Harriette Jones and Shirley Kirkman, 1932

HOW WE GOT HERE

My name is Greg Carter. I have two siblings and seven first cousins. Together, we are the ten grandchildren of Harriette Jones, who was born in Saint Augustine, Florida, on January 26, 1901.

​My grandmother's grandparents—Adolphus Pacetty and Amelia Monson—were second cousins, who descended from Mediterranean immigrants who came to New Smyrna, Florida just prior to the American Revolution. The men in this group of travelers were named Pacetty, Leonardy, and Bonelly, and they were all Italian by birth. The women were named Pons, Coll, and Moll, and they were all from Menorca, an island off the coast of Spain.

The story of how these individuals came to Saint Augustine is a common one in the region. The infamous expedition that first brought scores of Mediterranean women and men to the New World landed in 1768. Four generations later—in 1867—their off-spring married to close a loop in the family tree that had flourished through a century of colonization, deprivation, political revolution, and civil war. The following recounts the first of those 99 years.

A note on spelling and proper names

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Governor James Grant

​BRITISH EAST FLORIDA

In 1763, Great Britain's victory in the Seven Years War gave the empire control over most North American colonies formerly governed by France or Spain. In Florida, the British finally possessed Saint Augustine after 250 years of Spanish rule. They divided the territory into two provinces separated by the Apalachicola River: West Florida, with a capital city in Pensacola, and East Florida, with its capital in Saint Augustine. The new government then quickly set out to colonize the peninsula, offering large land grants for the production of cotton, hemp, indigo, and silk in order to fuel industry in England.

With healthy colonies up the Atlantic coast, the British Parliament attempted to channel settlers south—into Florida—by outlawing western colonial settlement on Indian lands beyond the Appalachian Mountains. The London Board of Trade advertised 20,000-acre lots to any group willing to enter Florida. The land, however, had to be settled within ten years with one resident per hundred acres. 

​No one did more to increase Florida's population than Governor James Grant. Under his administration, British East Florida granted 2,856,000 acres compared with West Florida's 380,000 acres. Those who settled East Florida were predominately Europeans or southern colonial planters who regarded the region as an extension of the Atlantic coastal plain. West Florida had to rely on pioneer settlers from Alabama and western Georgia. 

Governor Grant recognized that rapid growth needed more than small homesteaders; East Florida needed major farming developments. The governor himself built an estate outside Saint Augustine, called The Villa, and promoted the cultivation of cotton and indigo.

He next sought out Denys Rolle, a Londoner inspired by James Oglethorpe's success at bringing debtors into Georgia. Rolle assembled a collection of poor, unemployed, and petty criminal settlers to a large plantation on the Saint Johns River. But unlike Savannah, Rollestown was an agricultural flop. Where Oglethorpe's hand-picked colonists thrived in Georgia, Rolle discovered that his urban workers could not adjust to the hard labor and inhospitable conditions of an isolated village miles deep in a harsh tropical wilderness. 

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Dr Andrew Turnbull

​DR ANDREW TURNBULL

A more imaginative program of colonization was developed by Governor Grant's friend and world traveler Dr Andrew Turnbull. A Scottish physician and entrepreneur, Turnbull had met and married Maria Gracia Dura Bin, the daughter of a merchant in Smyrna, Greece, while traveling the Mediterranean. Intrigued by the business and cultural experiment offered by the New World, Turnbull became convinced that Florida would be an ideal spot for the impoverished Greek, Italian, and Sicilian peasants he had seen in his travels. At the very least, the climate of Florida would be more suitable to Mediterraneans than it had been to Rolle's Englishmen. 

​Turnbull's enterprise required prospective settlers to agree to work for the colony for seven years of indentured service in exchange for fifty acres of land at the end of that time. He received a land grant of 60,000 acres, and in June 1767 sailed to the southern coast of Turkey to make his pitch to Greek farmers living under Turkish rule. He convinced many that Florida offered religious freedom and potential success in sugar production. For eight months, Turnbull sailed the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas seeking to enlarge the colony, making the same recruiting promises at Smyrna and at the Italian port city of Livorno.

While Turnbull made his pitch from port-to-port, his willing recruits assembled at Mahón, Menorca, the second largest of the Balearic Islands off the coast of Spain. On the island, something unexpected (and ultimately disastrous) happened. During the nearly nine-month layover prior to departure, hundreds of young Mediterranean men and Menorcan women met and married. As family members on the island asked to join the newly wed couples in their gamble for prosperity, the roster of colonists increased with Menorcan natives. In the end, 1190 of Turnbull's recruits would come from the small island community itself. They dominated the 200 Greeks, and 110 Sicilians and Italians that he had secured in his original mission. Accommodating the Menorcans' desire to join in such numbers would turn out to be a tragic mistake.

Those gathered in Menorca finally boarded eight ships bound for the New World in March 1768. The journey lasted three months at sea, and in that time 148 travelers—one out of every eight—died. Upon arrival in Florida, survival became even more challenging. ​

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Old King's Road

​NEW SMYRNA

At its founding in 1768, the New Smyrna colony encompassed some 101,400 acres and was nearly three times the size of the colony at Jamestown, Virginia. With shelter provided for only 400 to 600 colonists, Turnbull quickly needed to accommodate his community that numbered more than a thousand. Weakened by food scarcity, mosquitoes, yellow fever, and malaria, the colonists needed to clear the land before sustenance farming could even begin. In the first year, 300 adults and 150 children died in Turnbull’s colony. In three years, nearly 700 (sixty percent) of the original colonists had perished. 

​Remarkably, in the third year, the surviving colonists produced a bountiful harvest. Between 1771 and 1777, over 43,000 pounds of indigo with other crops were exported from the wharves of the New Smyrna plantation. Indigo, a plant used to make blue dye, was in such demand in England that prices exceeded the per pound price of gold.

The success was due in part to an innovative system of irrigation and drainage canals Turnbull imitated from observations made on travels in Egypt. The coquina-lined canals were unique and produced fertile farmland, drained mosquito-breeding swamps, and provided transportation for the colony. Three of the canals from this time period are still evident in the New Smyrna region. One runs under a principal street (Canal Street) and was covered only in 1924. Two visible canals run behind houses on Myrtle Avenue, through Myrtle Avenue Park, and along Tenth Street, dividing the communities of New Smyrna Beach and Edgewater.

The King's Road, first cleared in 1632 by following Indian trails, is one of the first roads in the New World. Turnbull's colonists widened the road to thirty feet through thick Florida woods and swamp. The highway began at the Saint Marys River, ran through Saint Augustine, and ended in New Smyrna. It was reported to be a broken shell surfaced roadway, with pine logs laid crosswise in the wet areas, and suited to a coach and team for travel. Portions of this road can still be identified.

Turnbull had a stone wharf built by the Mediterranean colonists in the center of the settlement of New Smyrna. The wharf, one of Turnbull's earliest public works, was constructed of coquina. This material, easily cut and readily available, was formed from deposits of corals and shells in the ocean, and was the material used by the Spanish to build forts along Florida's coast. Water transportation was vital to the Turnbull plantations because roads were not fast, safe, or reliable. The wharf was necessary for the import and export of goods. 

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Governor Patrick Tonyn

​DISSOLUTION AND ESCAPE

The story of the colony's demise varies greatly. One version suggests that Turnbull's partners did not meet their financial obligations, the other that Turnbull neglected his colonists' right to freedom after working the term of their indenture. In testimony from the colonists, the plantation's overseers and Turnbull himself were accused of corporal punishment and murder.  While the Doctor had a strong ally in Governor Grant, he resented the appointment of Grant's successor, Patrick Tonyn, and the latter turned sympathetic to the colonists' petitions for aid. Without a doubt, political scheming, financial difficulties, the American Revolution, and the termination of the colonists' indentures all led to the fall of the New Smyrna Colony. 

​Despite small successes, the Turnbull colony was in trouble from the start. The English population in Saint Augustine considered the Catholic Minorcans and Italians to be potential allies of the Spanish in Cuba, and were hesitant to support them with resources or security. On the plantation itself, the three cultural groups often fought among themselves. Accustomed to a mountainous climate, the Greeks and Italians suffered in the hot Florida humidity. None of them had ever grown sugar.

​In May 1777, ninety New Smyrna colonists—including small children, as well as sick and malnourished women and men—walked 75 miles up the Kings Road to Saint Augustine. The men accused Turnbull himself of cruelty, and accused overseers of ill-treatment and even murder. When the colony collapsed, some demanded to return to their homeland, but the majority were willing to confront the challenge of the New World on different terms. Those who settled in Saint Augustine were forever labeled the "Minorcans" because the lines between cultures had become less distinct through widespread inter-marriage.

The new Governor of East Florida, Patrick Tonyn, was a political rival of Turnbull since he had arrived in East Florida in 1774. Tonyn was happy to hamper Turnbull’s enterprise by releasing the Menorcans from any further legal obligation. He welcomed the Menorcans to Saint Augustine, and allowed them to settle in the northern section of the city near the city gates. 

Among the Menorcan families that stayed were:

• Andres Pacetty and Gertrudis Pons
• Roque Leonardy and Aqueda Coll
• Josef Bonelly and Maria Moll

In each case, the husband was Italian and the wife was a Menorcan islander each had met during the wait for the expedition to begin.

These six people are my great-great-great-great-great grandparents; the generation that lived during the turn of the 19th century.

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​SAINT AUGUSTINE

The Minorcan Quarter of Saint Augustine [click to enlarge]

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​ A note on spelling and proper names