FARMER, ROBERT, British .commandant of Mobile, was born in England in 1718, and died in Mobile in 1778. On October 20th, 1763, he "took possession of Mobile in the name of his Britannic majesty," (Gayarre). From 1765 until 1767 he is said to have also served as commandant of the Illinois district. On May 16, 1765, M. Aubry wrote from New Orleans to the French government: "the correspondence which I am obliged to have with the English and particularly the governor of Mobile, gives me serious occupation. This governor is an extraordinary man, as he knows that I speak English, he occasionally writes to me in verse. He speaks to me of Francis I and Charles V. He compares Pontiac, an Indian chief, with Mithrldates. He says he goes to bed with Montesquieu. When there occur some petty difficulties between the inhabitants of New Orleans and Mobile he quotes to me from Magna Charta, and the laws of Great Britain. It is said the English university sent him to Mobile to get rid of him because he was one of the hottest in the opposition. He pays me handsome compliments, which I duly return him; and upon the whole he is a man of parts, but a dangerous neighbor, against whom it is well to be on one's guard."

Hamilton, "Mobile under five Flags" says, "He superintended everything for the British in these parts, buying lands for public purposes, making contracts and paying troops. Farmer's Island north of the city was owned by him and he was the first resident on the Tensaw Bluff, now called Stockton. In Mobile he lived at the northeast corner of St. Emanuel and Government streets, adjacent to the lands used under the French and also under the British for a royal bakery and other public purposes." Maj. Farmer was not wanting in courage, and he often dared to run counter to the opinions of those superior in rank. This resulted in a court martial, which became a cause- celebres, lasting from September 1766 to August 1768. The charges were voluminous and the records fill volumes. The result was the acquittal of Maj. Farmer, greatly to the joy of the people in the British possessions on the Gulf. The major apparently retired during the trial, but in 1769 he was recommended as governor of West Florida.

On August 5, 1778 the celebrated naturalist, William Bartram, visited Maj. Farmer at his home on Tensaw Bluff, and there he inspected his extensive plantations, cultivated by French tenants. The Major was elected as one of the representatives from Mobile and Charlotte County to the West Florida legislature, 1772, but the Mobile members never took their seats. In 1777 he was again chosen, but he died in 1778, the record reciting that another was "elected in the room of Robert Farmer, deceased." On the capture of Mobile by Don Galvez, the Spanish governor, many houses were burned, including "the late home of Major Farmer, with valuable papers." (Hamilton). He was buried in Mobile, but his last resting place is unknown. "His family consisted of his wife Mary and five children, of whom Elizabeth Mary will meet us later. Through her marriage with Louis Alexandre de Vauxbercy, the Farmer blood has survived until the present day." She had a daughter who became the wife of Curtis Lewis, an early American settler.

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