Edward Moseley
Edward Moseley | |
---|---|
Personal details | |
Born | ca. 16 February 1683 St. Giles, Cripplegate, London, England |
Died | 11 July 1749 North Carolina |
Spouse(s) | Ann Walker Ann Sampson |
Education | Christ's Hospital |
Edward Moseley (
Moseley also served as speaker of the North Carolina House of Burgesses (the lower house of the provincial legislature) for several terms, as he was consistently re-elected by his party. He briefly acted as governor while Governor Burrington was out of the province.
Early life and education
John Moseley married Mary Beaman at All Hallows London Wall on February 5, 1681/2. Their son Edward was born February 16, 1682/3 just prior to his father's release from indenture. John Moseley began his own
Discharge records show that Moseley left Christ's Hospital December 24, 1697, aged 14/15, to serve an apprenticeship which was to last until December 1703, with Captain Jacob Foreland on the ship Joseph, trading in the port of Bilbao (a Spanish iron market). Curiously and somewhat irregularly, a handwritten postscript to the indenture with Foreland states "friends of the said boy would not suffer him to be bound to the said captain and have otherwise provided for him." Unknown wealthy friends of Moseley purchased his indenture so that he would not have to go to Spain with Foreland. Soon thereafter, Moseley landed in Charleston, Carolina.[1]
Moseley served southern Carolina as an
Through Dr. Bray's acquaintance, he met northern Carolina's, or Albemarle County's, governor Henderson Walker and his wife Ann. Gov. Walker seemed greatly interested in obtaining a similar Christian library for Albemarle’s capital of “Queen Anne’s Town,” later Edenton. In October 1703, Walker wrote to the Bishop of London, Thomas Tenison, requesting a gift similar to the Rev. Bray's.[1]
In April 1704, Governor Walker died. Moseley moved to the Albemarle Sound region and married Mrs. Walker in 1705. Moseley, then about 23 years old, began his career as a surveyor and lawyer.
Career
Moseley became a
Even though an Anglican, Moseley supported the rights of
Moseley was a personally motivated, opportunistic man who suffered the vagaries of rival surveyors and colonial justice. He evidently used his authority as surveyor unwisely and was twice accused of not having set foot on the properties that he had supposedly surveyed. Virginia authorities, hungry for a favorable boundary between Virginia and North Carolina, ignored Moseley's more accurate determination of that line, described in the Carolina Charter. By 1711, he was removed as the colony's surveyor and fined £500, having to return all the surveying fees that he had collected near the border.[5]
Later, Moseley was banned from holding public office for several years because he tried to obtain evidence to link Colonial Governor
The conviction was merely a slap on the wrist, for Moseley became surveyor-general again in 1723. He was appointed Treasurer of the Province in 1735, a position he held until his death.
As a member of "the Family," elite South Carolinian planters who tried to usurp the Lower Cape Fear from the king, he legislatively supported Brunswick Town's founder, brother-in-law Maurice Moore, during the royal government's attempt to restore order in 1732–33. Royal authorities created the successful port town of Wilmington from the opposition. Later, Moseley removed to Brunswick Town, where he died in 1749.[1]
Personal life
In August 1705 Moseley married the former Ann Lillington, widow of Governor Henderson Walker and daughter of Major Alexander Lillington, in the eastern Chowan District of North Carolina. Edward became allied with the Lillingtons and other prominent families. He and Ann had two sons.[6]
After Ann's death, Moseley married Ann Sampson and moved from Edenton to Brunswick Town. They had a large family of sons and daughters.[6]
See also
Citations
- ^ a b c d Brooks, Baylus C. (18 February 2013). "B.C. Brooks: A Writer's Hiding Place: Edward Moseley: Impressions of the Albemarle".
- ^ "New and Correct Map of the Province of North Carolina". digital.lib.ecu.edu.
- ^ "A New and Correct Map of the Province of North Carolina: The Discovery of a 1737 North Carolina Manuscript Map - The MESDA Journal". www.mesdajournal.org.
- ^ Brooks, Baylus C. (14 April 2014). "B.C. Brooks: A Writer's Hiding Place: Edward Moseley's 1733: North Carolina's Tale of Two and a Half Maps".
- ^ "Documenting the American South: Colonial and State Records of North Carolina".
- ^ a b Edward McCrady, Samuel A'Court Ashe, Cyclopedia of Eminent and Representative Men of the Carolinas of the Nineteenth Century, Brant & Fuller, 1892, pp.469-470, digitized 2007, University of Virginia
References
- North Carolina Historical Marker Archived 25 January 2011 at the Wayback Machine
- Colonial Records of North Carolina
- Dictionary of North Carolina Biography
- B.C. Brooks' Writer's Hiding Place