David Dunbar ( fl. 1728–1737) was a British military officer, a surveyor of the King's woods in North America, and lieutenant governor of the

Province of New Hampshire The Province of New Hampshire was a colony of England and later a British province in North America. The name was first given in 1629 to the territory between the Merrimack and Piscataqua rivers on the eastern coast of North America, and was nam ...

. Of Scotch-Irish origin, Dunbar married into a wealthy and politically influential family, and received his first North American appointment, that of Surveyor of the King's Woods, in 1728, through the influence of his family connections and that of

Martin Bladen Colonel Martin Bladen (1680–1746) was a British politician who sat in the Irish House of Commons from 1713 to 1727 and in the British House of Commons from 1715 to 1746. He was a Commissioner of the Board of Trade and Plantations, a Privy Counc ...

, a member of the

Board of Trade The Board of Trade is a British government body concerned with commerce and industry, currently within the Department for International Trade. Its full title is The Lords of the Committee of the Privy Council appointed for the consideration of ...

. In this position he made numerous local enemies in his enforcement of regulations governing the cutting of trees that could be used as ship masts. He was the leader of an attempt to establish a colony named "Georgia" in what is now the central coast of

Maine Maine () is a state in the New England and Northeastern regions of the United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and north ...

, and was in 1730 commissioned as lieutenant governor of the

in an attempt to strengthen his authority. He engaged in frequent disputes with New Hampshire's Governor

Jonathan Belcher Jonathan Belcher (8 January 1681/8231 August 1757) was a merchant, politician, and slave trader from colonial Massachusetts who served as both governor of Massachusetts Bay and governor of New Hampshire from 1730 to 1741 and governor of New J ...

. He established Fort Frederick in Maine. In 1734, in an attempt to enforce the Broad Arrow policy of the

Massachusetts Charter The Massachusetts Charter of 1691 was a charter that formally established the Province of Massachusetts Bay. Issued by the government of William III and Mary II, the corulers of the Kingdom of England, the charter defined the government of the co ...

governing the protection of white pine trees of diameter greater than 24 inches for use in the making of ship masts, Dunbar and a group of his enforcers were run out of Exeter, New Hampshire. Dunbar had been interrogating townspeople about a large supply of white pine logs floating in a mill pond and about the ownership of the nearest timber mill.''The Royal Pines of New Hampshire''

References

18th-century American people People of colonial New Hampshire People of colonial Maine People of pre-statehood Maine Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown {{NewHampshire-politician-stub