Henry Laurens

Born Feb. 24, 1724, in Charles Town, Henry Laurens' grandparents immigrated to Charleston following Louis XIV's 1685 revocation of the Edict of Nantes, granting freedom of worship to French Protestants. The son of a saddler, Laurens would go on to become one of America’s founding fathers and John Hancock’s successor as president of the Second Continental Congress.

Following his clerkship in a London countinghouse, Laurens returned to Charleston in 1747 and formed a busienss partnership with George Austin. Following its dissolution in 1762, Laurens traded on his own, exporting rice, indigo, deerskins, and naval stores to Europe. and the West Indies. His ships returned with wine, textiles, rum, sugar, and slaves.

Like most young male Charlestonians, Laurens aspired to the elite planter class, eventually acquiring nearly 20,000 acres along the South Carolina and Georgia coasts. His Lowcountry plantations included Mepkin, Wambaw, and Mount Tacitus, as well as other properties and tracts of land.

Though privately, Laurens professed to question the morality of slavery, the earnings from his mercantile and planting interests, both predicated on slavery, made him one of the wealthiest men in America.

As the split between the colonies and England grew, Laurens initially hoped for a compromise, rather than a break, with England. Whe it became apparent that was not going to happen, Laurens pledged his support to the Patriots, succeeding John Hancock as President of the Continental Congress.

An older man when the American Revolution broke out, Laurens served as a senior statesman and diplomat until he was captured at sea by the British upon his return from seeking Danish support for the Patriot cause. Convicted of high treason, Laurens became the only American ever imprisoned in the famed Tower of London.

He was released in a prisoner exchange for Gen. Charles (Lord) Cornwallis and, along with Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and John Jay, helped develop the Treaty of Paris truce with Britain.

Laurens returned to Charleston a broken man after the war and the death of his beloved son John in its final days. He spent his remaining years in relative solitude at his Mepkin Plantation.

Today he is perhaps better known in popular culture as the father of John Laurens, made famous in the Broadway play, Hamilton.