Francis Ogilvie was a British Army officer who served as interim governor of East Florida from 30 July 1763 to 29 August 1764. [1]
Commissioned into the 9th Regiment of Foot, [2] Ogilvie served in Cuba, [3] and was then posted to Saint Augustine, Florida, where he held the highest military title among the members of the city's military garrisons. [2]
St. Augustine is a city in and the county seat of St. Johns County located 40 miles south of downtown Jacksonville. The city is on the Atlantic coast of northeastern Florida. Founded in 1565 by Spanish explorers, it is the oldest continuously inhabited European-established settlement in what is now the contiguous United States.
West Florida was a region on the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico that underwent several boundary and sovereignty changes during its history. As its name suggests, it was formed out of the western part of former Spanish Florida, along with lands taken from French Louisiana; Pensacola became West Florida's capital. The colony included about two thirds of what is now the Florida Panhandle, as well as parts of the modern U.S. states of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.
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.
The Castillo de San Marcos is the oldest masonry fort in the continental United States; it is located on the western shore of Matanzas Bay in the city of St. Augustine, Florida.
Spanish Florida was the first major European land-claim and attempted settlement-area in northern America during the European Age of Discovery. La Florida formed part of the Captaincy General of Cuba, the Viceroyalty of New Spain, and the Spanish Empire during Spanish colonization of the Americas. While its boundaries were never clearly or formally defined, the territory was initially much larger than the present-day state of Florida, extending over much of what is now the southeastern United States, including all of present-day Florida plus portions of Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, and the Florida Parishes of Louisiana. Spain based its claim to this vast area on several wide-ranging expeditions mounted during the 16th century. A number of missions, settlements, and small forts existed in the 16th and to a lesser extent in the 17th century; they were eventually abandoned due to pressure from the expanding English and French colonial settlements, the collapse of the native populations, and the general difficulty in becoming agriculturally or economically self-sufficient. By the 18th century, Spain's control over La Florida did not extend much beyond a handful of forts near St. Augustine, St. Marks, and Pensacola, all within the boundaries of present-day Florida.
The St Augustine Town Plan Historic District is a U.S. National Historic Landmark District encompassing the colonial heart of the city. It substantially encompasses the street plan of the city as contained within the bounds of walls built between the 16th and early 19th centuries. The district is bounded by Cordova, Orange, and St. Francis Streets, and Matanzas Bay. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1970, although its boundaries were not formally defined until 1986.
Fort Mose, originally known as Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, and later as Fort Mose, or alternatively, Fort Moosa or Fort Mossa, is a former Spanish fort in St. Augustine, Florida. In 1738, the governor of Spanish Florida, Manuel de Montiano, had the fort established as a free black settlement, the first to be legally sanctioned in what would become the territory of the United States. It was designated a US National Historic Landmark on October 12, 1994.
Augustine Prévost was a Genevan soldier best known for his service in the British Army during the Seven Years' War and the American War of Independence.
The Spanish Military Hospital Museum is located at 3 Aviles Street, St. Augustine, Florida. The museum covers the Second Spanish Period (1784-1821) medical practices. The museum is open seven days a week from 9am to 5pm. Tours start on demand throughout the day and cover a surgical demonstration, apothecary demonstration, and tours of a medicinal herb garden.
British West Florida was a colony of the Kingdom of Great Britain from 1763 until 1783, when it was ceded to Spain as part of the Peace of Paris.
The Floridas was a region of the southeastern United States comprising the historical colonies of East Florida and West Florida. They were created when England obtained Florida in 1763, and found it so awkward in geography that she split it in two. The borders of East and West Florida varied. In 1783, when Spain acquired West Florida and re-acquired East Florida from Great Britain through the Peace of Paris (1783), the eastern British boundary of West Florida was the Apalachicola River, but Spain in 1785 moved it eastward to the Suwannee River. The purpose was to transfer the military post at San Marcos de Apalachee and the surrounding district from East Florida to West Florida. From 1810 to 1813, the United States extended piecemeal control over the part of West Florida that comprised the modern-day Gulf coasts of Alabama and Mississippi and the Florida Parishes of Louisiana. After the ratification of the Adams-Onis Treaty in 1821 the United States combined East Florida and what had been the remaining Spanish-controlled rump of West Florida into the territory that comprised modern-day Florida.
The King's Bakery is a coquina stone structure in St. Augustine, Florida, built during the British colonial period in the state (1763–1783). The building, located on Marine Street, with the rear facing Matanzas Bay, was constructed to supply bread to the British troops quartered across the street at the St. Francis Barracks, a building which formerly housed Franciscan friars, during the First Spanish Period (1565–1763). The monastery was used by the British as military barracks.
St. Francis Barracks is a historic structure constructed of coquina stone located on Marine Street in St. Augustine, Florida, named in honor of St. Francis of Assisi. The barracks were constructed between 1724 and 1755 by friars of the Order of St. Francis, to replace a series of wooden buildings which had been destroyed by the ravages of the tropical climate in La Florida and by fire, both accidental fires and occasional intentional ones, such as when the city was razed by the English in 1702.
Melchor Feliú (?-1766) was the last governor in the First Spanish Period of Florida's history, governing from March 20, 1762 to July 27, 1763. Feliú oversaw the cession of Florida to Great Britain by the Treaty of Paris on July 21, 1763 and the subsequent immigration of most of the province's Spanish and African inhabitants to Cuba. Some of the Native Americans living in the Spanish Catholic missions also moved away from Florida at this time.
Spanish West Florida was a province of the Spanish Empire from 1783 until 1821, when both it and East Florida were ceded to the United States.
John Hedges was the first acting governor of British East Florida, serving in this office from 20 July to 30 July, 1763. He obtained the keys of the city of Saint Augustine, Florida, at Castillo de San Marcos, from the hands of the former Spanish governor Melchor Feliú, and governed the province until the arrival of Francis Ogilvie.
The William Watson House is located at 206 Charlotte Street in St. Augustine, Florida. It is a reconstructed property representing the architecture of St. Augustine's British Period (1763-1784).
The Historic St. Augustine Preservation Board (HSAPB) was a state agency in Florida that participated in the restoration and preservation of historic buildings in St. Augustine, Florida from 1959 to 1997. Created in 1959 by Governor LeRoy Collins, the agency acquired, restored, and preserved historic structures in St. Augustine until its abolishment by the State of Florida in June 1997.
Juan José Eligio de la Puente y Regidor (1724–1781) was a Spanish Floridian (Floridano) who held various public offices in St. Augustine, Florida and in Havana, Cuba, during the 18th century. He served as chief officer of the Real Contaduría for Spanish Florida, and as principal auditor for the Tribunal de Cuentas in Havana, offices that managed the colonial governments' accounts and expenditures. Puente was a member of St. Augustine's 18th century elite Criollo community, and had a role in many events of that period in the history of Florida. He acquired considerable wealth, became a royal treasury official in Cuba, and influenced Spanish foreign policy in North America.
Floridanos is a term for colonial residents of the Spanish settlements in St. Augustine and Pensacola who were born in Spanish Florida. Descendants of the original Floridanos can be found throughout the state, especially in St. Augustine, as well as in Miami, Tampa, and Orlando.