Henry Laurens

The title of this article is ambiguous. For the French sculptor and draftsman with a similar name, see Henri Laurens (1885–1954).

Portrait of Henry Laurens (1781)

Henry Laurens (born February 24, 1723 ^jul. / March 6,  1724 ^greg. In Charleston , Province of South Carolina , † December 8, 1792 near Charleston) was an American businessman and political leader during the Revolutionary War . He was a delegate to the Continental Congress , the third President of the Second Continental Congress , a signatory to the Articles of Confederation, and the first Vice President of South Carolina.

Life

Henry Laurens was born in 1724 as the son of the Huguenots John († 1747) and Esther Grasset Laurens, who had immigrated from France to the North American colony of South Carolina a few years earlier as part of the immigration movement and due to the Huguenot Wars and the Edict of Fontainebleau . Lauren's father, John, was a saddler and after Henry's training, his good contacts gave Henry a job in a so-called counting house , a term that was previously used for the accounting division of a company.

In 1744 he received a similar post in London and promised himself from this activity to expand his knowledge in the field of trade. In 1747 he returned to his homeland after three years and entered the import-export trade, which he operated mainly with slaves . Laurens made a lot of money with the slave trade , he was the managing director of Bunce Island and on June 25, 1750 married Eleanor Ball, who came from a family that was also involved in the slave trade. The couple had a total of twelve children, eight of whom died in childhood. The remaining four children, however, mostly gained fame like their father:

• John Laurens (1754–1782), named after Henry Laurens' father, served and died in the War of Independence
• Martha Lauren Ramsay, married the US MP David Ramsay
• Henry junior, married John Rutledge's daughter Eliza and inherited Henry Laurens
• Mary, wife of Charles Pinckney

His wife Eleanor died in 1770, as a result of which Laurens largely withdrew from business life.

Political career

1. General George Washington 2. General Horatio Gates 3. Dr. Benjamin Franklin 4th Henry Laurens 5th John Paul Jones . 1784.

Between 1757, the year he was elected to the South Carolina Commons House of Assembly , and 1761, he served in the civil militia that fought against the Cherokee Indians. Laurens was re-elected year after year until 1773 when he traveled to England to pave the way for his children to receive a good education. Laurens joined the American Philosophical Society founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1772 , where he made many contacts with other members. When the situation in the independence movement came to a head and a revolutionary government formed in South Carolina, he abandoned his original intentions to support Great Britain and became president of the South Carolina Security Committee. When an independent government was formed in his homeland in 1776, he became - after John Rutledge as President - the first Vice-President of South Carolina, comparable to the present-day office of Vice-Governor .

On January 10, 1777 he was elected a member of the Continental Congress, on November 1 of the same year Laurens became President of the Congress - he held the post until December 9 of the following year 1778. Again a year later, in 1779, he was appointed for political affairs sent to the Netherlands and was able to convince Holland not to intervene in the war of independence. On its way back to Amsterdam, Laurens' ship was intercepted by the Royal Navy . England declared war on the Netherlands, which led to the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War , Laurens was the only American in history to be locked in the Tower of London . On December 31, 1781 he was released in exchange for Lord Cornwallis and returned to America.

In 1783 he traveled to Paris to negotiate a peace treaty. Although he did not sign the peace treaty, he was an important member of the negotiations. On August 3, 1784, he returned to the United States, where he retired on his "Mepkin" plantation, located on the Cooper River near Charleston. Although he was subsequently re-elected to the Continental Congress and the House of Representatives from South Carolina , he declined these offices as well as the appointment as a delegate to the assembly that was to ratify the United States Constitution for South Carolina. He died on his plantation in December 1792; after his cremation his ashes were also scattered there.

Honors

Laurens County , South Carolina, founded in 1785, was named in honor of Henry Laurens. A former friend of Henry Laurens' also named a fort in Ohio after him.

Web links

• Henry Laurens in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Henry Laurens I Henry Laurens in the Notable Names Database (English)
2. ↑ Henry Laurens www.henrylaurens.com
3. ↑ Historical Introduction: Who was Henry Laurens? adh.sc.edu ( Memento from June 7, 2007 in the Internet Archive )