History of St. Augustine

The Lieutenant Governor of East Florida under Governor Grant was John Moultrie, who was born in South Carolina. He had served under Grant as a major in the Cherokee War and remained loyal to the British Crown. (His three brothers all later participated in the cause of independence of the Thirteen Colonies.)

Moultrie was granted large tracts of land in the St. Augustine vicinity, upon which he established the plantation of "Bella Vista." He owned another 2,000-acre (8.1 km) plantation in the Tomoka River basin named "Rosetta". While acting as the lieutenant governor, he lived in the Peck House on St. George Street.

During the British period, Andrew Turnbull, a friend of Grant, established the settlement of New Smyrna in 1768. Turnbull recruited indentured servants from the Mediterranean area, primarily the island of Minorca. The conditions at New Smyrna were so abysmal that the settlers rebelled en masse in 1777; they walked the 70 miles (110 km) to St. Augustine, where Grant gave them refuge. The Minorcans and their descendants stayed on in St. Augustine through the subsequent changes of flags. They were among its oldest families, and marked the community with language, culture, cuisine and customs.

Second Spanish period

The Treaty of Paris in 1783, gave the American colonies north of Florida their independence, and ceded Florida to Spain in recognition of Spanish efforts on behalf of the American colonies during the war.

On September 3, 1783, by Treaty of