Thomas Pickstock (1792-1864)
I've read much of what Emory has written. He has a casual, highly readable style. He's funny as hell.
--Lan Sluder 2004 |
Thomas Pickstock III was a merchant and magistrate in British Honduras in the early 1800s. His ancestors were highly respectable, as he descended from an old family in England, the possessors of Pickstock’s Township. Hi father, Thomas Pickstock, was a renowned 18th century privateer, who was the son of Thomas Pickstock, a sergeant in the 99th Regiment.
Thomas Pickstock served in the Commissary Department of the British Army, in Corsica, Sicily, Italy and the Spanish Peninsula during the Napoleonic Wars. After Napoleon was sent to Elba, Pickstock set up as a merchant in Italy, then traveled through Italy after his business failed. When Napoleon was defeated, Pickstock traveled through France on his way home to England. He left England in 1816 at 24 years of age to sell British imports in Belize and in 1823, traveled through Guatemala, during a time of political unrest, to investigate commercial prospects. After deciding to return to England in 1829, Pickstock traveled through the United States and Canada. He died January 25, 1864 in Wharton. Thomas Pickstock was also an artist and was credited with drawing the first lighthouse erected on Half Moon Caye in 1820 which appears in Emory Kings History of Belize Volume II. A street in Belize City also bears his name, perhaps that is where is house was, which was illustrated in his first journal from 1813-1829. But an accompanying map suggests the properties may have been closeer to Haulover. Pickstock kept written and illustrated journals of his travels. There are two known journals one covering 1813-1829 and another Jul-Oct 1843 for travels in France & Belgium. Some pages from the 1843 volume can be viewed here: Thomas Pickstock's Travel Journal 1843 |
Thomas Pickstock's
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