BY DANIEL M. O’DRISCOLL, CHARLESTON, S. C.
David Hamilton was born in Cork, Ireland, in November, 1749. He came to Charleston, S. C., when quite young. He was well educated, a man of property, and about 1774 wedded Elizabeth Reynolds. She was a daughter of Rev. James Reynolds, an Irish Presbyterian clergyman of James Island, S. C., and of his wife, Mary Ball, a native of that island. James Island was then as now the site of many large plantations.
After a siege of many months, General Lincoln, who with a small number of troops had gallantly defended the city of Charleston, surrendered May 19, 1780. The British had thought that on account of the scattered population and the number of slaves, it would be easier to subjugate the inhabitants of the Southern states than those of the Northern and Middle, whose hardy population inured to labor, especially among the mountains of Vermont and New Hampshire, had successfully resisted all efforts to overcome them. But in this they were mistaken, for although Savannah and Charleston, the chief cities of Georgia and South Carolina, were now in the hands of the enemy, still from every brush and bracken, Marion and Sumter and their scouts would spring at unexpected moments and unlooked for times.
Among those who were taken prisoners at Charleston was David Hamilton, the subject of this sketch. There is a tradition in the family that he held the rank of lieutenant.[[15]] This point, however, cannot be substantiated now, as the family papers and Bibles, which were in the possession of his daughter, Mrs. Sullivan of Hampton county, S. C., were lost or destroyed during the Civil War.
When the city of Charleston was surrendered to the British commander, David Hamilton, being a member of a regiment taken under arms, became a prisoner of war. He was offered with others a parole if he would promise not to take up arms again against the mother country. This he declined to avail himself of, and Ramsay’s History of the Revolution in South Carolina records his name as among the prisoners confined on board the prison ship Torbay in Charleston harbor in May, 1781.
This vessel conveyed these prisoners to Philadelphia where they remained until the treaty of peace was signed at Paris in 1783. Family records tell that during his detention, receiving permission to go about the city, his wife Elizabeth, at his solicitation, joined him there. The voyage in those days was a long and tedious one, but David Hamilton having vessels of his own, Mrs. Hamilton and her two children were able to perform the journey in one of them.
During her sojourn there a third daughter, Grizelle Agnes Hamilton, was born, who became in womanhood the wife of Capt. Joseph Taylor, U. S. N. After the Revolutionary War, David Hamilton, on his return to Charleston, became the partner in business of his brother-in-law, Christopher Fitz Simons, who, also an Irishman of wealth and culture, is the ancestor of the “Sir Rupert” of South Carolina, Wade Hampton, the third, the brave cavalry leader of the Southern army in Virginia. They carried on an extensive shipping, shipbuilding and wharfage business, Hamilton owning the ships and Fitz Simons the wharves. David Hamilton owned one hundred black men, slaves, with their families.
Mr. Fitz Simons was still wealthier, having $700,000, as his will still on record shows, and when his daughter, Anne Fitz Simons, became the wife of Wade Hampton the second, it was as no dowerless bride, she receiving $100,000 as her portion. The father of Colonel Hampton was the richest planter in the South, claiming to own 3,000 slaves. Christopher Fitz Simons dying a few years before David Hamilton, his will records that he leaves to David Hamilton £50 as a souvenir, according to the old English custom, and that he desired the business to continue under the firm name of Hamilton & Co.
David Hamilton died in Charleston, Nov. 29, 1794, and is buried in St. Philip’s churchyard, the Colonial Episcopal church of that city. In these sacred precincts also rest the ashes of many of his descendants. David Hamilton left five daughters and three sons: Elizabeth, who became Mrs. Pritchard; Anne, Mrs. Harvey; Catherine, Mrs. Pritchard; Grizelle Agnes, Mrs. Taylor; Mary, Mrs. Sullivan; of his three sons, David, John and William, David and William died unmarried. His married son, John, left a son and two daughters, from one of whom (Mary), Mrs. Nesbit, springs the family of the same name, wealthy planters of Georgetown, S. C. Of David Hamilton’s daughters, Mrs. Pritchard’s descendants attained distinction both in peace and war.
William Pritchard, her grandson, whose name is carved on the white marble tablet which stands in the vestibule of St. Philip’s Episcopal church, was a member of the historic Washington Light Infantry of Charleston, and died of country fever during the Civil War. Mrs. Harvey’s daughter, Anne, married Commandant Knight, U. S. N. Commandant Knight died while in service on the coast of Africa, of African fever. His remains still rest there. Mrs. Taylor’s grandson, William Joseph Magill, commanded a regiment of Georgia regulars during the Civil War. He was a graduate of the Military Academy of South Carolina, a man of fine physique and pleasing address. Colonel Magill lost an arm at the battle of Sharpsburg, and died some few years ago in Florida where he had settled after the war.