I represent Major Robert Farmar (also spelled Farmer). First, allow me to get one thing out of the way: I did not write the journal; that was my son, Ensign Robert Adolphus Farmar. I was a Major in His Majesty’s 34th Regiment of Foot. I joined the 34th as a Major in 1761 after 20 years’ service in another company. I served in the 34th during the Seven Years’ War and participated in the seizure of Havana. At some point around this time, I married Mary Anderson of Yorkshire. I was sent to Mobile to take possession of it from the Spanish and accept the surrender of the Fort. I remained in military control of Mobile for several years; in those first months before a civilian governor arrived, I handled the transfer of private land to the British and presided over a successful Indian congress. I acquired vast tracts of land stretching from Dauphin Island to the Tensaw River north of Mobile. After the governor arrived, things got messy. I did not get along with Governor George Johnstone (I firmly held he did not have total command of the military in West Florida) and my leadership style was not everyone’s cup of tea. So many complaints built up that in 1766 a whiff of irregularity in the Crown’s finances got me court-martialed in a trial in Pensacola that lasted for years. I was acquitted, but the damage was done. I retired and became a gentleman farmer on my plantation near what is now Stockton in Baldwin County, and I was very successful at that by any measure. I was elected to represent Mobile in the House of Commons for the provincial General Assembly during its 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th sessions (January 1769 – Fall 1778). I owned lots in Mobile on present-day Government St. and Conti Street. I died in 1778 in Mobile. My wife, Mary, went back to England in 1782. My 1784 British probate record gave administration to Mary, guardian of our children Elizabeth, Mary, Catharine Louisa, and John Theodore. Our daughter, Ann Billop Farmar (who was baptized in Pensacola on March 28, 1769) married a lieutenant of the 60th Regiment in Mobile in 1780.
Sources: 1, 12, 14, 40, 46, 6, 67, 92, 101, 106, findagrave.com