I represent Edward Mease. I was a resident of West Florida during the British period and a merchant. I was granted Lot 5 in Pensacola, on the western side of town on Mansfield near Cumberland Street (now Zarragossa Street between Baylen and Palafox). It was a nice lot; it fronted on the bay back then. I began a few enterprises almost as soon as I arrived, though not all of them worked out. In 1765, I petitioned for a land grant of 1000 acres around the lagoon of Santa Maria to start a sawmill. This did not come to pass. With David Taitt, in 1767 I petitioned for a grant of 1000 acres northwest of Pensacola, about two miles down a branch of the Perdido River. In December 1768, I started getting curious about what lay to the west of the two towns of Pensacola and Mobile; I surveyed and claimed almost 20,000 acres in a bend of the river just north of Baton Rouge. In late 1770 I decided to set off on my own to explore the lower Mississippi. I returned to Pensacola in March 1771, and could not say enough good about what I had found. This probably hastened the rush to claim land out that way, and the Mississippi River was soon lined with British plantations. My March 1781 British probate record says I was “of Pensacola, West Florida,” and that I was a bachelor.
Sources: 3, 4, 67, 116