I represent Simon Amory. I was a Naval Officer and Register of the Town of Pensacola. My story can be told in excerpts from two letters, the first from West Florida Governor George Johnstone to Lord Halifax from Pensacola on September 14, 1765: “Among others who have departed this Life, is Simon Amory, Naval Officer and Register, tho’ considering his advanced Age (seventy two) his Death can hardly be deemed untimely, as Mr. Amory had been educated in a very low Situation of Life, having lived as a Retailer of Pins, Needles, and Grocery, in Taunton; and this added to an enfeebled State from his great age.”
The second is dated October 4, 1765, from Pensacola attorney Edmund Rush Wegg, conveying my will (dated August 28, 1765) to my brother, the Rev. Mr. Thomas Amory: “Pensacola has been this Summer fatal to many of its Inhabitants amongst which is your Brother, who after languishing a tedious time in the flux (a term used to describe a severe form of dysentery), departed this life on Saturday the 31st of August last.” Taunton was in Somerset, England, where in 1742 I was a listed as a grocer, and I paid a tax on my apprentice.
Sources: 8, 46, 78, 125