[WEST FLORIDA] CHESTER, PETER. Three crudely printed land grants for West Florida, engrossed in manuscript, each with an attached manuscript survey map.
Pensacola, Florida: 11 January, 14 November and 19 November 1777. The grants 7 1/4 x 11 3/4 inches (18.5 x 30 cm); each a single leaf, secretarially completed in manuscript and signed by Peter Chester, the Captain General, Governor and Commander in Chief of West-Florida, with the affixed wafer seal; each with accompanying survey map in ink at a scale of 20 chains to an inch, two notated as true copies by Elias Durnford, the Surveyor General for the Province, Usual folds, a little soiling and wear but in generally remarkably good condition. Thomas W. Streeter's examples, each with his label on verso (and apparently previously the John Gray Bell and Sir Thomas Phillipps examples).

After the outbreak of the War of Independence, West Florida became a haven for disaffected loyalists, Of this class of documents, Streeter noted "These forms are thought to be from the earliest Florida press and to antedate the earliest Florida printings described by McMurtrie (St. Augustine, 1783) by several years..." (description for the lot preceding these). This press was apparently situated about 10 miles from Fort Natchesen. These are likely the earliest procurable examples of Florida printing. Streeter also noted "The forms dated eleventh January and nineteenth November, 1777, have the watermark MGVL LOSA and the one dated fourteenth November, a watermark of a circle with four groups of three small circles on the perimeter; and a square, with six circles at the head and foot, at the center of the large circle." The 1777 grant is for 626 acres to "John Brown a Reduced Captain"; that of 1779, a grant of 200 acres on Lake Pontchartrain to one Morris Smith. Streeter Sale 1187; this accompanied by two pages of notes by Streeter.

C The Collection of Jay I. Kislak sold to benefit the Kislak Family Foundation

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