahamas in a dugout. After his wife’s death in 1728, he moved
his commercial maritime venture to Beaufort, South Carolina. Prior to being
placed in charge of the provincial navy, he had commanded Fort Frederick, South
Carolina’s southernmost outpost against Spanish invasions and Indian
uprisings. Lyford, like Oglethorpe, was impressed with
David and placed him in command of the Beaufort. David married Lyford’s
daughter and the couple added a new and important link to the chain with the
birth of their son, John Cutler Braddock. For the next year the two captains,
Lyford and Barddock, routinely cruised the coast to St. Augustine and beyond,
monitoring Spanish military activities. Then in September, 1743, based on the
damning testimony of some of his crew, Lyford was charged with trading with the
enemy while on a prisoner swapping mission to St. Augustine. He would have been
sent to England to be tried for treason had it not been for the intervention of
the commander of the largest British man-of war on the American station who
wrote a letter to the South Carolina government: His Honour also communicated to your Honours the
following letters he had received from Capt. Utting Commander of His Majesty's
Ship Loo. vizt. Sir
Loo Port Royal Harbour
Dec 10, 1743 Being informed by Mr. Lyford Pilot of his Majesty's Ship Loo, under my command, your Honour has
granted a warrant for apprehending him, for trading with the Spaniards, I think
it a duty incumbent on me, as it is for his Majesty's Service, to acquaint your
Honour and His Majesty's Council, that he is actually Pilot of His Majesty's
Ship Loo, and that there is no man in
the Country that knows anything of the Bar or Harbour of Port Royal and His
Majesty's Ship Loo under my command
is fit for Sea, and am well assured that there will be a 40 or 50 Gun ship from
England for that place very soon, that cannot properly get in without some able
Pilot, to carry her, & also to carry the Loo out, and to be continued at that
Port, for want of which His Majesty's Service, and also the Service of this
Province must greatly suffer, there being no other person in the Province
capable of taking charge of any of His Majesty's Ships of that rate for that
Port for which reason I, in duty to His Majesty's Service must beg your Honour
& His Majesty's Council will be pleased to take it into consideration, and
if his Crime is not so bad but if on his proper conceptions and his going bail
for his future Conduct, your Honour & his Majesty's honourable Council will
be pleased to release him, it being intirely for his Majesty's Service in this
Province.
I am &c
Ashby Utting
Utting’s intercession prevailed:
His Honour the Lt. Govr having asked the advice and opinion of the Board
though it was the opinion of his Majesty's Council that a legal warrant having
gone out, in due manner against the saidLyford for high Treason, the Law should take
its course, But lest his Majesty's Service suffer, as represented by Capt.
Utting, and as this was the first accusation of any being committed by the said
Lyford , and as the general tension of his Life and Conversation in this
Province hath been a good and faithful Subject to his Majesty, ought to be, and
in particular in giving information, in the beginning of the year 1738, of a
Spanish Squadron off St. Augustine, intended as it was supposed against this
Province, or the colony of Georgia, it was the advice of his Majesty's Council
to his Honour the Lt. Govr. to represent the case of the said Lyford to his
Majesty's Secretary of State together with the said letter of Capt. Utting in
order to obtain his Majesty's directions thereupon. Apparently his Majesty’s directions thereupon
was to do nothing further than remove Lyford from his command in the South
Carolina provincial navy. However, Utting retained him as pilot of the
Loo, and Lyford was aboard her on February 5, 1744, when she ran aground
on a Florida key known since as Looe Key. David continued cruising the coast; however, the
Commons House of Assembly relocated the Beaufort’s station to a cove near the southern point of
Hilton Head so “. . . that she may be able to discover the Approach of an Enemy,
and give such Intelligence to the Inhabitants as may enable them to provide for
their Security.” The point and the cove still bear David’s name. In May, 1745 he
nearly suffered the same fate as his father-in-law had earlier, and without a
Captain Utting to bail him out. Colonel William Horton, who succeeded Oglethorpe
as military leader of Georgia and whose house still stands on Jekyll Island, at
least the tabby walls of it, on mere suspicion accused him of conspiring to
trade with the Spanish at St. Augustine. The testimony of David's entire crew
before the Governor's Council quickly exonerated him.
He was not so fortunate the following year. On
June 13, 1746, despite testimony that the Beaufort had suffered a split foremast,
Governor James Glen dismissed him from provincial service after receiving
complaints from merchant ship owners that he had kept their hastily borrowed
crew members, most of whom had been bailed out of the workhouse for the purpose,
beyond the agreed time while in pursuit of a Spanish privateer which had
appeared off the South Carolina coast. Undaunted, David registered two schooners, the
John and Mary and the Pickpocket, three days later and
embarked on a career of commercial shipping ventures. And exactly one year after
his dismissal he received a 500 acre grant on the Ogeechee River and created a
key link in the chain of events by moving his family to Georgia. After the loss of the H.M.S. Loo, David’s father-in-law,
William Lyford, had returned to the Bahamas where he was placed in command of
the privateer Isabella by Governor John Tinker and had
promptly sailed out into the Gulf of Mexico to capture the Nefra Seignora de la Luz containing a
cargo valued at £52,500. Undoubtedly enticed by word from his father-in-law of
the rich harvest of Spanish vessels awaiting daring mariners in the Caribbean,
David sailed to the Bahamas in late summer of 1747 and took command of the
privateer galley Viper. After taking
three prizes, the Nuestra Senora de
Bagona, the Bardera, and the La Fama Vante with a total appraisal
value of £13,550, he returned home to Georgia long enough to purchase 400 acres
adjoining his property on the Ogeechee, then returned to the prowl within three
months. This time, while at the helm of his father-in-law’s old privateer, the
Isabella, he captured the French
vessel Florifaunt carrying a cargo of
indigo, sugar, and cotton with an
appraisal value of £15,000. In the summer of 1752 he received a healthy dose of
his own medicine when his privateer was captured by a Spanish privateer and
taken into Havana. Released along with other prisoners by the Spanish and placed
aboard an England-bound British man-of-war, David suffered the further
humiliation of being given a rowboat in 13 fathoms of water off the coast of
Georgia by the vessel’s captain, who refused to veer any further off his course,
and told to row himself the rest of the way home. Having lost his privateer to the Spanish, he
returned to his shipping and other maritime enterprises until he could procure
another vessel worthy of committing legalized piracy on the high seas, which was
what privateering amounted to. The regard with which he was viewed in maritime
matters by leaders in his home port of Savannah is apparent in a letter written
by James Habersham to Georgia Trustee secretary Benjamin Martyn in England
concerning navigation problems in the Savannah River. Habersham, after detailing
the problems, wrote, “Capt. David Cutler Braddock, who I mentioned in my Journal
of the 21st November last to be sailed for New England, is proposed
to accompany the Surveyors in this Enquiry, when he arrives here. He is allowed
to be an excellent Seaman, and to be well acquainted with this River . . .
.” With the War of Jenkin’s Ear over and the Seven
Years' War going on, French vessels, which were not as plentiful off the
southeast coast as Spanish galleons had been, became the prey. However, before
David could sail his newly fitted-out privateer, Cockspur, across the bar on her maiden
voyage, he captured the French vessel Les
Deux Amis, disguised as a British merchant ship, in the Savannah River in
late summer of 1756. That same year, while on a privateering expedition, he made
a chart of uncanny accuracy of the Florida Keys, which is now in the Library of
Congress. Well-known colonial naturalist and explorer Bernard Romans, in his
book, A Concise Natural History of East
and West Florida, mentions another nautical chart David made while on a
privateering expedition along the gulf coast. The chart, which is no longer in
existence, was of Tampa Bay and surrounding areas. Romans says, “. . . Capt.
Braddock was generally acknowledged the first Englishman who explored the
bay.” A French
vessel David pursued as prey in the spring of 1757 off Santa Domingo turned out
to be a privateer of superior force. The Cockspur was mauled beyond further use.
Three of its crew were killed and many of them wounded. By February 10, 1758, he
had a new privateer and was ready to sail out of the Savannah River with a
letters of marque—a document issued by a government allowing a private citizen
to equip a ship with arms in order to attack enemy ships—in hand: By Henry Ellis Esquire Lieutenant
His expedition aboard the King of Prussia, with which he had met
with only moderate success, taking and aiding in the taking of four minor French
ships pretending to be Danish, was his last venture as a privateer. However, it
was not his last as a mariner nor in facing peril. In addition to continuing his
commercial shipping business, he was appointed by Governor James Wright as
commander of Georgia’s scout boat in 1761, a position he held until late 1768.
Primary of his duties in this role was “. . . to see what discovery he could
make of any Vessel hovering about the Coast, and should he on his Return report
having seen any such Vessel, his Honour then proposed to order an additional
Number of Hands on Board the Scout Boat, and also to man another small Vessel
from hence, in Order to pursue the Enemy; and to send an immediate express
concerning it to Charles Town that the Commanders of his Majesty's Ships there
might have Notice thereof.” Interestingly, David and the scout boat were sent to
seize a vessel which had been reported taking a cargo of hogs and other
provisions off Talbot Island, an island on which some of his descendants would
one day reside. On another occasion, he and his crew took the scout boat up the
Savannah River to Augusta and back, no small feat considering the one way
distance is over a hundred miles and they had to row it both ways. He demonstrated the versatility of his skills as
a mariner when he saved the British man-of-war Epreuve after it ran aground March 18,
1763 in the Savannah River after the efforts of many others failed. The South Carolina Gazette reported: The Georgia Gazette of 14th of July,
contains the following compliment to Capt. Braddock, commander of the king's
scout-boat, to whose skill and uncommon perseverance is said to be principally
owing the saving of his majesty's ship the Epreuve, after
it was thought by most people
impossible. “It is with pleasure we acquaint the
public, that the Epreuve has safely come to her moorings in this
harbour, which adds great honour to the
merit and assiduity of Capt. David Cutler Braddock, and plainly elucidates the
experience and great abilities of that gentleman.” In 1764, he was elected to colonial Georgia’s
Commons House of Assembly as a representative of Acton, a village on the
outskirts of Savannah. He was highly active in the Assembly's affairs right up
to his death in February, 1769, serving on numerous committees. The goal of one
committee on which he served was to obtain a charter, land, and support to
convert Bethesda, the orphanage founded by George Whitefield, a central figure
in the Great Awakening religious revival of colonial America, into a college.
The goal of another was to appoint Benjamin Franklin Georgia’s agent in
England. Since his birth was recorded in St. Helena’s
Parish Register in 1743, the name of David’s son, John Cutler Braddock, appeared
in public records only once—a petition for 250 acres on the Ogeechee River in
December, 1764—until July 16, 1769. On
this date John added another significant link to the chain when he married Lucia
Cook in Jerusalem Church, now the oldest standing public building in Georgia, in
the German settlement of Ebenezer. Except for another petition for land and sale
of the granted land, public records again fall silent on John until after the
start of the Revolution when Governor James Wright, in exile, wrote a lengthy
memo concerning what is now known as the Battle of Thomas Creek which occurred
in May, 1777. Wright mentions John as commander of one of the three Georgia
galleys bringing Continentals to a scheduled rendezvous with a unit of Georgia
militia commanded by Colonel John Baker and that the galleys had run aground in
Amelia Narrows, resulting in Baker’s unit losing many men in ambush by Colonel
Thomas Browne’s Florida Rangers. In their next recorded encounter with the enemy,
the Georgia galleys and their commanders more than redeemed themselves. The South Carolina and American General
Gazette ran the following article:
C H A R L E S T O W N, April 23, This afternoon an express arrived here
from Savannah, by the whom the following advices were received. Copy of a Letter from Col. Elbert to
Major General Howe, at Savannah. Dear General, Frederica, April 19, 1778 I
have the happiness to inform you that about 10 o'clock this afternoon,
the Brigantine Hinchinbrooke, the Sloop Rebecca, and a prize brig, all struck the British Tyrant's colors and
surrendered to the American arms. Having
received intelligence that the above vessels were at this place, I put about
three hundred men, by detachment from the troops under my command at Fort Howe,
on board the three gallies—the Washington, Capt. Hardy; the Lee,
Capt Braddock; and the Bulloch, Capt. Hatcher; and a detachment
of artillery with a field piece, under Capt. Young, I put on board a boat. With this little army, we embarked at Darien,
and last evening effected a landing at a bluff about a mile below the town;
leaving Col. White on board the Lee,
Capt. Melvin on board the Washington,
and Lieut. Petty on board the Bulloch, each with a sufficient party of
troops. Immediately on Landing, I
dispatched Lieut. Col. Ray and Major Roberts, with about 100 men, who marched
directly up to the town, and made prisoners three marines and two sailors
belonging to the Hinchinbrooke. It being late, the gallies did not engage
until this morning. You must imagine
what my feelings were, to see our three little men of war going to the attack of
these three vessels, who have spread terror on our coast, and who were drawn up
in order of battle; but the weight of our metal soon damped the courage of these
heroes, who soon took to their boats; and, as many as could, abandoned the
vessels with everything on board, of which we immediately took possession. What is
extraordinary, we have not one
man hurt. Capt. Ellis [ of the Hinchinbrooke] is drowned, and Capt. Mowbry [of the Rebecca] made his escape. As soon as I see Col. White, who has not yet
come to us with his prizes, I shall consult with him, the other three officers, and the commanding officers of the galleys,
on the expediency of attacking the Galatea now lying off Jekyll. I send you this by Brigade Major Habersham,
who will inform you of the other particulars.
I am. &c.
SAMUEL ELBERT,
Col. Commandant After Savannah and control of coastal Georgia
fell to the British in late 1779, the Georgia royal assembly convened the
following May and by July had hammered out acts designed to punish Georgians who
had taken part in "the Bloody Rebellion."
The Georgia Treason Act and The
British Disqualifying Act named names, 114 on the first act and 151 on the
second. John, who now commanded 348 seamen a few miles away across the waterways
at Fort Lyttleton near Beaufort, SC, had the honor of being on both lists. His
name also appeared on a list compiled by Loyalist Thomas Flyming, ". . . who
being duly Sworn Saith, that to his certain knowledge the following persons
underwritten were all of them very active in Rebellion against His majesty in
this Province." John was in noble company; biographies of 23 of the 79 men on
Flyming's list are recorded in the first volume of Men of Mark in Georgia. With only two newspapers in the southern
colonies during the Revolution, one in Charleston, the other in Savannah, and
long before instantaneous communication facilities and embedded newsmen, only a
few of the many exploits of combat that surely must have occurred, considering
the intensity of the war in the South, made it into print. Those that did gave
only sparse details. One of the more detailed ones, which appeared in the
September 27, 1781 issue of the British controlled Royal Georgia Gazette and, naturally,
had a British slant to it, gave clear indication that John's fervor for the
cause of Liberty was not daunted by the legal death threat hanging over his
head: Last Tuesday fe'nnight as the
brigantine Dunmore, Captain
Caldeleugh, of 6 three pounders, and
having 12 men on board, was going from Sunbury in order to proceed on her voyage
to Jamaica, she was attacked by two Rebel gallies, schooner rigged, at ten
o'clock in the forenoon the largest,
commanded by John Braddock, mounted two carriage guns and a number of swivels,
had upwards of 50 men, is about 60 feet
long, and rows with 26 oars the other also mounted some swivels; they kept
about her till two in the afternoon, and
were prepared for boarding, but the brisk fire from the brigantine then obliged
them to sheer off. During the
engagement the Dunmore ran them both
aground, but they both got off again;
she received no damage, but it's imagined the largest galley lost some of their
men, as several holes were perceived in
her sails, and the grape shot was seen
to light on each side of her. The brigantine, after getting about 60 leagues out
to sea, sprang a leak, which obliged her to put back, and she arrived at Tybee
on Wednesday evening the 18th inst. with six feet water in her hold. In coming in she again fell in with her antagonists, but a few shot fired
at them immediately compelled them to
beat away. The Dunmore's leak being stopt, she is again
ready to proceed on her voyage. John's naval exploits did not end with the
surrender of the British in October, 1781. His uncle, Captain William Lyford,
Jr., who had been "Pilot for the Bar and Port of Savannah" for ten years, had
declared himself a Loyalist at the War's outbreak and had fled to St. Augustine.
From there he had spent the war serving as pilot on British men-of-war along the
Southern coast. In April 1783, he and
several other military-minded men sat in a meeting in St. Augustine with 25 year
old Colonel Andrew Deveaux, a notorious Loyalist from South Carolina, laying
plans to drive the Spanish from Nassau, Bahamas. The plan needing boats and
skilled mariners, Lyford enlisted his nephew's experience and vessel to play a
role in the successful raid. According to Bahamas Register General Department of Land Grants,
Book C-1, Lyford, Deveaux, and John Braddock received royal grants within
four days of each other, presumably for their parts in driving out the Spanish.
John's grant was on Long Island, where he was later given another grant.
Lyford's was on Cat Island at the spot where it was thought until 1926 that
Columbus had first landed in the New World. Lyford also received a substantial
grant on New Providence Island for his war services. Exclusive residential
resort Lyford Cay, where the likes of internationally famous novelist Arthur
Hailey and actor Sean Connery live, stands on the site of that grant.
Ironically, with Braddock Point on Hilton Head Island, the tips of two of the
better known resorts islands in Southeastern waters bear the names of
brothers-in-law. John also received two grants from the new State
of Georgia for his services as galley commander in the Revolution, one of 500
acres in Camden County on the Great Satilla River, the other for 100 acres in
Glynn County on St. Simons Island. Settling on St. Simons, he embarked, as his
father had when his sea-fighting days were over, on a life of public service. He
served in numerous appointed and elected offices in and for Glynn County:
justice of peace, county commissioner with power to sell lands confiscated from
Loyalists, commissioner for the Port of Brunswick, commissioner for the town of
Brunswick, road commissioner for St. Simons, justice of inferior court, and two
terms as the county’s representative to the Georgia House of Assembly. He also
served as an officer in the Glynn County Regiment of Militia, formed to protect
residents of the still frontier-like area from Indian raids, and later commanded
the unit’s Volunteer Troop of Horse. His death in early April, 1794 created
another link. His widow, Lucia, forged the final link by
moving with the four of their children who were still unmarried to Amelia Island
sometime between his death and July 20, 1796, the date she signed a Spanish oath
of allegiance. The real reason for her
decision to relocate from Georgia to East Florida is not known. The move may
have been prompted by one or more of the following circumstance: back taxes were
owed on the land her late husband had been granted, the Spanish were offering grants of land to
anyone willing to sign an oath of allegiance, and her oldest daughter Ann and
her husband, John Edwards, already resided in the vicinity of Amelia
Island. Soon after arrival, Lucia married William
Alexander Fitzgerald, a native of Virginia who lived on Amelia. Ironically,
their plantation, Black Hammock, overlooked Sawpit Bluff where the galley of her
late husband, John Braddock, and two other vessels loaded with Continentals were
to rendezvous with Col. John Baker and his company of militia in 1777, had the
galleys not run aground on Amelia Narrows. With four marriageable and soon-to-be
marriageable children, Lucia could not have picked a more promising locale in
which to settle. Neighbor Spicer Christopher, who had arrived in East Florida
from Maryland during the British possession, was already ensconced on a generous
grant of land on nearby Big Talbot Island. He was known far and wide for raising
and training Arabian horses, for lush orange groves, and for his hospitality to
passersby on the King’s Highway, which ran through his property and which he
helped maintain. In addition to Talbot, he had several other grants of land in
the area. And, most importantly, he had several marriageable and soon-to-be
marriageable children. In time, three of his offspring, Martha, Charlotte, and
John, would marry three of the Braddock siblings, John David, William, and
Hester. And to further intertwine the Braddock and Christopher lines and pull in
the Edwards line at the same time, two daughters of Ann and John Edwards married
sons of Spicer. Another neighbor, John Carroll Houston II,
further convoluted family lines by marrying the daughter of John David Braddock
and Martha Christopher after his first wife, the youngest daughter of Spicer
Christopher, died. And if that did not complicate entanglements of the four
families enough, one of the daughters of the Houston/Braddock union married a
son of William Braddock, and a son of that union married first a granddaughter
of John David Braddock and then a granddaughter of Ann and John Edwards who was
also a great-granddaughter of Spicer Christopher. In all, the two Braddock brothers, John David
and William, sired 19 children. Three of their children and nine of their
children's 122 children married offspring of the eleven children of
Revolutionary War soldier Burroughs Higginbotham, who had migrated from Georgia
into Nassau County. When not farming the lands granted them and siring and
raising children to help farm them, John David and William, like their father
and grandfather, appear from the scant mentions of them that can be gleaned from
The East Florida Papers and Florida Territorial Papers to have had a natural propensity for being involved in public
affairs. Record of the extent of their involvement in early Nassau County was
lost when the Nassau County courthouse burned in 1839. On March 17, 1812, a
small army calling themselves the "Patriots" invaded Amelia Island. Both
brothers, along with Patriot leader John Houston McIntosh, their
brother-in-law William G. Christopher, John C. Houston, and Zephaniah Kingsley,
were among the 14 delegates who on July 17, 1812 drew up and signed what would
have been the constitution of a non-Spanish East Florida had the goal of the
invaders succeeded. The War of 1812 started in between those two dates. Prompted
by a fear that the British would attempt an invasion of Florida, U. S. Army
troops were sent to East Florida. After the war ended and the two invading forces
departed, William Braddock had the audacity to file a $10,235 suit for property
damages against the United States government, claiming, ". . . that this part of
the country was in possession of the United States Troops and Patriots from the
time of their arriving into it till the time of the evacuation in 1813, some
time in May of that year. This allied army of occupation continued during all
the period scouring the country for forage and subsistence and some of them, or
its followers, plundered anything that was valuable in their way . . ." His
brother, John David, one of his two witnesses, was as audacious in testifying he
". . . was with the Patriots by compulsion." The ink had hardly dried on the document making
Florida a territory of the United States in 1822 when many of the same men who
had signed the memorial complaining about not having a municipality signed one
dated November 25, 1822 addressed to the President and Congress of the United
States complaining that the taxes to be imposed on them for maintaining some of
the necessities of a municipality—an inferior court and county regulations—was
more than they could bear. In December, 1823, John David Braddock sat on
the first grand jury ever impaneled in Jacksonville. Traveling from his home at
Evergreen on the Little St. Marys, a trip he probably made by boat, he was
reimbursed for 124 miles at 5¢ a mile. Citizens of Fernandina, that same month,
sent a flurry of memorials “To the Honourable the Senate and House of
Representatives of the United States in Congress assembled.” One requested that
legislation be considered for requiring wreckers (salvagers of wrecked ships) to
bring their salvage into a port in Florida, and that Fernandina be designated
that port. Another asked that Fernandina “. . . be made a port of entry, with
equal footing with ports in the States in foreign trade.” And the third
requested that the land the Spanish had
reserved around the town's flagpole and the town's public lots be declared the
property of the town. John David signed
all three memorials. William Braddock was elected a legislative
councilor in 1828 and 1829, and he and a son and a nephew signed a memorial in
1831 “. . . praying for the reappointment of Judge Joseph L. Smith.” Two years
later, Governor William DuVal appointed
John David and William justices of the peace for Nassau County, and William as
an appraiser for Union Bank. John David was again appointed justice of the peace
the following year. The second generation of Florida Braddocks began
coming of age and following in their fathers' footsteps in public service. In
1835, when the Nassau County seat was moved from Fernandina to Evergreen,
Spicer, son of John David, was appointed postmaster. James Aldridge and
Alexander, sons of William, were among those who marched 70 miles in 1837 to
enroll in the First Regiment of Florida Volunteers to serve in the second
Seminole War. In 1839 John David and William and five of their offspring were
among the 400 East Floridians signing a memorial protesting the federal
government’s plan of admitting Florida into the Union as one state rather than
two, East and West Florida. Through the ensuing years, numerous other limbs
became attached to the Braddock tree, including such Florida pioneer families as
Mizell, Colson, Vanzant, Haddock, Wilds, Hodges, Stokes, Owens, Wingate, Libby,
Pickett, Ogilvie, Bessant, Jones, Connor, Griffin, Sauls, Johnson, Huntley,
Wilson, Vaughan, Hagan, Geiger, and Kirkland. The complexity of intermarriages
with some of these families coupled with those of the earlier mentioned ones
make the lines on a Braddock genealogy chart look for the world like a web spun
by a drunken spider. As the Seminoles were moved out, many of the
second and third generation of Braddock descendants, like their forebears,
became pioneers and migrated westward and southward into the frontiers of the
state. Subsequent generations continued the migration, gradually spreading like
kudzu runners gone wild. Because of the heavy intermarriage of Braddocks with
other families—strenuous and ongoing family research by several family members
has, so far, turned up fellow-descendants bearing 350 other surnames—determining
how far they have spread is next
to impossible. And census records of recent years are not yet available for
determining the exact extent of proliferation of just those who bear the
Braddock surname. However, phone company records give a reasonable picture of
their meandering. Current Florida phonebooks list Braddocks in 99 of the state's
communities and 38 of its 67 counties. Based on the penchant for seeking their
fortunes elsewhere of just the one surname, it is reasonable to assume that
those of the other 350 have saturated the peninsula.
Keeping in mind that all but a handful of
Florida Braddocks are descended from just two men, phone records also reveal the
prolific effect of their finding their place in the Florida sun compared to
Braddocks who found theirs in other states. Nationally, 1641 residential phones
are listed for the name Braddock, the 7043rd most common name in the
United States, Smith being number one. The largest number of these, 241, are in
Florida. Only Texas, which is five times larger in area than Florida and has
five million more people, comes close with a mere 210. No other state comes
close, including New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Virginia, states into
which the four main clans of Braddocks coming from England in colonial days
settled. And it all began with the cutting off of an
ear.
Published in Pioneers of the First Coast II September 2006
J. G. Braddock
Sr.
Govenor and Commander in Chief of his Majesty's
Colony
of Georgia and Vice Admiral of the same
Whereas his Majesty
has declared War against France, and by his Majesty's commission &c——
To cause a Commission or Letters of marque to be issued out of the
Court of Vice Admiralty of this province, unto David Cutler Braddock, Commander
of the Brigantine King of Prussia
burthen about ninety tons, mounted with fourteen Carriage Guns and Navigated
with one hundred and ten Men to set forth &c——dated 10th Febry. 1758