James Forsyth, Sr.

I represent James Forsyth, Sr. I was born in 1775 in Connecticut, probably New London. I moved our family to New Orleans in 1815. While I never seem to have lived in Pensacola myself, I appear in the very first editions of The Floridan (later, The Pensacola Gazette) as the captain of the schooner Tom Shields, which ran between New Orleans and Pensacola. My two sons would eventually settle in the Pensacola area and develop the mills in the Arcadia Mill area in Santa Rosa. I would continue running my route between Pensacola and New Orleans on the schooner Elizabeth, carrying lumber and other goods, and slaves. I died in New Orleans at the age of 90.