Edward Rutledge, South Carolina

Edward Rutledge was one of the South Carolina delegates that signed the Declarations of Independence. He was born on November 23rd, 1749 in Charleston South Carolina. He was born into an aristocratic family. He was educated at Oxford where he studied law and was admitted to the English Bar. He was the youngest member of the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia at the age of twenty-seven. In 1776 he took a break from Congress and was a member of the Charleston Battalion and Artillery where he attained the rank of Captain. In 1779 he was sent back to Congress as there was a vacant seat that Congress need replaced. He married the daughter of Henry Middleton from Tennessee. This was when he came back into politics. He was elected into the Senate twice and in 1789 he was elected the Governor of South Carolina. As governor was South Carolina he was unable to finish his term as he dies in 1800. Edward Rutledge was man who wore many hats, he was a lawyer, Captain of the Charleston Battalion and Artillery, senator, Governor of South Carolina, and one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

Sources:
Thomas Kindig “Edward Rutledge” October 2007.

Charles A. Goodrich, Lives of the Signers to the Declarations of Independence (New York: William Reed & Co., 1856), 438.