Basil Cowper

Slave-owner in Jamaica, owner of Mount Pleasant, a pimento estate, and Baron Hill, both in Trelawny. Deceased by 1805. Almost certainly the Georgia merchant Basil Cowper who changed sides to the British in the American Revolution in 1779 and subsequently moved to Jamaica, dying there in 1802.

1. 'We learn of the time and place of his death from a notice in the Georgia Gazette of Thursday, August 12, 1802, in these words: "Died on the 28th of June last, in the island of Jamaica, Basil Cowper, Esq., formerly a respectable merchant of this place, and a worthy man." A daughter of the Cowpers married a McQueen, and their descendants are among us at this present age.'

2. Basil Cowper had two daughters, Mary Anne (1776-1856) and Margaret (1777-?) who married John McQueen junior (1773-1822).

3. Basil Cowper jun. of Georgia was identified as his nephew and co-residuary heir in the will of William Thomson of New Court Throgmorton Street proved 17/12/1773. Thomson in turn was probably the London sugar consignee of the same name specified in the will of John Campbell planter of St Ann proved 20/11/1764.

1. William Harden, 'BASIL COWPER'S REMARKABLE CAREER IN GEORGIA', Georgia Historical Quarterly, https://archive.org/stream/jstor-40575520/40575520_djvu.txt [accessed 12/09/2019].

2. The Southern Historical Collection at the Louis Round WilsonSpecial Collections Library, University of North Carolina, https://finding-aids.lib.unc.edu/00470/ [accessed 11/10/2019].

3. PROB 11/993/219; PROB 11/903/385.