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. Wielding connections from a lifetime of overseas trading, as well as family connections from a powerful English mercantile family, Levett built one of the first plantations in Florida, and then forfeited his investment when the English lost their foothold in Florida, forcing him to flee to the British colony in the Bahamas. Eventually his son returned to Georgia, where he (or, perhaps more accurately, his slaves) became the first to plant Sea Island cotton in America. [1] [2]
Born in the Ottoman Empire, the son of Francis Levett, [3] a tobacco merchant [4] who as a descendant of the trading house built by two brothers, Sir Richard Levett, Lord Mayor of London, and his brother Francis Levett, planter Francis Levett was well-connected in the tight world of English trading overseas. Piggybacking on the exploding British Empire, these early English traders built juggernauts, trading everything from tobacco to indigo to textiles. The early Levett brothers, sons of a Puritan rector in Ashwell, Rutland, built their empire from scratch, intermarrying with other powerful merchant families. Francis Levett followed in their footsteps. [5]
Having established his connections with such powerful London merchants as Sir Richard Oswald, [6] Levett gave up his position with the Levant Company and returned to London. But having spent his career abroad, Levett wasn't accustomed to the damp weather in the capitol. Having inherited a fortune from an uncle, Levett decided to move to the British colony in East Florida. [7] Levett planned initially to import Greek labourers from Smyrna into the fledgling British colony to do the work of planting. That scheme was apparently soon abandoned.
In the meantime, Levett exploited all his connections. He was named in 1771 to a position helping oversee the Russian fur trade.
But his connections still served him well. [8] He secured an appointment as an agent for John Perceval, 2nd Earl of Egmont to manage the Earl's land grants in his absence. Then Levett was tapped as a judge for the new colony and granted large tracts of land at the insistence of Oswald and his brother-in-law Tonyn. [9] Oswald encouraged Governor James Grant to set aside prime acreage for his "worthy friend" Levett, to whom Oswald said he owed "particular obligations." A recipient of the largesse of the initial old boy network, Levett built his 10,000-acre (40 km2) Julianton Plantation on today's St. Johns River. [10]
The complex Levett built showed what could be done in a new colony by a powerful English merchant with money and connections. In addition to indigo fields and acres devoted to corn, potatoes and peas, the new plantation also had a network of rice fields, sliced by dams and dykes to regulate them. But the centrepiece of Levett's edifice was the domestic arrangement, which included a vineyard with 3,000 vines, two hanging gardens fronting the St. Johns River, 50 farm buildings, a network of bridges, roads and causeways built by Levett's slaves, including slave cabins, kitchens, barns, poultry houses and the crowning gem: a large two-story dwelling measuring 60 feet (18 m)-by-36 feet (11 m) with seven rooms on each floor. The home had seven bays, a gambrel roof, which itself supported a lantern tower. On either side of the house were six separate dependency structures, three on either side of the mansion, diminishing in size as they extended outward.
The opulent home, said to be the finest in British East Florida, had an 180-foot (55 m) wharf for the docking of ships. Stallions, breeding mares and goats grazed nearby on the rich pastures surrounding the home. It was an extraordinary gesture to import the luxuries of the life of a wealthy English gentleman to a fledgling, mosquito-infested colony in the Americas. In addition to his inherited income, Levett relied on fees paid him by absentee English landlords to manage their plantations as well.
Despite his connections in the new colony, which included not only his brother-in-law the Governor, but also his son-in-law Dr. David Yeats, a physician and Secretary of the Colony who had married Levett's daughter, Francis Levett apparently got into financial trouble. He was accused in a whisper campaign of embezzling funds by purchasing slaves for one of his absentee clients, Thomas Ashby, and then absorbing them into his plantation workforce. Rev. John Forbes, a Scottish immigrant and ancestor of the Forbes family in America, accused Levett of blatant theft.
In several letters written to Governor Grant, Forbes said Levett had diverted the resources of his absentee landlords. The English planter was "charged with purchasing Negroes on Ashby's account and claiming them as his own, with employing Ashby's Negroes at his (own) work, with carrying boatloads of corn from Ashby's place to his (Julianton) settlement without giving credit for them, and with many such extraordinary and unjust transactions," Forbes wrote.
Thomas Ashley sent a relative to Florida to investigate the charges of malfeasance. Levett was said to be so upset by the allegations that he went to Rhode Island to escape the controversy. In the meantime, his son-in-law Yeats stood bail for him. By 1774, Levett returned to East Florida and subsequently resigned from the Royal Council after discovering that the controversy had rendered him ineffective: no members would sit with him.
Within months the planter's brother Patrick Tonyn was named the colony's second Governor, and he presided over a rehabilitation of his brother-in-law. Levett was allowed to make restitution and died shortly afterwards. Management of his Julianton plantation fell to his son Francis Levett Jr., who was apparently a better businessman than his father. The Levett plantation thrived during the Revolutionary War, thanks to the need for Florida turpentine. [11]
At the end of the War, some 13,000 Loyalists fled the new American nation for East Florida, which was still under British control. But their haven didn't last long; in the diplomatic after effects of American independence, the British were forced to cede their Florida colony back to Spain in 1784.
Unwilling to swear loyalty to the Spanish Crown many of the English planters like Francis Levett Jr. were forced to pack up everything and leave hurriedly. Their mood was bleak. "I am totally ruined and see nothing but want and misery before me," wrote Francis Levett's son-in-law Yeats to his good friend James Grant. [12]
Following the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783, Francis Levett Jr. was forced to transport all his goods, including 100 slaves and house frames and household silver, to the Bahamas on short notice. Much of Levett's loot was left behind on the docks when Levett's newly purchased schooner was found inadequate to handle the family's accumulated riches.
The family was never able to sell its East Florida properties. The elaborate English manor house and farms were abandoned. Francis Levett's attempts to establish himself as a planter in the Bahamas failed, and the heir was forced to return to London. But he and his wife Charlotte Box had apparently gotten a taste for life in America. [13] They later returned to the state of Georgia, where the English planter, thanks to his father's old friend Henry Laurens, established himself at a new plantation on the Harris Neck peninsula overlooking Sapelo Island in McIntosh County, Georgia. [14] He named the new plantation Julianton, in honour of his father's abandoned Florida plantation and his mother Julia. [15]
Levett Jr. became one of the first planters in America to sow Sea Island cotton, taking advantage of both his knowledge of the crop that he brought with him from İzmir, and of a global shortage of cotton following the Haitian Revolution and the abolition of slavery on that cotton-producing island. [16] The 1790s were boom years for South Carolinian cotton, according to historian Sven Beckert, with exports increasing from 10,000 pounds in 1790 to 6.4 million in 1800. [16] Francis Levett Jr. died in 1802. [17] [18] He left the newly christened Julianton Plantation to his wife. [19]
East Florida was a colony of Great Britain from 1763 to 1783 and a province of the Spanish Empire from 1783 to 1821. The British gained control over Spanish Florida in 1763 as part of the Treaty of Paris that ended the Seven Years' War. Deciding that the colony was too large to administer as a single unit, British officials divided Florida into two colonies separated by the Apalachicola River: the colony of East Florida, with its capital located in St. Augustine; and West Florida, with its capital located in Pensacola. East Florida was much larger and comprised the bulk of the former Spanish colony and most of the current state of Florida. It had also been the most populated region of Spanish Florida, but before control was transferred to Britain, most residents – including virtually everyone in St. Augustine – left the territory, with most migrating to Cuba.
James Grant, 4th of Ballindalloch (1720–1806) was a British Army officer who served as a major general during the American War of Independence. He served as Governor of East Florida from 1763 to 1771, and between 1773 and 1802 he had seats in the House of Commons.
Patrick Tonyn (1725–1804) was a British General who served as the last British governor of East Florida, from 1774 to 1783. His governorship lasted the span of the American Revolution. East Florida was a Loyalist colony during the war.
The Sea Islands are a chain of over a hundred tidal and barrier islands on the Atlantic Ocean coast of the Southeastern United States, between the mouths of the Santee and St. Johns rivers along South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. The largest is Johns Island, South Carolina. Sapelo Island is home to the Gullah people. All of the islands are acutely threatened by sea level rise due to climate change.
The Natchez District was one of two areas established in the Kingdom of Great Britain's West Florida colony during the 1770s – the other being the Tombigbee District. The first Anglo settlers in the district came primarily from other parts of British America. The district was recognized to be the area east of the Mississippi River from Bayou Sara in the south and Bayou Pierre in the north.
The colonial period of South Carolina saw the exploration and colonization of the region by European colonists during the early modern period, eventually resulting in the establishment of the Province of Carolina by English settlers in 1663, which was then divided to create the Province of South Carolina in 1710. European settlement in the region of modern-day South Carolina began on a large scale after 1651, when frontiersmen from the English colony of Virginia began to settle in the northern half of the region, while the southern half saw the immigration of plantation owners from Barbados, who established slave plantations which cultivated cash crops such as tobacco, cotton, rice and indigo.
Andrew Turnbull was a Scottish physician and diplomat who served as the British consul at Smyrna, Ottoman Empire. In 1768, he founded the colony of New Smyrna, Florida, named in honor of his wife's birthplace, the ancient Greek city of Smyrna on the Aegean coast of Anatolia. Turnbull was married to Gracia Dura Bin, the daughter of a Greek merchant from Smyrna. His colony was located in the province of British East Florida, and encompassed some 101,400 acres (410 km2); it was nearly three times the size of the colony at Jamestown.
Goodwood Plantation was a mid-sized slave plantation that grew cotton on about 1,675 acres (7 km2) in central Leon County, Florida. It is located at 1600 Miccosukee Road. The plantation was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places on June 30, 1972.
Breamore House is an Elizabethan manor house noted for its fine collection of paintings and furniture and situated NW of Breamore village, north of Fordingbridge, Hampshire, England. Though it remains in private hands, it is open to visitors from April to October.
Flintham is a village and civil parish in the Rushcliffe district in Nottinghamshire, 7 miles from Newark-on-Trent and opposite RAF Syerston on the A46. It had a population of 597 at the 2011 census, estimated at 586 in 2019, and a fall to 563 at the 2021 census. The village name was taken by the Ham class minesweeper HMS Flintham.
Levett is a surname of Anglo-Norman origin, deriving from [de] Livet, which is held particularly by families and individuals resident in England and British Commonwealth territories.
Captain Christopher Levett was an English writer, explorer and naval captain, born at York, England. He explored the coast of New England and secured a grant from the king to settle present-day Portland, Maine, the first European to do so. Levett left behind a group of settlers at his Maine plantation in Casco Bay, but they were never heard from again. Their fate is unknown. As a member of the Plymouth Council for New England, Levett was named the Governor of Plymouth in 1623 and a close adviser to Capt. Robert Gorges in his attempt to found an early English colony at Weymouth, Massachusetts, which also failed. Levett was also named an early governor of Virginia in 1628, according to Parliamentary records at Whitehall.
Richard Oswald was a Scottish merchant, slave trader and diplomat. During the American Revolution, he served as an advisor to the North ministry on trade regulations and the best way to respond to the American War of Independence. Oswald is best known for being one of the British peace commissioners who negotiated the Peace of Paris in 1782.
Francis Levett (1654–1705) was a Turkey Merchant of the City of London who in partnership with his brother Sir Richard Levett, Lord Mayor of London, built a trading empire, importing and distributing tobacco and other commodities, mainly from the Levant. He served as Warden of the Worshipful Company of Mercers.
Sir Richard Levett (1629–1711) was an English merchant and politician who was elected Lord Mayor of London in 1699. Born in Ashwell, Rutland, he moved to London and established a pioneering mercantile career, becoming involved with the Bank of England and the East India Company.
Sidney Kilner Levett-Yeats, an English novelist known professionally as S. Levett-Yeats, was the descendant of an old English trading family with connections to British India. S. Levett-Yeats became a soldier with the Indian Army and later joined the Indian Civil Service as a low-level bureaucrat. Inspired by the example of other ambitious Anglo-Indian writers like Rudyard Kipling, Levett-Yeats turned out a series of Victorian potboilers, often set in Europe, that earned him a place on the bestseller lists of the day.
Rev. Ralph Levett was an English Anglican minister who served as domestic chaplain to an aristocratic family from Lincolnshire with Puritan sympathies, who subsequently installed him as rector of a local parish. A graduate of Christ's College, Cambridge, where he became a protégé of the prominent Puritan minister John Cotton, Levett later married the sister of the wife of his friend Rev. John Wheelwright, another well-known early Puritan settler of New England.
Francis Philip Fatio, born in Switzerland, was a soldier for France, a viscount in Sardinia, a merchant in London, and a prominent planter in East Florida during both the British period and the second Spanish period.
Benjamin Chaires Sr. (1786–1838) was an American planter, land owner, banker and investor in Territorial Florida, and may have been the richest man in Florida in the 1830s. He was involved in the creation of the first railroads in Florida.