page_title: Jesse Fish
section_title: Early years
hierarchical_section_title: Jesse Fish / Early years
caption_attribution_description: English: This is a portrait of William Walton, son of Captain William and Mary (Sandford) Walton. He followed his father into the shipping and mercantile business and became a prominent figure in the colony, serving as a member of the New York General Assembly (1751-58) and of the Governor's Council (1758-68). He was a member of the Board of Trade from 1758 until his death.
context_page_description: Jesse Fish was a shipmaster, merchant, and realtor who lived in St. Augustine, Florida under both Spanish and British rule, and is infamous in the town's history to this day. He was a schemer involved in contraband trade and illegal real estate deals, and operated as a slaver, smuggler, and usurer. By his slaver activities Fish introduced most of the bozales, or African-born slaves, registered in Spanish Florida during the decade preceding Spain's cession of Florida to Great Britain. He has been accused of spying for England and Spain as a double agent during the Seven Years’ War, but there is no evidence to support the claim.
  Little is known about Jesse Fish's life, although records of some of his business associations and dealings exist. He was born in Newtown on Long Island in New York, where his ancestors had acquired substantial property in the 1600s. His father, Capt. Thomas Fish, married Elizabeth Kip, daughter of Jesse Kip of Newtown, in 1717. Jesse was born in 1724 or 1726, and arrived in St.
context_section_description: In 1738, the year before the War of Jenkins' Ear began, the Spanish Bishop of Tricale, Francisco Menéndez Márquez, observed that all Englishmen had been banished from St. Augustine except for a teen-aged Jesse Fish, whose presence was deemed necessary for the procurement of flour and meat from New York. A petition made in 1747 for the return of Spanish prisoners from British incarceration lists Jesse Fish as master of the Walton's flag of truce vessel, the sloop Mary Magdalene.
  A major shift in colonial economic policy occurred when the Royal Havana Company was permitted to contract for goods with merchants in Charles Towne and New York, who could then ship directly to St. Augustine. After 1740, English goods from the colonies were plentiful in the provincial capital; Fish continued to function as merchant and broker to supply the city from the 1740s through the 1760s. Records from the Presbyterian Church in Newtown, New York show that three out of four of the transport captains were connected with the Fish family, thus linking the Long Island mariners with St. Augustine. The Lawrence family of sea captains provided a vital trade connection between British New York and Spanish St. Augustine, while Jesse Fish, as Walton Company agent in Florida until 1763, was the liaison between the Lawrence family, the Walton ships, and St. Augustine. The Lawrence captains and the Walton merchants were first cousins, once removed.
  Fish lived most of his life in St. Augustine except for occasional trips to South Carolina, Havana, and New York City. He is not known to have traveled to Europe, although he mentioned his desire to make a passage to England and Spain in his letters. As a boy he learned the Spanish language and customs in the household of the Herreras, a prominent St. Augustine family. The Herreras raised Jesse with their own son, Luciano, and the two remained lifelong friends. Luciano was one of only eight Spaniards to stay behind in St. Augustine during the British occupation, and it was he, rather than Jesse Fish, who spied on the British administration for Spain. In later years Herrera helped compile a register of Fish's properties.
caption: William Walton, Sr., of New York
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