Bernard Romans
It is important to mention Bernard Romans and his work "A Concise Natural History Of East And West Florida." Not only has his work been influential in the field of cartography and history, but it has been of significant value in locating historic shipwrecks.
Born in Holland in 1720, he was sent to the colonies by the British government after completing his education in England, by the British government. In 1771, he was working as a civil engineer when he was employed by the Superintendent of Indian Affairs to map and survey East and West Florida.
Bernard Romans was distinguished as a surveyor, cartographer, mathematician, seaman and botanist. He was also known as a solider and a patriot. In 1774 he published his work, "A Concise Natural History of East and West Florida," which included two sheet maps that have been referred to as probably the finest examples of the cartography of Florida. According to the account books of the master engraver, these maps were engraved by Paul Revere.
During our archival research, we came upon several different accounts of the wreck of the Liberty, which had apparently foundered in 1773 somewhere between Rio Seco and Rio D’ais. Following further investigations we discovered that the Liberty was a schooner captained by John Hunt, on passage from Mississippi. Bernard Romans was aboard this ship, “when he had the misfortune to be over-set at sea”. The ship did not sink but everything was washed off the deck, but Romans was rescued. However, on another occasion he was wrecked close to the present day location of Bear Cut, Miami. In appendix A of "A Concise Natural History Of East and West Florida," Romans recounts this tense episode. The vessel he was on, the "Mary," was lost near Cape Florida with property worth about 500 pounds sterling in her. Almost 10 years later Romans wrote that this was “ A wound in my circumstances which is far from being healed.”
The significance of the Romans’ maps of 1774 ( the map is shown as part of this report) is in their quality and accuracy compared to others of this period and even some that are more modern. For example, his measurement of 15 leagues between Key Biscayne and Bimini is extremely accurate, as are his measurements of latitude. He has Rio Seco as 26. 16. Present day Hillsboro Inlet is at N 26 15 30. After cross-referencing other geographic locations from his work, including Key Largo and Cape Canaveral, we conclude that Rio Seco is now known as Hillsboro Inlet.
We have included in this section a small selection of maps from our archives to illustrate the variances in cartography over the last few centuries, and it is plain to see why the Romans work is held in such high esteem.