Edward Moseley
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Edward Moseley (d. 11 July 1749), Surveyor General of North Carolina from about 1710 and the first colonial Treasurer of North Carolina starting in 1715, was partly responsible (with William Byrd II) for surveying the boundary between North Carolina and Virginia in 1728. He was also Speaker of the North Carolina House of Burgesses (the lower house of the legislature) and briefly acting Governor of North Carolina while Gov. George Burrington was traveling out of the province.
Moseley was a public-spirited individual who, in a rather peculiar case that illustrates the vagaries of colonial justice, was banned from holding public office for several years because of his attempt to obtain evidence linking Colonial Governor Charles Eden to the pirate Blackbeard. Moseley and his colleagues had forcibly entered the office of the colonial secretary in 1718 in search of incriminating evidence and had then been surrounded by the governor's agents. Angry words were exchanged. When Moseley's case came to trial the following year, he was accused of uttering "seditious words" against the governor at the time the governor's agents surrounded him. Despite the fact that at least one member of the jury was a former legal client of Moseley's, Governor Eden's attorney obtained a conviction.
Returning to public life after his time out of office, Moseley again became Treasurer of North Carolina, a position which he held at the time of his death.
Remembered for his generosity to community and church, perhaps the most lasting evidence of Moseley's contribution to the life of North Carolina is a detailed map of the colony he published in 1733.
His descendant William Dunn Moseley was the first elected governor of the State of Florida.
References:
- Colonial Records of North Carolina
- Dictionary of North Carolina Biography
