I represent Peter Chester. I was the third and last British governor of the colony of West Florida. I was born about 1717 in Hertfordshire, England, and I married Jane Cochrane, with whom I had two children. I had a military background and had risen to lieutenant colonel of a regiment that was disbanded after the Seven Years’ War. I was appointed governor in the summer of 1770 and arrived in Pensacola on August 10, 1770. My tenure was remarkable for its relative calm in the political squabbling and turf wars between civilian and military authorities that had characterized my predecessors’ administrations. I became quite the landowner in the areas of Manchac (Louisiana), Baton Rouge, and Manchac – which had been discovered to be far more desirable land that that around Pensacola and Mobile. My plantation on the Amite River was called Chesterfield, which I established in May 1776. The American rebel James Willing and his raiders plundered it on their campaign down the Mississippi River. I also owned a house and lot in Pensacola. I was a great encourager of new settlement, assuming that the more homesteads we had in West Florida, the stronger the colony would be. My generous granting of land did take its toll on relations with nearby Indian nations, of course, and I had to meet with them over boundary issues several times. The late 1770s until the surrender in May 1781 becomes a military story, though I did my part to try to cement alliances with Indian war leaders and paid more attention to the dangers of attack by sea. After the War I returned to England. I died in 1799, in Bath.
Sources: 3, 4, 7, 14, 6, Find a Grave