From the North Riding to Morocco

IN late October i686 Francis Nicholson, Captain of a company of foot, boarded a vessel bound for New England, the fifty-gun frigate Kingfisher which lay anchored in the Downs. He was under orders to serve with Sir Edmund Andros, Captain General and Governor-in-Chief of the Dominion, who had been commissioned some months earlier to bring under royal control all English settlements from the Kennebec River to the Hudson. Within a few short months of Nicholson's arrival at Boston, he was appointed a member of Andros's Council for the far-flung Dominion, and in less than two years he had achieved appointment as Lieutenant Governor under Andros, with his seat in New York. Starting with this assignment, Nicholson between i688 and 1728 served as royal Governor of no less than five British colonies reaching from Nova Scotia to South Carolina. His numerous official appointments by the English Crown and their geographical diversity made him a widelytraveled man, one who could boast familiarity with Northwest Africa, Spain, and France, but particularly with the coastal plain of North America and its various colonial societies. As a civilian administrator in these provinces, he assisted the promotion of education, encouraged the process of urban planning (he was a progenitor of Annapolis, Maryland, and Williamsburg, Virginia), and extended constant patronage to the Anglican Church and its clergy. In addition, Nicholson with his soldierly background and outlook played an important role in inter-colonial military affairs, especially during the closing phase of Queen Anne's War when he commanded expeditions against the French in the St. Lawrence and Acadia

Ancient history · Genealogy · Governor · Canadian Identity and History · Engineering · History

• Annapolis Aflame

  Paul Musselwhite•The William and Mary Quarterly•2014

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