04/07/2026
On the 250 Anniversary of America –
A Missing Colonial Art Treasure and a Hunt in St. Tammany
“Today the seal of British West Florida is of purely antiquarian interest, but the mystery of its appearance – and disappearance – and the obvious value of a surviving example should inspire future searches and perhaps the discovery of a truly rare historical artifact.” -- Dr. Robert R. Rea, The Alabama Historical Quarterly Vol XL, p.168 (1978).
The FBI’s National Stolen Art File (NSAF) database established in 1979, is a boon to missing treasures.
But what about treasures that disappeared before 1979?
What of those Colonial Treasures that disappeared long, long ago – like The Deputed Great Seal of the Colony of British West Florida -- a treasure replete with local history.
Florida, you say? Yes, St. Tammany was once part of Florida when Spain owned it. Spanish Florida extended from present day Florida to the Mississippi River… and there our story begins.
For those who do not yet know, the Seven Years War ended with the Treaty of Paris on February 10, 1763.
In a brilliant piece of PR obfuscation, the English called it the “French and Indian War,” forever confusing future generations into thinking the French and Indians had fought each other.
But NO, the British fought France and France’s allies the local Indians, particularly the Mi’qmak and the Wabanaki.
So, it should be called the “English v. The French, Spanish, and Indians War”, but it is not.
Those clever English might have lost the war, but they won the media.
The English were busy all over the New World.
Those familiar with the Grande Derangement of the Acadians, a state-forced deportation of 11,500 Acadians occurring from 1755-1763, will know the English took this action as part of preparation for and during the “French and Indian War”.
The English feared the Acadians would enter the War on the side of the French. They feared the French-speaking Catholics were sympathetic to France and to the Mi’qmak with whom the Acadians had intermarried.
Few French women survived the Atlantic crossing and the Mi’qmak accepted the new settlers as equals and helped them to survive. The two peoples had grown close.
The Acadian general Joseph “Beausoleil” Broussard and his men did dress as Indians and conduct raids on the British forts. Most Acadians, however, did not participate, having sworn a conditional loyalty oath to the British Crown in 1713 under the Treaty of Utrecht.
Under the 1713 Oath, the Acadians were allowed to keep their land, speak the French language, and practice the Catholic religion on what was now British territory.
The Boston Tea Party in 1773 is said to have taken inspiration from Beausoleil’s Indian garbed raids.
By 1773 many British ships carrying Acadians had landed and discharged them in Maine and along the entire coast of New England, where their names were generally Anglicized, but their experiences remained.
Stories of the Acadian raids spread throughout New England.
Under the Treaty of Paris ending the “French and Indian War”, Britain’s King George III received all of France and Spain’s holdings, the current state of Florida and literally all the Gulf Coast east of the Mississippi River except for the Isle d’Orleans, the Island of New Orleans.
The Gulf Coast grant included the area from the Gulf waters to roughly the entire bottom half of the current coastal States.
King George III took a personal interest in the new acquisitions and realized the area was too large for one colonial office. He issued a Royal Proclamation on Oct 7, 1763, dividing it into East and West Florida.
The future St. Tammany Parish was squarely within the jurisdiction of the Colony of British West Florida.
West Florida encompassed the land from Apalachicola to the Mississippi River. The West Florida colonial office was established at Pensacola and George III personally appointed George Johnstone as Governor.
The new Governor, however, needed a seal.
On October 5, 1763, the Privy Council at the behest of the Board of Trade headed by the Earl of Shelburne ordered His Majesty’s Chief Engraver of Seals to prepare drafts of seals for the new colonies of Quebec, Grenada, East Florida, and West Florida.
“Deputed” seals were used by the “deputized” Governors of royal colonies throughout America and the world. Seals were proof of authenticity and of issuance by the Governor.
Today, red wax impressions of the Seal have already dried, crumbled, and are lost to history.
Luckily, wax alone was not the only material used for impressions. Some impressions of the seal were made by placing paper atop the wax before the impression was made. The paper and wax seals fared better according to Dr. Rea.
Few impressions of the Great Seals have survived to present day.
According to Dr. Rea, “Most of the surviving pre-Revolutionary provincial seals have long since been detached from the documents to which they once gave authority, but detachment could also result in the loss of the seal.”
So where is “The Deputed Great Seal of the Colony of British West Florida”? Do we even know what it looks like?
We know on December 21, 1763, the Privy Council approved 4 seal drafts designed by Chief Engraver Christopher Seaton including the draft of the West Florida, but there is no sketch or other visual representation of the seal for West Florida in the British archives.
Although Dr. Rea traveled to the British Library, to the Public Record Office in London, to the Royal Mint, the British West Florida seal was ever elusive.
Rea indicates that Governor George Johnstone brought the seal with him to Pensacola in early June 1764. Here it would be used to make impressions attached to important documents. Descriptions of the seal are sketchy with no known surviving impressions.
But the plot thickens.
King George III granted 400 acres to William Bryan on Lake Pontchatrain in the 1770s.
In 1777 John Spell was granted land next door to Bryan.
In 1788 the Spells commissioned a certified copy of the map of their property by Surveyor General Carlos Trudeau. In addition, Lt. Governor Elias Durnford, working under then Governor Peter Chester, certified the text of the grant.
On a fun note, in 1834 Bernard de Marigny purchased this land, and it became the City of Mandeville.
But what about the seal?
Enter St. Tammany Clerk of Court Jessica Jenkins Brewster, Deputy Clerk Adam Bartlett, and Archivist Robin Leckbee Perkins.
Archivist Perkins at the request of Clerk of Court Brewster was reviewing the holdings of the Office.
Among the old and dusty files, she discovered an evidence box for a case completed long, long ago.
In the box was a curious object, white and with some strings attached.
Perkins discovered the evidence in a land dispute filed in 1825. In that year, the heirs of John Spell and William Bryan sought to quell title and settle boundary and timber cutting disputes between the two neighbors.
After some searching, the twosome discovered the odd object was a document seal. Not just any seal, but The Deputed Great Seal of the Colony of British West Florida.
The surveyor’s map by Trudeau, the certified true copy of the grant by Durnford, and the seal of the British Colony of West Florida, the ultimate authentication, were all admitted as evidence in a long-forgotten dispute.
This precious historical artifact, this treasure of St. Tammany, is the only known surviving example of The Deputed Great Seal of the Colony of British West Florida.
And it lives here, in St. Tammany.
Ann Benoit is the former Covington Town Talk columnist for the Times-Picayune, the author of 5 traditionally published books by Pelican Publishing, and the publisher of St. Tammany Community News and its affiliates. She can be reached at [email protected]
No AI was used in the creation of this article. All photos original work. 2026 ( c ) Ann Benoit LLC
