South Carolina Signers of the Declaration of Independence by David Reuwer

Note 1: I am re-posting "South Carolinians Signing Liberty's Blessings" by David Reuwer below. I received it two years ago by email from the South Carolina Battleground Preservation Trust. Please overlook any formatting issues. 

Note 2: I am also reminding you that the SCBPT's Executive Director, Doug Bostick, is presenting "The Legacy of Carolina Day" on Carolina Day [that is June 28, 2022] for the Beaufort County Historical Society and the BDC. Check the BCHS website for remaining seats - registration is required! 

Note 3: All units of the Beaufort County Library will be closed Monday, July 4, 2022 to celebrate Independence Day. Regular operations resume on Tuesday, July 5, 2022. - Grace Cordial

From South Carolina Battleground Preservation Trust <dbostick@scbattlegroundtrust.org> 7/03/2020 Email to gracec@bcgov.net South Carolinians Signing Liberty's Blessings A poetic songwriter, a jurist-minded attorney, an art collector, and a sickly son from South Carolina  - each highly educated in England; aristocratic planters all; all provincial legislators -  affirmed the Declaration of Independence in 1776, birthing the United States of America. These South Carolinians began more concretely and heartily to secure "the blessings of liberty" for all of us. South Carolina’s four signers of the Declaration, Edward Rutledge, Thomas Lynch, Jr., Thomas Heyward, Jr., and Arthur Middleton were the youngest group at ages 26, 27, 30, and 34 years old. Rutledge and Heyward each commanded cannon at the Battle of Port Royal Island on February 3, 1779.  These two and Middleton were active soldiers captured at the 1780 British siege of Charles Town, made prisoners-of-war, and incarcerated from August 1780 until July 1781 in Fort St. Mark at St. Augustine, East Florida colony of Great Britain.  Edward Rutledge attended the First Continental Congress at 24 but was the most experienced SC delegate by the Declaration's debates.  "Young Ned Rutledge is a perfect Bob-o-Lincoln - a swallow, a sparrow, a peacock; excessively vain, excessively weak, and excessively variable and unsteady; jejune, inane and puerile," denigrated John Adams.  Rutledge is generally credited with the postponement from June on the vote for independency until July 2. This may have been based on the South Carolinians' uncertainty about breaking completely with the mother country. He became Governor in 1798 but died at 50 before completing his term.   Thomas Heyward served in the U.S. Congress until 1778 when he became a circuit court judge in South Carolina, serving caseloads of dockets for 20 years. President Washington stayed at his home in Charleston in 1791.  Benjamin Rush called him a " firm republican" and described him as "a man of good education and most amiable manners who had an elegant poetical genius." He wrote patriotic songs about the United States for his fellow prisoners to sing at St. Augustine, which they did on the anniversary of the Declaration. Heyward participated in the state constitutional convention of 1790. He died at 62.  His descendant wrote the play Porgy which George Gershwin turned into the opera, Porgy and Bess. Arthur Middleton, in his person, was of "ordinary size, symmetrically proportioned, with fine features, and countenance expressive of firmness and decision." He refused to serve on the congressional committee of accounts because he disliked accounting and lamented that he did not even keep up with his own books.  His sister, Henrietta, married Edward Rutledge.  He was one of 11 men to draft the new SC Constitution in February and March of 1776, which "should most effectuate secure peace and good order in the colony, during the continuance of the dispute with Great Britain."  Together with William Henry Drayton, he designed the State Seal of South Carolina. He led passionate rebuke of and aggression against Loyalist Carolinians while serving on the state's Council of Safety. When Gov. John Rutledge refused to accept the revised 1778 SC Constitution, he resigned the governorship, and Middleton was elected.  However, Middleton refused to accept also on the basis of disagreement with the SC Constitution. Much of his personal property, including an extensive art paintings collection, was destroyed by the British during the war. He died at 47 in 1787, leaving nine fatherless children.  The SC State Gazette death notice described him as a "tender husband and parent, humane master, steady unshaken patriot, the gentleman, and the scholar." A World War II U.S. Navy transport ship was named for Arthur Middleton.  Thomas Lynch, Jr., of Hopsewee Plantation on the Santee River, served as substitute for his ailing father in the Continental Congress.  After his dad died due to another stroke, his widowed mother married Governor William Moultrie. Lynch was sickly, feverish, and frail much of his short life. He and his wife, Elizabeth, sailed to the West Indies in late 1779 on their way to Europe, for better health purposes. The ship was never heard from again; the youngest signer to die at age 30.  He had made a will requiring that the heirs of his female relatives change their last name to “Lynch” in order to inherit his family estate. His sister, Sabina, did so and upon her death, his youngest sister, Aimee, did likewise. Thomas Lynch, Jr. is one of the Declaration’s signers rarest signatures; his autograph can bring up to $250,000. The tomb of Middleton is on the garden grounds at his famous family plantation, Middleton Place, and Thomas Heyward, Jr. is in his family cemetery at Old House Plantation near Ridgeland. Edward Rutledge lays in St Philips Church yard in Charleston. Lynch's Hopsewee, Heyward's Charleston townhouse, and parts of Middleton Place are all extant and open for visitation and reflection. Heyward’s plantation is private and has two story tabby walled ruins. As dangerous and uncertain their time, South Carolina’s four signed their lives away.