Major Robert Farmar of Mobile

"Major Robert Farmar of Mobile" recreates the life and times of an 18th-century American whose family was prominent in the early settlement of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Born in 1717 in New Brunswick, New Jersey, Farmar sought his fortune in the British Army and led a company in the unfortunate Cartagena expedition, on which most Americans sickened and died. Having survived that experience, Farmar went to London, obtained a regular Army commission and fought in the bloody battles in Flanders from 1745 to 1748. He was ordered to occupy French Mobile in 1763, and in 1765 he led a successful ascent of the Mississippi River to occupy Fort Chartres in the Illinois country. He later became a prominent citizen of Mobile, Alabama. A comprehensive study of Farmar's career, this work is based on extensive research in the manuscript records of the British Army, the Colonial Office, the correspondence of Generals Thomas Gage and Frederick Haldimand and other collections in the United States and Great Britain.