EFFINGHAM COUNTY, GA - BIOS  Captain William Lyford Jr

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Captain William Lyford Jr - Loyalist

1717. Born in Bahamas.

1753 -1762. He commanded several commercial vessels, some
of which he owned, plying from Charles Town to ports in the
Caribbean, Georgia, East and West Florida, and as far way
as England.

1762. His newly begun career as a privateer was cut short
by being hauled into Vice Admiralty Court for striking a
disobedient crewman while on the high seas.

1763. He resumed his maritime shipping career.

6/17/1766. He was commissioned by the governor of Georgia
as pilot of the Savannah River and bar and several other
Georgia rivers and bars.

12/11/1769. He was appointed a consultant be the Georgia
Government to help determine the best place for a
lighthouse on Tybee Island.

12/20/1773. He prepared a navigational chart of the
Savannah River entrance to accompany a report Governor
Wright is sending to the Secretary of State in England.

6/26/1776. Refusing to pledge his loyalty to the American
cause, he was included on a list prepared by the Georgia
Safety Council of men considered "dangerous to the
liberties of America."

1776-1783. Having been forced to leave the colony, he went
to St. Augustine, from where he served as pilot on various
men-of-war throughout the war.

4/1783. He helps Colonial Andrew Deveaux Jr. plan the
successful raid on Nassau that drove the Spanish out and
helped carry it out.

7/15/1783. He was included by the Assembly of the new state
of Georgia on a lengthy list of persons on a bill of
attainder, banishment, and confiscation, which meant those
on the list were charged with a capital offense, were
banished from the colony, and all their property in the
colony was confiscated.

9/2/1785. He received a grant of 448 acres on the west end
of New Providence Island for his services as a Loyalist.
Many years later, exclusive residential resort Lyford Cay,
where now lives the likes of writer Arthur Hailey and actor
Sean Connery.

11/12/1789. He received a grant of 592 acres on Cat Island
for his part in the Deveaux Raid of 1783. He built his
residence on the land on the spot on which it was thought,
until 1926, that Columbus first set foot in America.

2/14/1794. He died.