Dr Andrew Turnbull

Andrew Turnbull was born in Scotland in 1718. He was a physician who went to Turkey where he served as British Consul in Smyrna (Izmir). In 1753, he married Gracia (sometimes known as Grazia) Maria Robin, the daughter of a French merchant from a Levantine family, in Smyrna. The Turnbulls had 12 children, 9 of them born in Smyrna (Izmir). They migrated to British East Florida where they established a colony called New Smyrna, with 1300 settlers and 3 children were born there.

Malaria killed many of the colony and it was eventually abandoned in 1777. In 1783 it was transferred to the Spanish. The Turnbull family moved to St Augustine, Florida and then to Charleston, South Carolina, where he retired. Dr Andrew Turnbull died in Charleston in 1792 and is buried in the St Phillips cemetery there.

In his later years he lived in Charleston, South Carolina and was a respected physician. He was one of the founders of the South Carolina Medical Society.

Dr. Andrew Turnbull, a Scotsman and a physician, convinced a number of his wealthy friends in Britain to take advantage of these offers and start a new colony in East Florida. Turnbull planned to employ a number of Greeks from Asia Minor as laborers for his new venture. He chose a Greek labor force because he felt they would be more accustomed to the warm climate they would encounter in Florida, and because he believed he would be able to convince a good number of them to leave the Ottoman Empire, where labor conditions were tough. Turnbull’s knowledge of the eastern Mediterranean was considerable. He had spent a number of years as a British consul in the Ottoman Empire, and had married the daughter of a Greek merchant at Smyrna in Greece.

In 1766 and 1767, Turnbull and two of his business associates, Sir William Duncan and Sir Richard Temple, acquired land grants of 20,000 acres each, which Turnbull was to select from unclaimed lands in East Florida. After a brief stay in St. Augustine, Turnbull sailed southward along the Atlantic coast past what we now call Ormond and Daytona beaches, and entered Mosquito Inlet, where he encountered an attractive region dotted with large magnolia, live oak, and bay trees. The Scotsman was delighted with what he saw, and decided to make this the site of his new colony. He named it New Smyrna in honor of his wife’s birthplace and the homeland of his future Greek labor force.

Turnbull crossed the Atlantic once again to secure more land and the assistance of the government in setting up the new colony. The British government took a considerable interest in New Smyrna, providing money for transporting laborers and developing infrastructure. In the spring of 1767, Turnbull sailed into the Mediterranean to hire workers for his new enterprise. He encountered unexpected resistance from the Ottomans over his plan to hire away Greek workers, so he made stops in southern Italy and Minorca to pick up more. By the time Turnbull finally sailed for East Florida, he had about 1,500 workers under contract, mostly Minorcans. These settlers would be indentured servants. In return for their passage to New Smyrna, the laborers would be required to work for a period of years, and then they would be entitled either to a plot of land in East Florida or passage back to their home country.
SOURCE: Dr. Andrew Turnbull and the Origins of New Smyrna Beach