Did you know that our Charlotte Harbor was named by Dutch navigator Bernard Romans?<\/p>\n
Born in the Netherlands, but trained in England, Romans was commissioned by King George III to chart East Florida\u2019s coast.<\/p>\n
\u201cEast Florida\u201d consisted of the Florida peninsula east of the Apalachicola River, after Great Britain obtained Florida from Spain in exchange for Havana, Cuba. The British had captured Havana during the Seven Year\u2019s (French and Indian) War.<\/p>\n
Romans came to British North America in 1757 and entered the King\u2019s service as a commodore in 1761.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Queen Charlotte when Princess, portrait by Johann Georg Ziesenis, 1761.<\/p>\n
Portrait by Johann Georg Ziesenis<\/p>\n
Appointed principal deputy surveyor for the colonial Southern District in 1768 (Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida), he began surveying the coastal waters of East Florida in 1769.<\/p>\n
After a bit of an interruption, it seems his boat sank in the Manatee River and he had to walk overland to Saint Augustine \u2014 more than 200 miles, the task was completed in August 1771.<\/p>\n
Romans recorded depth soundings, good harbors, sources of fresh water, and drafted coastal charts.<\/p>\n
He subsequently published a natural history of Florida in 1775, \u201cA Concise Natural History of East and West Florida,\u201d with maps designating our local body of water as \u201cCharlotte Harbour,\u201d named apparently for Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, King George\u2019s queen.<\/p>\n
Over the years, the \u201cu\u201d was dropped.<\/p>\n
Interestingly, the map was likely created from a plate engraved by Paul Revere, as most in the book were.<\/p>\n
Romans also claimed to have discovered the harbor, but we know Spanish explorers and Cuban fishermen had first begun visiting the area much earlier.<\/p>\n
In fact, published maps at the time typically identified the body of water as Carlos Bay or Harbor, honoring a leader of native Calusa inhabitants.<\/p>\n
Previous maps identified the area as Ponce Bay, but that description was shifted to an area south of Charlotte Harbor.<\/p>\n
Romans\u2019 exploits in Florida gained him much renown, and in January 1774, he became a member of the American Philosophical Society.<\/p>\n
Soon thereafter, he proposed to William Legge, British Secretary of State for the colonies, an expedition to explore the Mississippi River and Great Lakes, then westward to the Pacific Coast.<\/p>\n
Hmm, I wonder if he also discussed it with fellow Society member Thomas Jefferson?<\/p>\n
Visit The Punta Gorda History Center\u2019s website to view maps of Charlotte Harbor. Select \u201cOnline Collection,\u201d then \u201cKeyword Search\u201d and enter the search criteria.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid You Know\u201d appears every other Wednesday, The Charlotte County Historical Society\u2019s mission is to help promote and preserve Charlotte County\u2019s history. For more information, visit Charlotte County Historical Society at cchistoricalsociety.com<\/a>, or call 941- 769-1270.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Good day to all! The Charlotte County Historical Society\u2019s Low Country Boil is coming up Sept. 26 at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":401404,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,853,137374,2457],"class_list":["post-401403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-charlotte-county","tag-charlotte-county-historical-society","tag-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}