Bernard Romans - Biography

Biography

Romans was born Barend Romans in Delft, son of Pieter Barendsz Romans and Margareta van der Linden. He was raised and educated there, but emigrated to the United Kingdom as a youth or young man, and then to British North America around 1757, during the Seven Years' War (known as the French and Indian War in British North America).

"Bernard Romans was born in the Netherlands about 1720 and was probably educated as an engineer in England. He was sent to America about 1757 and served as a surveyor in Georgia. Romans was appointed Deputy Surveyor of Georgia in 1766 and a short time later went to East Florida to survey the property of Lord Egmont, and associate of Oglethorpe in founding Georgia... The Surveyorer General for the southern District, William Gerard deBrahm, promoted Romans to the post of Deputy Surveyor for the district. In 1773...he was made a member of the New York Marine Society and the American Philosophical Society; and a letter dated 1773 at Pensacola on an improved mariner's compass was published in the American Philosophical Society Proceedings."

On March 3, 1761, Romans married Maria Wendel (born 1739) at the Dutch Reformed Church in Albany, New York. A son, Peter Milo Romans, was born in Albany on January 16, 1762, who would marry in 1785 in Albany and have 10 children himself. There is no further record of Maria Wendel Romans, who may have died young (Romans remarried in 1779).

By his own account, in about 1761, Bernard Romans entered into the King's service as a commodore, "sometimes at the head of a large body of men in the woods, and at the worst of times ... master of a merchantman, fitted out in a warlike manner." After the war ended, Romans continued to go to sea. He sailed widely as both as a privateer during the war and as a merchant, reaching points as far north as Labrador, and as far south as Curaçao, Cartagena and Panama.