The Family of Andrew Durnford and Elizabeth Lucas
There was a trait within the Durnford family, of marrying someone of a good standing, very often from a family with a Military background, or official standing.
When Andrew Durnford married in England, he did precisely that. The son of a wealthy lady who was the sole beneficiary of her father’s estate, he married another lady, Jemima, again from a wealthy family, with interests in coal mines, and the promises of a great fortune.
Later, he was appointed Mayor of Bermuda, and he chose to forsake his English family and began a new life with Elizabeth Lucas. They had a family, and he built a substantial family home, although the funding of that was subject to investigations, at the time of his death in 1798.
She and Andrew met sometime before 1789, and lived at Stewart Hall. They rented Stewart Hall.
George Tucker's widow Mary lived in Stewart Hall until her death in 1787. The house was then rented to Andrew Durnford between 1789 and 1791 while he was improving the colony's fortifications and building Durnford House.
He lived in Stewart Hall with his mistress, Elizabeth Lucas, with whom he had six children. Hannah Stockton, who was George Tucker's niece, purchased the house at auction in 1795.
She died there two years later and the house went to her two young children
1783 Andrew Durnford arrived
1793 The Governor asked him to rebuild the forts (Gov Hamilton)
1793 Andrew became Mayor.
May 6, 1795 At the town meeting!
The memorial of Major Hare and the letter of Captain Hicks were then read.
"Mr Speaker and Gentlemen of the Assembly, I take an early opportunity of laying before you sundry accounts which have been lately delivered me by the Honourable Captain Durnford. Notwithstanding these expenses were incurred before my arrival here, yet, as I understand the services were undertaken and performed at the request of my predecessor, I cannot but recommend them to the consideration of the Honourable House, not doubting..................
The Lucas Family of Antigua.
Elizabeth Lucas appears to be the granddaughter of none other than the Hon George Lucas, Esq, Lieutenant Colonel, and Governor of Antigua Governor, who died in Brest.
The original Lucas holdings, appear to emanate from one John Lucas, who secured lands in Antigua in the 1600’s. That was common that merchants were granted land in the Colonies, in order to supply goods for the English market. Sugar and cotton in particular.
This John Lucas, was Hon George’s grandfather. He had the right to use the Lucas Seal, of the Lucas family from Colchester in England.
With the help of some digitised records, a jigsaw of the Lucas family is possible.
One aspect though is intriguing. Elizabeth’s cousins are sent to Westminster for schooling, return to Charlestown, and then fight against the British!
Background
John Lucas of Antigua, merchant, son and heir 1668 ; acquired much land. (his wife was Dorothy)
1678—1682; of Round Hill and Cabbage Tree Plantations; Speaker 1692 and 1696; Chief Baron of the Court of Chancery 1715; Member of Council. Will dated 20 Oct. 1699 ; recorded 28 June 1737.
1668. John Lucas, son and heir of John Lucas, deceased, receives a patent for 25 acres.
1678. John Lucas, two proportions of land, St. John's Town, 100 feet by 80 feet, by Colonel James Vaughan ; surveyed 15 Oct.
1679, 16 June. Mr. John Lucas and Mr. Richard Travels, 600 acres by Jeremiah Watkins ; surveyed 30 Aug.
1679, Oct. 7. John Lucas and Richard Travers, merchants, sell to John Maskell, merchant, one-third of 600 acres in Body Division.
1679, Dec. 11. John Moore, Gent., and Carolina his ■wife, only daughter and heir of Colonel Charles Guest, deceased, sell to John Lucas, merchant, for 20,000 lbs., 122 acres, being one-third of the late Colonel Charles Guest's estate in St. John's Division. '
1680, March 21. Ensign Fra. Gifford sells 10 acres to Mr. John Lucas.
1680, July 20. John Moore, Gent., and his wife Caralina, only daughter of Colonel Charles Guest, sell 70 acres in St. John's Division to John Lucas, merchant, adjoining 172 acres lately sold to the said Lucas, and lately in the occupation of Thomas Hutton in right of his wife Anne Hutton, deceased, widow and relict of said Colonel Charles Guest.
1682, May 27. John Lucas, 511 acres, patent by Sir W.Stapleton.
1685 John Lucas Merchant.
1698. John Lucas writes home to a friend on 25 and 27 April and complains of the conduct of General Codrington, who brought an action for libel against him because Petitioner had written to Lord Orford about his mis-government. Hopes Right Hon. George Lord Lucas* will aid him. £5000
bail has been demanded of him. They are hunting his son in the woods with negros and dogs. He has made over his estate to Mr. Sampson his security .... Himself and two sons .... Was Speaker for some years .... John Austin his son (in law), etc.
Edward Walrond also petitions their lordships on his behalf by letter dated 6 July 1698.
John Lucas writes from the Common Gaol on 28 May 1698 to his friend Edward Walrond at London, and mentions "my cousin Woodward." (B. T. Leeward Islands, vol. 5.)
Another letter was received from him 9 June 1698 in which he says the Jury gave a verdict for £2000 damages to General Codrington for libel. One of his children who was with him in the gaol has died. Your lordships have already written to say that the £5000 bail was excessive, and that £500 was sufficient. He sails for England with the good wishes of the Speaker George Gamble and other friends.
Petition of Edward Walrond, Esq., on behalf of his friend Mr. John Lucas, now a prisoner at Antigoa, dated at Islington 6 July 1698.
George Gamble, Speaker, writes to Mr. John Lucas at Antigua, on 25 Sep. 1698, on hearing that he (Lucas) is to sail to-morrow.
The proposals for an amicable arrangement were received 9 March 1698-9. Right Hon. George Lord Lucas acted as mediator, and the terms suggested were that John Lucas should apologise for any aspersions cast on the late General Codrington's character, and Colonel Codrington would give up all claim for damages, and mutual releases would be signed.
To this Mr. Lucas answered refusing to retract or apologise. The termination of the dispute does not appear. (B. T. Leeward Islands, vol 6.)
Mr. John Lucas used a seal which bears the coat of the Lucas family of Colchester, viz. A fess .... between six annulets ....
John Lucas, merchant, at present in London. Will dated 20 Oct. 1699. All my debts to be paid, especially £5000, to John Hill of London, for which I have executed a bond with a penalty of £10,000, for the better settlement of which I hereby devise to John Hill my plantation in Willoughby bay, Antigua, called " Round Hill," & all other lauds & slaves in trust. To my wife Dorothy of all annual profits, & to inhabit my house & use furniture, & £5000 out of the remaining | as soon as it can be raised. To my son-in-law John Austin £1000, to be paid within 3 years of his attaining 21. To my sister Kachel Bartholomew of London £20 a year, & to her dan. Eliz" £50 at 16, and the same to the child she is now with. To my kinswoman W^ Eliz"' Lucas £30. To John Hill £500, & to his wife Susannah £50, & to Thos. Hill their son £50. To the poor £200. All residue to my 2 sons Geo. & Tho. Lucas equally. John Hill may sell all my lands if he think fit being in S' John's, Falmouth, & Willoughby Bay, the plantations of " Round Hill " and " Cabbage Tree " excepted. John Hill to be
Ex'or, and he may by his will appoint fresh Ex'ors and Guardians of my 2 sons. Witnessed by Alexander Hoggan, Jonathan Ewer, John Ross, John Busby. Recorded 28 June 1737.
Sir Charles Lucas (1613 – 28 August 1648) was an English soldier, a Royalist commander in the English Civil War. Lucas was a younger son of Sir Thomas Lucas (d. 1625) of Colchester in Essex, by his wife Elizabeth Leighton, daughter of John Leighton of London, gentleman.[1] His elder brothers Sir John Lucas (d.1671) (in 1645 created Baron Lucas) and Sir Thomas Lucas (d. 1649) fought for the King. His younger sister Margaret Lucas, later Duchess of Newcastle, described her brother's youthful career in her autobiography.
In 1690, a sailor John Lucas died in West Indies, at Jamaica on the ship “Bridge Towne” he was a bachelor
1703. Robert Lucas of Antigua, Gent., and Lucia his wife, late widow of John Halloran, deceased, release to Nicholas Collins 40 acres.
At the request of Mr. George Lucas and the Hon. John Yeamans and John Lucas, Esq., I have divided the estate of 380 acres, by John Yeamans and John Lucas possessed as tenants in common for over 20 years past, and the said John Lucas has given his half to the said George Lucas his son.
Surveyed 22 April 1707.
1710 April 14. Petition of Baptist Looby, Esq., and his wife Anne, guardians of Ann Hathorn the infant dau. and heir of Samuel Hathorn of Antigua, surgeon, deceased. He died in debt and owned 70 acres in Falmouth, bounded E. with Jonathan Wells and Robert Chesan, deceased, S. with Wells and land formerly Valentine Russell, Esq., deceased, W. with Simon Farley, N. with Hon. John Yeamans, Esq., and John Lucas, Esq. ; also 15 acres bounded E. with Colonel Thomas Mallett, deceased, S. with John Gratrix and Valentine Russell, deceased, W. with Russell, N. with the 70 acres. They are granted leave to sell.
1715, Oct. 28. Hon. John Lucas, Chief Baron of the Court of Chancery. On 8 Nov. following George Lucas was chosen Treasurer.
On 20 Sep. 1726 George Lucas, Esq., presents his mandamus as a Councillor, and on 29 April 1729 he was stated to be a member of the Regiment lately commanded by Colonel Richard Lucas, who had been guilty of corrupt practices, having defrauded the men of their pay.
In 1742 He was appointed Governor of Antigua
1747, Jan. 11. Geo. Lucas, Lieut. Col. of Dalzel's Reg. and Lieut. Governor of Antigua, at Brest, being taken in an Antigua ship.
"The Gentleman's Magazine" for 11 January 1747
In the London papers of December 1746 Advice from Brest that the Hon George Lucas, Esq, Lieutenant Colonel, and Governor of Antigua died at that place. He was taken in one of the ships coming from Antigua, under convoy of the Woolwich and the Severn Men of War. His death is greatly lamented by all who had the pleasure of his acquaintance.
https://archive.org/stream/historyofislando01oliv/historyofislando01oliv_djvu.txt
The Beginnings of the Lucas Lineage
Sir John Lucas Was a member of Parliament
Family and Education b. by 1512, 3rd s. of Thomas Lucas of Little Saxham Hall, Suff. by Elizabeth, da. of John Kemeys of Raglan, Mon. educ. I. Temple, adm. July 1526. m. (1) Mary, da. of John Abell of Essex, 2s. inc. Thomas†; (2) by 1550, Elizabeth, da. of John Christmas of Colchester, 1s. 2da.
Offices Held
Bencher I. Temple 1542, Autumn reader 1542, Lent 1551.
Jt. (with Thomas Pope) clerk of the crown in Chancery Feb. 1538-44; j.p. Essex 1538-d., Suff. 1547; dep. steward, ct. augmentations, lands north of the Trent by 1542-4; town clerk, Colchester 1543-8, 1550-d.; member, council of John, 16th Earl of Oxford by 1545; commr. relief, Essex, Suff. 1550, canon law 1551, goods of churches and fraternities, Essex 1553; master of requests by 1552-3; steward, manors of Fingrinhoe and Pete Hall in West Mersea, Essex by 1553, lands of Sir Thomas Darcy, 1st Baron Darcy of Chiche by 1553, manor of Dovercourt by 1555.
Biography
John Lucas’s father had been secretary to Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke and Duke of Bedford, after whom he named his eldest son, who predeceased him. Solicitor-general and member of the Council learned in the law, he was one of the chief agents for the financial exactions of Henry VII, and although he escaped the fate of Sir Richard Empson and Edmund Dudley he seems to have taken no further part in public affairs, apart from remaining on the bench, until his death in 1532. He settled in Suffolk and does not appear to have owned any property in Essex.
Although Thomas Lucas had been educated at Cambridge and remembered that university generously in his will, his son does not appear to have attended either university. He was admitted to his father’s inn in 1526, the year in which Thomas Audley I was Autumn reader there; it was to Audley, an Essex man, that Lucas was to owe his first advancement. His beginnings in the law were not promising. In 1529 he petitioned the King to order the return to him of a law-book which an Irish fellow-student had borrowed from him: the student had died of the sweating sickness and his executor refused to restore the book. It may have been dissatisfaction with the inn’s handling of the case which led Lucas to foment a revolt against its governors in 1533. In punishment for this the benchers gave him the option of expulsion or payment of a fine of £5. Evidently he chose the fine and the incident did not count against him, his rebellion being different in degree rather than in kind from similar happenings in the inns at that time; he himself later became a bencher and on two occasions was reader. His son Thomas in due course followed him not only in entering the Inner Temple but also in flouting the inn’s authority.
Between 1533 and 1537 Lucas probably practised as a barrister. Audley thought well enough of his abilities to recommend him to Cromwell in 1537 as fit for the office of solicitor of the augmentations when it fell vacant, but Walter Hendley was appointed. In the following February Lucas became joint clerk of the crown in Chancery, and it was doubtless his new standing which led to his appointment to the Essex bench four months later. It may have been about the same time that he settled in Colchester, perhaps when he married into an Essex family. He is known to have given legal advice to the 15th Earl of Oxford, who died in 1540. By the following year he was steward of the new Earl of Oxford’s manor of Harwich and he was to become the earl’s trusted counsellor and seemingly his personal friend. The de Veres were hereditary keepers of Colchester castle and owners of extensive lands within the borough and county: their patronage would have been more than enough to procure Lucas a place on the Essex bench, the town clerkship of Colchester and finally a seat in Parliament for the borough. In November 1539 he was one of the three prosecuting counsel at the trial of the abbot of Colchester and a year later he served for the first time on the commission for the delivery of Colchester gaol.
In September 1540 Audley had succeeded the attainted Cromwell as high steward to the court of augmentations for lands north of the Trent and had named Lucas his deputy, at a fee of £20 a year; Lucas kept the post until Audley’s death in 1544.
In September 1543 Lucas was appointed town clerk of Colchester, an office he was to hold, with only a short interval, until his death. A year earlier he had purchased Fordingham manor and other properties there jointly with his father-in-law John Abell, and in May 1544 he purchased from the Earl of Oxford lands in the borough, together with the manor of Mile End, Essex, and property in Somerset and Wiltshire. When the earl was short of money Lucas helped him with loans: perhaps his purchases of lands from Oxford during the next few years were really loans against security. How Lucas came to have at his disposal at this stage the very large sums needed for these purchases remains obscure: even a flourishing legal practice supplemented by a patrimony, a few minor offices and perhaps an advantageous marriage hardly provide an explanation.
Lucas’s name was too common for it to be certain that he was the John Lucas of Essex who served with four footmen in the vanguard of the army in France in 1544, but no such doubt attaches to his activity on the commission of May 1546, which included Bishop Bonner and Sir Richard Rich, to enforce the Act of Six Articles in Essex, a county notably disaffected towards Catholicism. He reported to the King upon the examination of various persons who denied the real presence, most of whom were executed for this heresy. Nothing is known of Lucas’s own beliefs, but they must have been as easily adjustable to changing requirements as Rich’s, to judge from the part he was to play in the following reign. In August 1546 Lucas bought from Sir Thomas Darcy lands in Copford and Aldham, Essex, and 200 acres of woodland within the liberty of Colchester. He had already been assessed for the subsidy of 1545 as owning lands worth more than £400 in Colchester alone. In July 1548 he purchased the property of the dissolved chantry of Sible Hedingham, and lands at Great and Little Horkesley, Essex, but the culmination of his estate-building had come with his purchase in the previous month of the freehold reversion of the site, lands and buildings of St. John’s abbey, Colchester, from Sir Francis Jobson. There is no evidence to support the suggestion that the sale was forced upon Jobson by the Earl of Warwick, nor is Jobson known to have harboured any ill-feeling towards Lucas, whose son Thomas he appointed an executor of his will.
The climax of Lucas’s career was reached in Edward VI’s reign and ended with that King’s death. He had been returned for Colchester to Henry VIII’s last Parliament (his connexion with the earls of Oxford suggests that he may also have sat in 1539 and 1542, for which Parliaments the names of the town’s Members are lost) and was to sit in both those of his son. (The borough’s return to the second Edwardian Parliament is mutilated so that only the name of the senior Member Sir Francis Jobson remains, but the committal of the subsidy bill to ‘Mr. Lucas’ after its second reading on 10 Mar. 1553 makes it all but certain that John Lucas was the other.) In 1550 and 1551 Lucas was charged by the Council to search out the authors of seditious libels published in Colchester, and in the latter year he served with one other layman and six clergy on the commission appointed by the King to revise the ecclesiastical laws of the kingdom. Perhaps by this time, and certainly before March 1552, Lucas had been appointed one of the two masters of requests. The court was then at the height of its power and the masters equal in standing to the judges of the common law courts, whom they probably exceeded in both industry and probity. During Lucas’s mastership the court seems to have got through at least as much work in any year as it had done under Henry VIII, partly because the ostensible limitation of its services to poor men or royal household officers was increasingly ignored.
In 1548 Lucas was one of the trustees of the settlement made by the Earl of Oxford in contemplation of the proposed marriage between the earl’s daughter Catherine and Henry Seymour, son of the Protector Somerset. Oxford was to survive Lucas but his gratitude for Lucas’s aid is reflected in a draft will in which Lucas is called Oxford’s ‘trusty friend and counsellor’ and given a legacy of £40 and a horse.
Lucas continued to accumulate lands, acquiring no less than 5,120 acres in Wiltshire from the earl in May 1552, 460 acres in and around Colchester from George Christmas and others in February of that year, and in his last recorded purchase, crown lands in Berkshire, Essex and Wiltshire for which he paid £1,095 in July 1553. His purchases by fine between 1542 and 1552 from vendors other than Oxford, alone or with his father-in-law, totalled over £1,600.
Lucas was one of the 24 persons whom the Duke of Northumberland persuaded to sign the device altering the succession in favour of Lady Jane Grey. This step, and his part in the Edwardian Reformation, made him obnoxious to Queen Mary. On her accession he was committed to the Fleet prison, but released five days later and commanded to keep to his house until the Council gave further order. The house arrest was lifted after a fortnight, in consideration of his ill health, although he still had to hold himself ready to appear before the Council at any time to answer such charges as might be formulated against him. It was against this background that he made his last appearance in the Commons a few months later: his master Oxford was in favour with the Queen and evidently like the earl Lucas was careful not to give further offence by supporting the Protestant opposition in Parliament. Despite this he was deprived of his mastership of requests, and the three years remaining to him were spent mostly in local administration.
Lucas was a sick man on 10 May 1556 when he made his will in London. After remembering the poor and prisoners in the capital and at Colchester, he provided for his wife, children, relatives including a sister married to John Grenville, and servants. He left rings and other small mementoes to Anthony Stapleton and several others, and appointed as executors his sister Anne Barnardiston and three friends, Roger Amyce, Anthony Crane and Guy Wade. He died on the following 13 Sept. and was buried two days later in the parish church of St. Peter the Poor, London. His youngest son John subsequently married his ward Mary Roydon, whom Lucas had mentioned in his will: according to a story current after his death Lucas, ‘being a great gamester’, had won her wardship of the Earl of Oxford at dice.12
Ref Volumes: 1509-1558
His son
Sir Thomas Lucas a Member of Parliament.
Family and Education
b. 1530-31, 1st s. of John Lucas* of London and Colchester by 1st w. Mary, da. of John Abell of Essex. educ. Trinity Hall, Camb. matric. 1549; I. Temple, adm. 1550. m. Mary, da. of Sir John Fermor* of Easton Neston, Northants., 2s. 3da., 2 other ch. suc. fa. 13 Sept. 1556. Kntd. Sept. 1571.1
Offices Held
Bencher, I. Temple 1568-71.
J.p.q. Essex 1564-?d.; sheriff 1568-9, 1583-4; commr. musters 1572-73; recorder, Colchester c.1575.2
Biography
Thomas Lucas succeeded in 1556 to an estate which included St. John's abbey, Colchester, and extensive lands there and elsewhere in Essex. It was no doubt in recognition of this, and his father's services to the town, that he was elected at the close of the following year to the last of Mary's Parliaments: his fellow-Member was his step-uncle George Christmas.
He had followed his father to the Inner Temple, where in November 1556 an outburst of the 'imperious and violent temper' which he was to display throughout his life had led to hsi expulsion from the inn and imprisonment in the Fleet. He was re-admitted and remained to become a bencher in 1568, although he afterwards bought himself out of the office and its concomitant reading with a fine of £20.3
Although judges a 'favourer of religion' in 1564 Lucas was not to sit in Parliament again: perhaps the turbulence which characterized both his public and private life told against him. He incurred repeated reprimands and two spells in prison, once for alleged complicity in an assauly committed by a servant upon one of the Queen's footmen at the assizes; but he could also earn commendation, as he did in 1596 for his handling of Sir John Smith's attempt to seduce the troopps under Lucas's training at Colchester. His feud with his brother Robert, which had begun before their father's death, brought them into the courts, and Robert Lucasdied owing him the £100 damages and costs awarded him in the King's bench.4
Lucas lived on until 1611, dying in August or September of that year and being buried in St. Giles's Colchester. His son and heir Thomas had killed Sir William Brooke aliasCobham†, and while uncertain of his son's fate Lucas had disposed of his lands to prevent their forfeit to the crown if his son were condemned for murder. In the event Thomas Lucas was pardoned, and his father's will, besides revoking the disposition of his lands, provided for his wife and the two sons and three married daughters who survived him. He left to the heir a 'needlework bed wrought with silk' by his step-mother with a direction that it should never leave the family
His Grand Son
Sir Thomas Lucas d 1625
Sir Thomas Lucas (died 1649) of Lexden, Essex, England, along with his younger brothers, Sir John Lucas (d.1671) (in 1645 created Baron Lucas), and Sir Charles Lucas (d.1648), distinguished himself as an officer fighting for the royalist cause in the Civil War.[
Lucas was the eldest son of Sir Thomas Lucas (d. 1625) of St John's, Colchester, Essex, by his mistress and future wife Elizabeth Leighton, daughter of John Leighton of London, gentleman. He was illegitimate as he was born before his father's marriage with Elizabeth Leighton. His brothers Sir John Lucas (d.1671) (in 1645 created Baron Lucas) and Sir Charles Lucas also fought for the King. His younger sister Margaret Lucas, a prolific writer and a scientist, was the wife of the Duke of Newcastle. (William Cavendish)
His father purchased for him the manor of Lexden, Essex, from the heirs of Robert Ratcliffe, Earl of Sussex
Lucas obtained the command of an English troop in the Dutch service, and was knighted by Charles I on 14 April 1628. In December 1638 Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford gave him the command of a troop in the Irish army.
He was one of the officers in whom Ormonde most confided during the Irish Rebellion of 1641, and held the rank of commissary-general of the horse. He distinguished himself at the Battle of Kilrush (15 April 1642), and was badly wounded at the Battle of New Ross on 18 March 1643.
From 1642 Lucas was a member of the Irish Privy Council, took part in negotiating the cessation of hostilities in 1643 and the treaty of 1646, and was consequently held a delinquent by parliament. He was, however, allowed to compound for his estate on paying a fine of £637 in 1648, and died before October 1649.
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| Margaret Lucas |
Margaret Lucas Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (1623 – 15 December 1673) was an English aristocrat, philosopher, poet, scientist, fiction-writer, and playwright during the 17th century. Born Margaret Lucas, she was the youngest sister of prominent royalists Sir John Lucas and Sir Charles Lucas, who owned the manor of St. John's Abbey in Colchester. She became an attendant of Queen Henrietta Maria and travelled with her into exile in France, living for a time at the court of the young King Louis XIV. She became the second wife of William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1645, when he was a marquess.
Cavendish was a poet, philosopher, writer of prose romances, essayist, and playwright who published under her own name at a time when most women writers published anonymously. Her writing addressed a number of topics, including gender, power, manners, scientific method, and philosophy. Her utopian romance, The Blazing World, is one of the earliest examples of science fiction.She is singular in having published extensively in natural philosophy and early modern science. She published over a dozen original works; inclusion of her revised works brings her total number of publications to twenty-one.
Cavendish has been championed and criticized as a unique and groundbreaking woman writer. She rejected the Aristotelianism and mechanical philosophy of the seventeenth century, preferring a vitalist model instead.
She was the first woman to attend a meeting at the Royal Society of London, in 1667, and she criticized and engaged with members and philosophers Thomas Hobbes, René Descartes, and Robert Boyle. She has been claimed as an advocate for animals and as an early opponent of animal testing
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| William Cavendish |
The Lucas Family in Antigua
In 1738, the year Eliza would turn 16, Col. Lucas moved his family from Antigua to South Carolina, where he had inherited three plantations from his father. With tensions increasing between Spain and England, he believed his family would be safer in Carolina than on the tiny, exposed island in the West Indies. Eliza's grandfather, John Lucas, had acquired three tracts of land: Garden Hill on the Combahee River (1,500 acres), another 3,000 acres on the Waccamaw River, and Wappoo Plantation (600 acres) on Wappoo Creek—a tidal creek that connected the Ashley and Stono Rivers. They chose to reside at Wappoo, which was 17 miles by land to Charleston (then known as Charles Town) and six miles by river
In 1739, Col. Lucas had to return to his post in Antigua to deal with the political conflict between England and Spain. He was appointed lieutenant governor of the island. England’s involvement in the War of the Austrian Succession thwarted his attempts to move back to South Carolina with his family. Eliza’s letters to him show that she regarded her father with great respect and deep affection, and demonstrated that she acted as head of the family in terms of managing the plantations. Her mother died in Antigua on October 25, 1759.
Eliza was 16 years old when she became responsible for managing Wappoo Plantation and its 20 slaves, plus supervising overseers at two other Lucas plantations, one inland producing tar and timber, and a 3,000 acres (12 km2) rice plantation on the Waccamaw River. In addition she supervised care for her young sister, as their two brothers were still in school in London. As was customary, she recorded her decisions and experiments by copying letters in a letter book. This letter book is one of the most impressive collections of personal writings of an eighteenth-century American woman, and gives insight into her mind and society.
From Antigua, Col. Lucas sent Eliza various types of seeds for trial on the plantations. They and other planters were eager to find crops for the uplands that could supplement their cultivation of rice. First, she experimented with ginger, cotton, and alfalfa. Starting in 1739, she began experimenting with cultivating and improving strains of the indigo plant, for which the growing market in textiles created demand for its dye. When Col. Lucas sent Eliza indigo seeds in 1740, she expressed her “greater hopes” for them, as she intended to plant them earlier in the season. In experimenting with growing indigo in new climate and soil, Lucas also depended on the knowledge and skills of enslaved Africans who had grown indigo in the West Indies and West Africa.
Eliza used her 1744 crop to make seed and shared it with other planters, leading to an expansion in indigo production. She proved that colonial planters could make a profit in an extremely competitive market. Due to her successes, the volume of indigo dye exported increased dramatically from 5,000 pounds in 1745-46, to 130,000 pounds by 1748. Indigo became second only to rice as the South Carolina colony's commodity cash crop, and contributed greatly to the wealth of its planters. Before the Revolutionary War, indigo accounted for more than one-third of the total value of exports from the colony.
Elizabeth Lucas’s Aunt.
Eliza Lucas Pinckney (December 28, 1722–1793) changed agriculture in colonial South Carolina, where she developed indigo as one of its most important cash crops. Its cultivation and processing as dye produced one-third the total value of the colony's exports before the Revolutionary War. Manager of three plantations[1] at age 16, Pinckney had a major influence on the colonial economy. She was the first woman to be inducted into South Carolina's Business Hall of FameEliza knew independence at a very young age. Her determination to stay independent carried over into her personal life. George Lucas, Eliza's father, presented two potential suitors--both wealthy, connected, South Carolina socialites--to Eliza in the years before she fell in love with the Charles Pinckney, who eventually became her husband. Eliza rejected both suitors. This was highly unusual and even unheard of in 18th Century colonial America.
Elizabeth (known as Eliza) Lucas was born on December 28, 1722, on the island of Antigua, in the colony of the British Leeward Islands in the Caribbean. Lucas grew up on Poorest, one of her family's three sugarcane plantations on the island. She was the eldest child of Lt. Colonel George Lucas, of Dalzell's Regiment of Foot in the British Army, and his wife Ann (probably Meldrum) Lucas. She had two brothers, Thomas, and George, and a younger sister Mary (known to her family as Polly).[3] Col. and Mrs. Lucas sent all their children to London for schooling. It was customary for elite colonists to send boys to England for their education when they might be as young as 8 or 9. Girls would not be sent until their mid-teens when nearing marriageable age. During this period, many parents believed that girls' futures of being wives and mothers made education in more than "the three Rs" and social accomplishments less necessary.
But Eliza's ability was recognized. She treasured her education at boarding school, where studies included French and music, but she said her favourite subject was botany. She wrote to her father that she felt her "education, which [she] esteems a more valuable fortune than any [he] could have given [her], … Will make me happy in my future life."
Eliza and Charles Pinckney, a planter on a neighbouring plantation, became attached after the death of his first wife. Eliza had been very close to the couple before his wife's death. They were married on May 25, 1744. She was 20 and took her family responsibilities seriously, vowing “to make a good wife to my dear Husband in all its several branches; to make all my actions Correspond with that sincere love and Duty I bear him… I am resolved to be a good mother to my children, to pray for them, to set them good examples, to give them good advice, to be careful both of their souls and bodies, to watch over their tender minds.”
Mr. Pinckney had studied law in England, and had become a politically active leader in the colony. He was South Carolina’s first native-born attorney, and served as advocate general of the Court of Vice-Admiralty, justice of the peace for Berkeley County, and attorney general. He was elected as a member of the Commons House of Assembly and Speaker of that body intermittently from 1736–1740, and he was a member of the Royal Provincial Council. Eliza was unlike many women of her time, as she was educated, independent, and accomplished. When the Pinckneys lived in Charleston, Eliza was soon planting oaks and magnolias at their mansion overlooking the bay, and corresponding regularly with major British botanists.
Eliza soon gave birth to three sons and a daughter: Charles Cotesworth, George Lucas, Thomas, and Harriott Pinckney (born third). George Lucas Pinckney, her father's namesake, died soon after birth in June 1747. In 1753 the family moved to London for five years.
Shortly after their return in 1758 to South Carolina, Charles Pinckney contracted malaria and died. Widowed, Eliza continued to manage their extensive plantations, in addition to the Lucas holdings. Most of her agricultural experiments took place before this time.
The surviving Pinckney sons became influential leaders. Charles Cotesworth Pinckney was a signer of the U.S. Constitution and was the Federalist Vice-Presidential candidate in 1800. In 1804 and 1808, he was the Federalist candidate for President. Thomas was appointed Minister to Spain, where he negotiated Pinckney's Treaty in 1795 to guarantee US navigation rights on the Mississippi River to New Orleans. He was the Federalist Vice-Presidential candidate in 1796.
Eliza Lucas Pinckney died in Philadelphia in 1793.
From the time that she began her life in South Carolina on Wappoo Plantation to the time that she died in Philadelphia in 1793, Eliza carefully copied all of the letters she wrote to her family, friends, and acquaintances into a "letter-book." In her letter books, she organized her writings into multiple volumes each depicting with great detail a different period during her life. The volumes recount most of her life, with the bulk of her writings referring to the time between 1739 and 1762.
The first few volumes range from the years 1739 to 1746. They begin with her description of her family's move to the plantation in South Carolina when she was about seventeen years old. Throughout these years, she began to experiment with the indigo seeds along with others that her father had sent to her. She wanted to create a version of the crop that could be produced in South Carolina. Her letters describe the many years of experiments that she did on the crop to make it successful. They also detail her marriage to long time friend and neighbor Charles Pinckney in 1744.
The second set of volumes begins around 1753 and ends around 1757. By this time, Eliza and Charles had begun their new life together and had multiple children. These sets reference the time she and her family moved to London for her husband's job. They lived there for about five years while Charles worked as the commissioner of the South Carolina colony.
The third set of volumes refers to the years 1758 through 1762. It corresponds with the family's return to South Carolina and soon after, the death of her husband. She was left widowed and in charge of overseeing her family's plantations along with her late husband's as well. She lived as a widow for more than thirty years until her death in 1793 while she was searching for a cure for breast cancer. Though she continued to keep copies of her letters after her husband died, very few of them remain today.
This letter book is one of the most complete collections of writing from 18th century America and provides a valuable glimpse into the life of an elite colonial woman living during this time period. Her writings detail goings on at the plantations, her pastimes, social visits, and even her experiments with indigo over several years. Many scholars consider this letter-book extremely precious because it describes everyday life over an extended period of time rather than a singular event in history. Eliza passed her letter-book onto her daughter Harriott, who in turn passed it to her daughter. The letter-book was passed down from mother to daughter well into the 20th century, at which point the Lucas-Pinckney family donated the letter-book to the South Carolina Historical Society.
• 1989 - For her contributions to South Carolina's agriculture, Eliza Lucas Pinckney was the first woman to be inducted into the South Carolina Business Hall of Fame.
• 1793 - President George Washington served as a pallbearer at her funeral at St. Peter's Church, in Philadelphia where she had traveled for treatment.
1753 - At an audience with Augusta, the Dowager Princess of Wales, in London, Eliza presented the princess with a dress made of silk produced on the Pinckney plantations.
This extract is included in Wikipedia..................
A Challenge – If not done before it is now. Robert was Colonel George’s uncle
At the end of the 17th century, Antiguan political opponents of Eliza's grandfather, John Lucas, believed that the Lucas family had powerful influence in London through Henry Grey (1664–1740), later Duke of Kent, a senior member of Queen Anne's government; and Robert Lucas, 3rd Lord Lucas (1649–1705), then governor of the Tower of London. There is documentary evidence that the family used this influence for their own purposes. The West India merchant Thomas Lucas (c.1720–1784) and his business partner William Coleman were prominent. But, no researcher has documented a "blood" relationship between any of these men and the Antigua and South Carolina family.
Charles Pinkey
Charles Pinckney of Charles Town, South Carolina, Esq. Will dated 4 June 1751 ; proved 18 March 1769 by Charles Cotesworth Pinckney ; power reserved to Elizabeth Pinckney the relict and Thomas Pinckney. (100 Bogg.) To be buried near my father & mother in the old churchyard in Charles Town. £100 c. for the walling in of our family burying ground 20 feet by 16 feet, & £250 c. for a grave-
stone for my parents, and the inscription I have herewith written to be placed on it. To my beloved brother Major W"" Pinckney £200 for mourning for himself, his wife, & children, also my silver-hilted sword, Rapin's ' History of England ' in 5 vols, fc, & Antherley's ' Britannia Constitution.' To my good friend W™ Bull, J Esq., my gold-headed cane with glass on the top, with S' Amand's
' Historical Essay ' & Squires' ' Enquiry into the English Constitution.' To my late wife's sister M"'" Sarah Bartlet of London, widow, £10 yearly.
To my late wife's niece Mary Bartlet 10 gs. To my nephew Chas. Pinckney, whom I have educated in England for 5 years past, £200 c. yearly till 21, & maintenance in my family, also £25 worth of my law books. To my wife Eliz., dau. of the Hon. Col. Geo. Lucas, late L' Gov. of Antigua, decd, 24 slaves (named), all my rings (except my rose diamond one for our dau. Harriot, & a diamond mourning one for our son Tho. it being for his uncle of his name), all my jewels, plate, pictures, furniture, riding chair, 6 cows, 12 sheep, large family bible, & 50 vols, out of my library, the use of my plantation called Bellmount, & my house and lands which I purchased of Messrs.
Wragg & Bolton in Colleton Square, formerly James McCrellis, dec'', & | of all the rents of my lands in Charles Town in lieu of dower. To my son Chas. Cotesworth Pinckney the diamond ring of my late dear wife, 12 slaves, a remainder of my library at 20. To my son Thos. Pinckney 15 slaves. To my dau. Harriot Pinckney 12 slaves & £500 at 18.
My son Chas. to be educated for the Law, & I give him my mansion house in Colleton Square in
Charles Town & all my lands belonging to the square, & my parts of Watie's 4 lots, except the part opposite M"" Saunders the saddler, & my house & store on the Bay adjoining Col. Beale's which I purchased of the Provost Marshall on an execution against Joseph Shute, all my plantation
called Pinckney's plains with the pine lands near Beech Hill, & my island at Port Royal called Espalanga, & the water island altogether of 1500 acres, & my tract of 500 acres in Savannah River near Silver Bluff, lately commercialised of Charles Richard Gascoigne, & the reversion of liL-llmount
after the death of his dear mother. To my son Tho. Pinckney my house & stores on the Bay, now in the occupation of Capt. Tho. Shubsrik, & the reversion of my house in Colleton Square after his mother's death, & 500 acres at Foreholes, & 1100 acres at Ashepoe. All residue of my real
estate to be sold & the proceeds divided amongst my 3 children. 5 gs. yearly for 2 sermons to be preached in S' Philip's Parish, Charles Town, one on the Wednesday next after the 2"" Tuesday in Nov. & May. Tillotson's Sermons & D'' Sam. Clark's Works to be also purchased.
My wife Eliz. & W" Bull, J'', Esq., Guardians, & the former sole Ex'trix. Witnessed by John Cleland, Alexander van der Dussen, Alexander Gorden.
1st Codicil. 30 June 1752. Having purchased a plot on French Alley in Colleton Square 29 feet by 75 feet from Gabriel Guignard, & another 27 feet by 75 feet from Tho. Burnham, I give them to my wife & son Thos. 2nd Codicil. Dated 12 July 1752. My marsh lands on Hog Island Creek & Cooper River to my 2 sons equally.
Srd Codicil. 13 Feb. 1756. Now residing at Ripley, co. Surrey. I revoke the legacies of slaves & now give 29 to my wife, 20 to my son Chas., 17 to my son Thos., & 21 to my dau. Harriot. The house & 2 acres 4 rods which I have recently purchased at Ripley to my wife, then to my 1'' son Chas., he to give bond to pay £105 apiece to my son Thos. & dau. Harriot. My uncle Rich' Pinckney of Bishop Auckland, co. Durham, died in 1726 seised of a tenement in Backbongate Street & of 2 others in Bongate otherwise Fenkill Street in Bishop Auckland. After his death they descended to my 1'' brother Thos. Pinckney as his nephew & heir at law who was then in foreign parts.
My brother Thos. died May 1733 intestate & without issue & the said tenements came to me as his eldest brother & heir at law. I was then in foreign parts & did not return till 1 May 1753. I give the same to my son Chas. My wife Ex'trix & my sons Chas. & Thos. Ex'ors at 21.
Witnessed by George Morley, James Abercromby, Thomas Drayton. On 25 Nov. 1758 appeared George Morley of Somerset House, E.sq., & John Chatfield of Clifford's Inn, Gent., & swore to the handwriting.
Their son
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney (February 25, 1746 – August 16, 1825) was an early American statesman of South Carolina, Revolutionary War veteran, and delegate to the Constitutional Convention. He was twice nominated by the Federalist Party as its presidential candidate in 1804 and 1808, losing both elections.Pinckney was born into a powerful family of aristocratic planters. He practiced law for several years and was elected to the colonial legislature. A supporter of independence from Great Britain, Pinckney served in the American Revolutionary War, rising to the rank of brigadier general. After the war, he won election to the South Carolina legislature, where he and his brother Thomas Pinckney represented the landed elite of the South Carolina Lowcountry. An advocate of a stronger federal government, Pinckney served as a delegate to the 1787 Philadelphia Convention, which wrote a new federal constitution. Pinckney's influence helped ensure that South Carolina would ratify the United States Constitution.
Pinckney declined George Washington's first offer to serve in his administration, but in 1796 Pinckney accepted the position of Minister to France. In what became known as the XYZ Affair, the French demanded a bribe before they would agree to meet with the U.S. delegation. Pinckney returned to the United States, accepting an appointment as a general during the Quasi-War with France. Though he had resisted joining either major party for much of the 1790s, Pinckney began to identify with the Federalist Party following his return from France. The Federalists chose him as their vice presidential nominee in the 1800 election, hoping that his presence on the ticket could win support for the party in the South. Though Alexander Hamilton schemed to elect Pinckney president under the electoral rules then in place, both Pinckney and incumbent Federalist President John Adams were defeated by the Democratic-Republican candidates.
Seeing little hope of defeating popular incumbent President Thomas Jefferson, the Federalists chose Pinckney as their presidential nominee for the 1804 election. Neither Pinckney nor the party pursued an active campaign, and Jefferson won in a landslide. The Federalists nominated Pinckney again in 1808, in the hope that Pinckney's military experience and Jefferson's economic policies would give the party a chance of winning. Though the 1808 presidential election was closer than the 1804 election had been, Democratic-Republican nominee James Madison nonetheless prevailed.
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney was born into the Pinckney family of elite planters in Charleston, South Carolina, on February 25, 1746. He was the son of Charles Pinckney, who would later serve as the chief justice of the Province of South Carolina, and Eliza Lucas, celebrated as a planter and agriculturalist, who is credited with developing indigo cultivation in this area. His younger brother, Thomas Pinckney, later served as Governor of South Carolina, as did his first cousin once removed, Charles Pinckney.
In 1753, Pinckney's father moved the family to London, England, where he served as the colony's agent. Both Charles and his brother Thomas were enrolled in the Westminster School, where they continued as students after the rest of the family returned to South Carolina in 1758. Pinckney enrolled in Christ Church, Oxford in 1763 and began studying law at the Middle Temple in 1764. After a short stint at a military academy in France, Pinckney completed his studies in 1769 and was admitted to the English bar. He briefly practiced law in England before establishing a legal practice in Charleston.
After returning to the colonies, in 1773, Pinckney married Sarah Middleton. Her father Henry Middleton later served as the second President of the Continental Congress and her brother Arthur Middleton signed the Declaration of Independence. Sarah died in 1784. In 1786, Pinckney married again, to Mary Stead, who came from a wealthy family of planters in Georgia. Pinckney had three daughters.
Early political career
After returning to South Carolina from Europe, Pinckney began to practice law in Charleston. He was first elected to a seat in the colonial legislature in 1770. In 1773 he served as a regional attorney general. When war erupted between the thirteen American colonies and Great Britain in 1775, Pinckney stood with the American Patriots; in that year he was a member of the first South Carolina provincial congress, which helped South Carolina transition from being a British colony to being an independent state. During the American Revolutionary War, he served in the lower house of the state legislature and as a member of the South Carolina Senate, in addition to his military service.
Revolutionary War
See also: South Carolina in the American Revolution
Pinckney joined the colonial militia in 1772, and he helped organize South Carolina's resistance to British rule in 1775, after the American Revolutionary War had broken out, Pinckney volunteered for military service as a full-time regular officer in George Washington's Continental Army. As a senior company commander with the rank of captain, Pinckney raised and led the elite Grenadiers of the 1st South Carolina Regiment.
He participated in the successful defense of Charleston in the Battle of Sullivan's Island in June 1776, when British forces under General Sir Henry Clinton staged an amphibious attack on the state capital. Later in 1776 Pinckney took command of the regiment, with the rank of colonel, a position he retained to the end of the war.
After this, the British Army shifted its focus to the Northern and Mid-Atlantic states. Pinckney led his regiment north to join General Washington's troops near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Pinckney and his regiment participated in the Battle of Brandywine and the Battle of Germantown. Around this time he first met fellow officers Alexander Hamilton and James McHenry, who became future Federalist statesmen.
In 1778, Pinckney and his regiment, returning to the South, took part in a failed American expedition attempting to seize British East Florida. The expedition ended due to severe logistical difficulties and a British victory in the Battle of Alligator Bridge. Later that year, the British Army shifted its focus to the Southern theater, capturing Savannah, Georgia, in December 1778. In October 1779, the Southern army of Major General Benjamin Lincoln, with Pinckney leading one of its brigades, attempted to re-take the city in the Siege of Savannah. This attack was disaster for the Americans, who suffered numerous casualties.
Pinckney participated in the 1780 defense of Charleston against British siege but the city fell. Major General Lincoln surrendered his 5,000 men to the British on May 12, 1780, and Pinckney became a prisoner of war. As such, he demonstrated leadership, playing a major role in maintaining the troops' loyalty to the Patriots' cause.
During this time, he said, "If I had a vein that did not beat with the love of my Country, I myself would open it. If I had a drop of blood that could flow dishonourable, I myself would let it out." He was kept in close confinement until his release in 1782. In November 1783, he was commissioned a brevet Brigadier General in the Continental Army shortly before the southern regiments were disbanded.[1] He was promoted to Major General during his subsequent service in the South Carolina militia.[5]
Constitutional Convention
Major General Charles Cotesworth Pinckney (NYPL NYPG94-F43-419838)
With the conclusion of the Revolutionary War, Pinckney returned to his legal practice, becoming one of the most acclaimed attorneys in South Carolina. He also returned to the lower house of the South Carolina legislature, and he and his brother, Thomas, became major political powers in the state. He became an advocate of the landed elite of the South Carolina Lowcountry, who dominated the state's government during this period. Though close friends with fellow legislator Edward Rutledge, Pinckney opposed the latter's attempts to end the importation of slaves, arguing that South Carolina's economy required the continual infusion of new slaves. Pinckney also took the lead in negotiating the end to a border dispute with the state of Georgia, and he signed the Convention of Beaufort, which temporarily solved some of the disputes
The Revolutionary War had convinced many in South Carolina, including Pinckney, that the defense of the state required the cooperation of the other colonies. As such, Pinckney advocated a stronger national government than that provided by the Articles of Confederation, and he represented South Carolina at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Pinckney advocated that African American slaves be counted as a basis of representation. According to a book review in The New York Times in January 2015:
The Northwest Ordinance of July 1787 held that slaves 'may be lawfully reclaimed' from free states and territories, and soon after, a fugitive slave clause – Article IV, Section 2 – was woven into the Constitution at the insistence of the Southern delegates, leading South Carolina's Charles C. Pinckney to boast, 'We have obtained a right to recover our slaves in whatever part of America they may take refuge, which is a right we had not before.
Pinckney advocated for a strong national government (albeit one with a system of checks and balances) to replace the weak one of the time. He opposed as impractical the election of representatives by popular vote. He also opposed paying senators, who, he thought, should be men of independent wealth. Pinckney played a key role in requiring treaties to be ratified by the Senate and in the compromise that resulted in the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade. He also opposed placing a limitation on the size of a federal standing army. Pinckney played a prominent role in securing the ratification of the Federal constitution in the South Carolina convention of 1788, and in framing the South Carolina Constitution in the convention of 1790. At the ratification convention, Pinckney distinguished three types of government and said republics were where "the people at large, either collectively or by representation, form the legislature". After this, he announced his retirement from politics.
After Pinckney reported this to the recently inaugurated President John Adams in 1797, a commission composed of Pinckney, John Marshall, and Elbridge Gerry was established to treat with the French. Gerry and Marshall joined Pinckney at The Hague, and traveled to Paris in October 1797. After a cursory preliminary meeting with the new French Foreign Minister Talleyrand, the commissioners were approached informally by a series of intermediaries who spelled out French demands. These included a large loan to France, which the commissioners had been instructed to refuse, and substantial bribes for Talleyrand and members of the Directory, which the commissioners found offensive. These exchanges became the basis for what became known as the "XYZ Affair" when documents concerning them were published in 1798.
Talleyrand, who was aware of political differences in the commission (Pinckney and Marshall were Federalists who favored Britain, and Gerry wavered politically between moderate Federalism ideas and the Jeffersonian Republicans, who favoured France and were strongly hostile to Britain), exploited this division in the informal discussions. Pinckney and Marshall left France in April 1798; Gerry remained behind in an unofficial capacity, seeking to moderate French demands. The breakdown of negotiations led to what became known as the undeclared Quasi-War (1798–1800), pitting the two nation's navies against each other.
With a potential war looming, Congress authorized the expansion of the army, and President Adams asked Washington to take command as commander-in-chief of the army. As a condition for accepting the position, Washington insisted that Pinckney be offered a position as a general. Washington believed that Pinckney's military experience and political support in the South made him indispensable in defending against a possible invasion by the French. Many Federalists feared that Pinckney would chafe at serving under Hamilton, who had been appointed as Washington's second-in-command, but Pinckney pleasantly surprised the Federalists by accepting his appointment as a general without complaint. Pinckney led the army's Southern department from July 1798 to June 1800.
Presidential candidate
Pinckney and his political allies had resisted becoming closely allied with the Federalist or Democratic-Republican parties during the 1790s, but Pinckney began to identify as a Federalist following his return from France. With the support of Hamilton, Pinckney became the Federalist vice presidential nominee in the 1800 presidential election.[a] Pinckney's military and political service had won him national stature, and Federalists hoped that Pinckney could win some Southern votes against Democratic-Republican nominee Thomas Jefferson. Hamilton had even greater hopes, as he wished to displace Adams as president and viewed Pinckney as more amenable to his policies. In-fighting between supporters of Adams and Hamilton plagued the Federalists, and the Democratic-Republicans won the election. Pinckney himself refused to become involved in Hamilton's plans to make him president, and promised not to accept the votes of any elector who was not also pledged to Adams.
Federalists saw little hope of defeating the popular Jefferson in the 1804 election; though the party remained strong in New England, Jefferson was widely expected to win the Southern and mid-Atlantic states. With little hope of winning the presidency, the Federalists nominated Pinckney as their presidential candidate, but neither Pinckney nor the Federalists pursued an active presidential campaign against Jefferson.
The Federalists hoped that Pinckney's military reputation and his status as a Southerner would show that the Federalist Party remained a national party, but they knew that Pinckney had little chance of winning even his own home state. Jefferson won the election in a rout, taking 162 electoral votes compared to Pinckney's 14. Pinckney's defeat in South Carolina made him the first major party presidential nominee to lose his own home state. Jefferson's second term proved more difficult than his first, as the British and French attacked American shipping as part of the Napoleonic Wars. With Jefferson's popularity waning, Federalists entertained stronger hopes of winning back the presidency in 1808 than they had in 1804. With the support of Jefferson, James Madison was put forward as the Democratic-Republican nominee. Some Federalists favoured supporting a renegade Democratic-Republican in James Monroe or George Clinton, but at the Federalist nominating convention, the party again turned to Pinckney. With a potential war against France or Britain looming, the Federalists hoped that Pinckney's military experience would appeal to the nation. The Federalists won Delaware and most of New England, but Madison won the remaining states and won a commanding majority of the electoral college.
Final years and death
After the 1808 election, Pinckney focused on managing his plantations and developing his legal practice. From 1805 until his death in 1825, Pinckney was president-general of the Society of the Cincinnati.
Pinckney was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1813.
Pinckney died on August 16, 1825 and was buried in St. Michael's Churchyard in Charleston, South Carolina. His tombstone reads, "One of the founders of the American Republic. In war he was a companion in arms and friend of Washington. In peace he enjoyed his unchanging confidence."
Slavery according to the state library of South Carolina:
Pinckney owned slaves throughout his life and believed that slavery was necessary to the economy of South Carolina. At the Constitutional Convention, he agreed to abolish the slave trade in 1808, but opposed emancipation. In 1801, Pinckney owned about 250 slaves. When his daughter Eliza married, Pinckney gave her fifty slaves. On his death, he bequeathed his remaining slaves to his daughters and nephews
In the South Carolina House of Representatives, on January 18, 1788, Pinckney offered several defenses for the lack of a bill of rights in the proposed U.S. Constitution. One was that bills of rights generally begin by declaring that all men are by nature born free. The reporter's summary of his observation concluded, "Now, we should make that declaration with a very bad grace, when a large part of our property consists in men who are actually born slaves.
Their son
Thomas Pinckney (October 23, 1750 – November 2, 1828) was an early American statesman, diplomat, and soldier in both the American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, achieving the rank of major general. He served as Governor of South Carolina and as the U.S. minister to Great Britain. He was also the Federalist candidate for vice president in the 1796 election.Born into a prominent Charleston, South Carolina family, Pinckney studied in Europe before returning to America. He supported the independence cause and worked as an aide to General Horatio Gates. After the Revolutionary War, Pinckney managed his plantation and won election as Governor of South Carolina, serving from 1787 to 1789. He presided over the state convention which ratified the United States Constitution. In 1792, he accepted President George Washington's appointment to the position of minister to Britain, but was unable to win concessions regarding the impressment of American sailors. He also served as an envoy to Spain and negotiated the Treaty of San Lorenzo, which defined the border between Spain and the United States.
Following his diplomatic success in Spain, the Federalists chose Pinckney as John Adams's running mate in the 1796 presidential election. Under the rules then in place, the individual who won the most electoral votes became president, while the individual who won the second most electoral votes became vice president. Although Adams won the presidential election, Democratic-Republican candidate Thomas Jefferson won the second most electoral votes and won election as vice president. After the election, Pinckney served in the United States House of Representatives from 1797 to 1801.
His brother, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, was the Federalist vice presidential nominee in 1800 and the party's presidential nominee in 1804 and 1808. During the War of 1812, Pinckney was commissioned as a major general.
Pinckney was born on October 23, 1750 in Charlestown in the Province of South Carolina. His father, Charles Pinckney, was a prominent colonial official, while his mother, Eliza Lucas, was known for her introduction of indigo culture to the colony. Pinckney was the second of three siblings to survive to adulthood; his older sister, Harriett, later married a wealthy South Carolina planter, while his younger brother Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, became a prominent leader in South Carolina. When Pinckney was 3, his father took the family to Great Britain on colonial business, but the elder Pinckney died in 1758. His mother kept the family in Great Britain, and Pinckney studied at Westminster School, Christ Church, Oxford, and the Middle Temple. Pinckney was admitted to the bar in November 1774 and almost immediately left for South Carolina.
Though he had spent the majority of his life in England, Pinckney sympathized with the Patriot cause in the American Revolutionary War. Along with his brother, Charles, he became a captain in the Continental Army in June 1775. After seeing much action, he became an aide-de-camp to General Horatio Gates, and was captured by the British at the disastrous Battle of Camden in 1780. By that time he had married and had an infant child. He was allowed to recuperate from his wounds at his mother-in-law Rebecca Brewton Motte's plantation outside Charleston. In 1781 he and his family traveled to Philadelphia, where he was released by the British in a prisoner exchange. Pinckney returned to the South and that year fought under the Marquis de Lafayette in Virginia.
Governor and ambassador
After the war, Pinckney focused on his plantations and his legal practice. In 1787, he ran for the position of Governor of South Carolina at the urging of his friend, Edward Rutledge. Pinckney was elected governor with little opposition. He strongly favored ratification of the United States Constitution and presided over the state convention that ratified the Constitution.[4] He served in the South Carolina House of Representatives for St. Philip's and St. Michael's Parish from January 3, 1791 to December 20, 1791.
Pinckney initially declined appointment to a federal position, but in 1792 he agreed to serve as President George Washington's ambassador to Britain. As Pinckney was unable to get the British to reach an agreement on various issues, including the practice of impressment or the evacuation of British forts in American territory, Washington dispatched John Jay as a special envoy to Britain. Pinckney helped Jay conclude the Jay Treaty, which addressed some issues between the U.S. and Britain but proved divisive in the United States. In 1795, while he continued to serve as the ambassador to Britain, Pinckney was sent to Spain to negotiate a treaty regarding boundaries and U.S. navigation on the Mississippi River. In the resulting Treaty of San Lorenzo, Spain agreed to allow Americans to export goods through the Mississippi River.
Upon his return to the United States, Pinckney joined with his mother-in-law, Rebecca Motte in developing a rice plantation known as Eldorado on the Santee River outside Charleston. She lived there with him and her daughter and grandchildren in her later years.
Presidential election of 1796
Pinckney's diplomatic success with Spain made him popular at home, and on his return the Federalist party nominated him as a candidate in the 1796 presidential election. The Federalists were strongest in the region of New England, and they hoped that Pinckney's Southern roots would help him win votes in his home region. Pinckney would be the ostensible running mate of Vice President John Adams, but under the electoral rules in place prior to the ratification of the Twelfth Amendment, each member of the Electoral College cast two votes for president with no distinction made between presidential votes and vice presidential votes. Pinckney, Adams, and the main Democratic-Republican candidates, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, each had a potential chance at winning the presidency.
Alexander Hamilton clashed with Adams over control of the Federalist Party, and he may have worked to elect Pinckney as president over Adams. Many Democratic-Republicans held favorable views of Pinckney, who had not been closely identified with the Federalist Party before 1796. Some Democratic-Republicans hoped that Pinckney could bridge partisan divides. Thus, Pinckney could potentially attract electors who would not consider voting for Adams.
In the election, most New England electors voted for the Federalist candidates, most Southern electors voted for Democratic-Republican candidates, and the two parties each received support from electors in the middle states. South Carolina split its vote between Jefferson and Pinckney, awarding each candidate 8 electoral votes. However, several New England electors, fearing the possibility of Pinckney's election over Adams, refused to vote for Pinckney. Adams finished with 71 electoral votes, Jefferson with 68 electoral votes, and Pinckney with 59 electoral votes. Adams became president and, under the rules then in place, the runner-up, Jefferson, became vice president.[6]
Later life
Public service
Pinckney was elected to the United States House of Representatives in September 1797, and served until March 1801. His service was frequently affected by poor health, and he declined to seek another term in 1800. While in Congress, he supported the Alien and Sedition Acts.[8] He also served as one of the managers appointed by the House in 1798 to conduct the impeachment proceedings against William Blount.
After leaving Congress, Pinckney once again focused on developing his plantations. At the request of President James Madison, he returned to military service during the War of 1812. He did see battle during the war, but served as an administrator of American forces in the Southern United States. In 1826, he succeeded his brother as the president of the Society of the Cincinnati, an organization made up of veteran officers of the American Revolutionary War.
Denmark Vesey conspiracy
In 1822, news was reported of a massive planned slave uprising, to be led by Denmark Vesey, a literate free man of color. Vesey and numerous other free blacks and slaves were quickly arrested in a roundup and suppression of rebellion by authorities. Slaves constituted the majority of the population in Charleston, where there was a substantial population of free people of color. Whites long feared just such an uprising. In closed court proceedings, and Vesey and numerous other suspects were convicted; they were soon executed as conspirators. Arrests continued, with some suspects deported from the country.
Pinckney published a pamphlet listing factors that he thought led to the rebellion conspiracy and should be prevented in the future.
• 1st: The example of St. Domingo (Saint-Domingue) (Note: A violent and protracted slave uprising there gained the independence of Haiti in 1804), and the encouragement received from thence.
• 2nd: The indiscreet zeal in favor of universal liberty, expressed by many of our fellow citizens in the States north and east of Maryland; aided by the black population of those states.
• 3rd: The idleness, dissipation, and improper indulgences permitted among all classes of negroes in Charleston, and particularly among the domestic being taught to read and write. Being taught to read and write is the most dangerous.
• 4th: The facility of obtaining money afforded by the nature of their occupations to those employed as mechanics, draymen, fisherman, butchers, porters and hucksters.
• 5th: The disparity of numbers between the white and black inhabitants of the city.
Death
Pinckney died in Charleston, South Carolina on November 2, 1828.[11] He is interred in St. Philip's Churchyard.
Legacy and honors
1. From at least 1801 through 1825, he and his second wife Frances Pinckney lived at a town house they built at 14 George Street, in Charleston. It is now preserved as the Middleton-Pinckney House and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
2. Pinckneyville, Georgia was named after General Thomas Pinckney, after he traveled through the area. That town no longer exists, as its residents left to found the nearby Norcross. Pinckneyville is the name of a Middle School in Norcross.
3. Pinckney, New York was named after him.
Pinckney was portrayed by Hugh O'Gorman in the miniseries John Adams, though he is erroneously portrayed as a United States Senator instead of Ambassador to Great Britain during the George Washington administration
Elizabeth Lucas’s lineage (from various sources)
Daughter of John Lucas 1740 – 1810 buried 22nd May 1810. He married Mary Fenningham in 1764, in Haynes UK.
John was the son of Col George Lucas and his wife Ann Meldrum
Their children were
Elizabeth Lucas 1722 – 1793 m Charles Pinkney
George Lucas 1725 – 1807 m Mary Simmons
Thomas Lucas 1727 - 1756
Mary Lucas 1735 – 1789 m John Mitchell and John Atkinson
John Lucas 1740 - 1810 m Mary Fenningham
WILL OF ELIZABETH LUCAS (DURNFORD) MISTRESS OF MAJOR ANDREW DURNFORD
Durnford Elizabeth L : Salina Jany 30 1840 May 28 1840 Made and duly executed in Bermuda.
Cod witnessed by James Taylor and John Fisher both of St. Georges' Bermuda 65 shares standing in my name in the Butcher's and Drover's Bank, N.Y. Son, John Durnford and Rufus Hibbard trustees to this addition To Methodist Chapel, St. George's Bermuda
To dau; Elizabeth Durnford, now Skinner at her decease
to her son, Thos. Durnford Skinner
To Son, John Durnford: at his decease to Mary Elizabeth Durnford to enable her to bring up my gd. son (infant) George Hibbard Durnford
To son, Wm. Henry Durnford
To son, James Andrew Durnford : to Louisa Durnford so long as she remains his widow.
To dau-in-law, Mary Elizabeth Durnford in trust for infant gd son, George Hibbard Durnford
To gd son, Andrew Durnford Jany 30 1840:
Wit: John Durnford, Jr. student- at-law, Syracuse. Hannah B. Johnston
John Durnford of Syracuse says: Elizabeth Durnford died Jany 30 last leaving this deponent, and Henry W. Durnford :
James Andrew Durnford City of St. George, Island of Bermuda: Elizabeth Skinner wife of Thos M. Skinner of Auburn Cayuga County, N.Y. next of kin and of full age: left a cod to a will date 12th of Sept 1839 and by which this deponent and Rufus Hibbard of sd village of Syracuse are trustees and extras thereof
Dated April 10 1840 (John Durnford)
Abstracts of Wills in Onondaga County, New York, 1791-1841, Vol. G, found in the online databases of the New England Historical & Genealogical Society.
Why Did Elizabeth take the family to New York?
That is not able to be answered. Perhaps family records might shed some light on that. Perhaps she had family. No doubt, Andrew would be quite proud of his grandchildren.
Nor is her relationship with Rufus Hibbard, that he became the trustee of her will.
Son of Rev. Billy Hibbard and Sibbel Russ
Husband of Clementine Mitchell Bartlett
Father of Rufus Piercy Piercy Hibbard
Brother of John Hibbard; William H. Hibbard; Wesley Hibbard; Asbury Hibbard; Timothy R. Hibbard and 3 others
Rufus Fuller Hibbard was born on June 11, 1804 in Rhinebeck, Duchess County, New York and lived in New York between 1830 and 1860 where he sold medicines with his son.
Next, Hibbard lived in Brooklyn, New York in 1870 and then Kings County, New York in 1880. Dr. Hibbard was also a physician and druggist while being an agent for the Shakers of New Lebanon, New York.
39.2 Andrew Durnford His Will and second life in Bermuda West Indies
