George J. F. Clarke

George J. F. Clarke (October 12, 1774 – 1836) was one of the most prominent and active men of East Florida in the Second Spanish Period. As a friend and trusted advisor of the Spanish governors of the province from 1811 to 1821, he was appointed to several public offices under the colonial regime, including that of surveyor general.

Clarke served in the Spanish militia from 1800 to 1821, defending East Florida in the "Patriot War" of 1812 and leading militia forces against the freebooters Gregor MacGregor and Louis-Michel Aury in 1817. By the order of Governor Enrique White he platted the town of Fernandina in 1811 and oversaw the construction of new buildings there. He was a central figure in organizing a local government in the area between the St. Marys and St. Johns rivers, which brought a workable peace to that tumultuous section during the final years of Spanish rule.

Clarke knew the geography of the region better than any other person of his time, as his office was responsible for every land survey made in East Florida between 1811 and 1821. Clarke profited from the acquisition and resale of large tracts of land, and his landholdings were among the largest in Florida. In his will he distributed more than 33,000 acres to his heirs, as well as several houses and scattered lots. He spoke Spanish fluently, but his writing in the language was ungrammatical. His initials have been given incorrectly by many historians as I. F., confusion arising because the capital Is and Js of his handwriting were indistinguishable. His will shows his given name to have been George John Frederic Clarke.

In his later years he invented a horse-driven sawmill, practicable enough that the Spanish Governor José Coppinger granted him a "sawmill grant" of 22,000 acres of timbered land, although the customary such grant was for 16,000 acres. Clarke published his opinions on a wide array of subjects in the provincial newspaper, the East Florida Herald, including experimental agriculture, fruit tree cultivation, diet and health, archeology, and the white man's relations with the Indians.

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