Bernard Romans

Bernard Romans (bapt. 6 July 1741, Delft – 1784, at sea) was a Dutch-born American navigator, surveyor, cartographer, naturalist, engineer, soldier, promoter, and writer. His best known work, A Concise Natural History of East and West Florida, published in 1775, is a valuable source of information about the Floridas during the period of British control. His maps and charts are considered better than any produced before, and also for many years after, their publication.

Romans was born Barend Romans in Delft, son of Pieter Barendsz Romans and Margareta van der Linden. He was raised and educated there, but emigrated to Great Britain as a youth or young man, and then to British North America around 1757, during the Seven Years' War (known as the French and Indian War in British North America).

"Bernard Romans was born in the Netherlands about 1740 and was probably educated as an engineer in England. He was sent to America about 1757 and served as a surveyor in Georgia. Romans was appointed Deputy Surveyor of Georgia in 1766 and a short time later went to East Florida to survey the property of Lord Egmont, an associate of James Oglethorpe in founding Georgia... The Surveyor General for the Southern District, William Gerard deBrahm, promoted Romans to the post of Deputy Surveyor for the district. In 1773...he was made a member of the New York Marine Society and the American Philosophical Society, and a letter dated 1773 at Pensacola [concerning] an improved mariner's compass was published in the American Philosophical Society Proceedings."

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