Frederik Christian von Meley
Frederik Christian von Meley (born probably in 1749 in Holstein, died 19 February 1814 in Christiansted on the island of Saint Croix in the Danish West Indies) was a Danish customs officer and surveyor.
After emigrating to st Croix, he married there Anna Elizabeth Leenhardt around 1775 and had with her five daughters. He escaped bankruptcy in 1777, when he was living at Fiskergade 4 in Christiansted and became around 1780 the Deputy Customs Official in Christiansted. In 1788, he lived at 10 Hospital Street with his wife and daughters, along with other dependants, and he was the government's Comptroller and a Customs Official. He worked as major in the Danish army and was also surveyor and cartographer. He lived at Kirkegade 5 in Christiansted in 1803.
As government surveyor he surveyed disputed boundaries on the East End of St. Croix, but this map is now lost. However two of his maps survive: one showing a town plan of Charlotte Amalie on St Thomas was made when the town was rebuilt after two destructive fires in the early 1800s, the other shows Estate Bethlehem on St Croix in 1779. This estate plan provides a very valuable insight in the layout of three parts of a large sugar plantation.[1][2]
References[]
- ^ Daniel Hopkins: The Eighteenth-Century Cartography of St. Croix, Danish West Indies.
- ^ Niklas Thode Jensen: For the Health of the Enslaved: Slaves, Medicine and Power in the Danish West Indies, 1803-1848. Museum Tusculanum Press, 2012, page 177.
- Surveyors
- Customs officers
- People from Saint Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands