Benjamin Byrd - Florida's First State Treasurer

Son of Benjamin Byrd and Zilphia Hufham was born in Lenoir County, North
Carolina  in 1798. He lived in Duplin County, North Carolina  prior to coming
to Leon County, Florida. In 1827, he married in Tallahassee Mary Burney, the
daughter of Arthur Burney and Sarah Blount. She had come to Leon County with
her parents from Georgia.

Benjamin Byrd was prominent in the early development of Leon County and
acquired large tracts of land. For several years he was a merchant at Magnolia
on the St Marks River selling groceries, dry goods, hardware, cutlery,
glassware, blacksmith tools, drugs and medicines, wines and whiskey, shoes and
boots, books and stationary for "exchange for cotton, tallow, cow hides, deer
and other skins and other country produce (Magnolia Advertiser - 12 December,
1828.) His wares were shipped from New York and New Orleans by schooners which
docked at the Port of Magnolia.

 He bought 671 acres of land in the Magnolia tract for speculation, no doubt,
because the "rapid and almost un-exampled increase of population and business"
was making Magnolia a place of considerable importance. 

He was postmaster of Magnolia as well as councilman and a member of the
Citizens Committee.

 He served as auctioneer at Magnolia and later as a Justice of the Peace for
Leon County. 

In 1839, he moved his mercantile interests from Magnolia to the store in
Miccosukee that had been abandoned by James L. Parish.

 William Dunn Mosley was Florida's first governor when Florida became a state
in 1845. He did not arrive in the area until much later than Benjamin Byrd. he
too was from Lenoir County, North Carolina . They had many business
transactions with each other and were in all probability kin  in  marriage to
each other  in Lenoir County. 

In July of 1845, the First Assembly of the State of Florida elected Benjamin
Byrd  State Treasurer by a vote of 42 to one. He was commissioned 5 August,
1845, and his salary was 800 dollars a year. 

The graves of Benjamin's wife Mary, her parents and children who died prior to
Benjamin leaving Leon County for Texas were on a plantation near Miccosukee in
Leon County. In July of 1997 the graves were re-located to the Indian Springs
Church Cemetery in Miccousukee where Mary's father Arthur Burney had been a
charter member.

Sometime after the death of his wife and during the  late 1850's, Benjamin and
the remainder of his family left Florida and re-located in Polk County, Texas.
He is shown there in the 1860  Polk County, Texas Census.


    Feb 1998, Information provided by  John Byrd