A MANUSCRIPT SURVEY SIGNED BY WILLIAM GERARD DE BRAHM for a grant of land in Florida on the South Hillsborough River dated 26 April 1769. William Gerard De Brahm (1717-99) was born in Coblenz, Germany, in 1717 and became a military engineer. He immigrated to Georgia in 1751 and in 1754 was named Surveyor of the colony. Following the Treaty of Paris in 1763 the British possessions in North America were extended southwards with control of the Florida peninsula passing from the Spanish. The military conflict of the French and Indian War had made the British aware of the fact that more accurate surveys were required of their American possessions. North America was divided into two divisions separated by the Potomac River. The Northern portion was assigned to Samuel Holland and the Southern to De Brahm. His remit included a desire to map the new lands of Florida about which the British new very little. In the following years he completed a series of notes, sketches and surveys which were presented to King George III in two volumes. These were finally printed by Louis De Vorsey, Jr. in 1971. Page 255 of his work records a ‘List of the Proprietors, whose lands, and what quantities lay within the Indian Reserve’. Number eight on the list of forty-one individuals is Grey Cooper Esquire with 20,000 acres. It is the survey of these lands we offer here. Grey Cooper (c.1726-1801) was Secretary to the British Treasure under several governments from 1765 for sixteen years under Rockingham, Pitt, North and the Duke of Grafton.

Built on these lands today is the town of Melbourne just to the south of Cape Canaveral. It is difficult to determine the precise layout of the land as these waters so often hit by hurricanes over the last 250 years would have had their shoreline dramatically altered let alone by the human construction which has gone on. However the South Hillsborough River running across the map is in fact the coastal waterway running just inshore from the Atlantic Ocean. In the right and upper margins can be made out the latitude marks of ‘[27o] 50′, ’28[o]’ and [28o] 10′. Melbourne is centred on the west shore at about 28o 5′. Wills Hill, the Earl of Hillsborough was President of the Board of Trade in London from 1763 to 1765. It is in his honour that the ‘River’ was so named after the Treaty of Paris in 1763.

The map is entitled ‘Map of Grey Cooper Esq:r 20000 Acres and bears descriptive text lower right which reads ‘East Florida Pursuant to His Majestys Order … James Grant Esq. Governor [of the Province of East Florida] … to Grey Cooper Esq. … sale containing Twenty Thousand Acres of … between latitude 27o, 50′, 00″ & 28o, 10′, 00″ & between 79o, 40′ 00″ & 79o, 50′, 00″ West from the Meridian of London bounded Westwardly by South Hillsborough formerly Indian River Northwardly as far as to the mouth of Grey’s run from thence in a course of fourty four degrees to the East of North including the points of the Main & Map among the Savannah … ponds. Eastwardly by Cooper Rivulet from its mouth as far northwardly as to the second North Brand of said Rivulet & from the mouth of the Second North Branch of said Rivulet in a direction of thirty degrees from North to West home to the end of ye North forty four East line & has such Marks only as Described by Nature & represent in the within map; certified this 26 Day of April 1769. By G W De Brahm.’

The accompanying grant reads in part ‘East Florida George the third by the Grace of God of Great Britain, France and Ireland King Defender of the Faith and so forth. To all to whom these presents shall come Greeting. Know ye that we … Give and Grant unto Grey Cooper Esquire, his Heirs and assigns a plantation or tract land containing Twenty thousand acres in our Province of East Florida …’ It bears the names of the Governor of East Florida James Grant and that of David Yeats, his Secretary. Provenance: By decent to John Grant at least in 1937; Phillips Auction, London 10 December 1981 lot 269; Burden Collection. Cumming, William. P. (1962) pp. 29-30; De Vorsey Jr., Louis. (1971). ‘De Brahm’s Report of the General Survey in the Southern District of North America’. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press; De Vorsey (1976) ‘Pioneer Charting of the Gulf Stream: The Contribution of Benjamin Franklin and William Gerard De Brahm’, in ‘Imago Mundi’ pp. 111-18; Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.