William Drayton (December 30, 1776May 24, 1846) was an American politician, banker, and writer who grew up in
Charleston, South Carolina
Charleston is the largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina, the county seat of Charleston County, and the principal city in the Charleston–North Charleston metropolitan area. The city lies just south of the geographical midpoint ...
. He was the son of
William Drayton Sr., who served as justice of the Province of East Florida (1765–1780).
Drayton served as a United States Representative to Congress (1825–1833). Following the
Nullification Crisis, as a unionist Drayton decided to move his family to
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1833 and lived there the rest of his life.
Early life and education
The son of
William Drayton Sr. and his wife, William was born in
St. Augustine in
East Florida (then a colony of the
Kingdom of Great Britain), where his father served from 1765 to 1780 as the chief justice for the Province of East Florida.
In 1780 the judge lost his position due to accusations of sympathy with rebels in the
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...
; he returned with his family to Charleston.
He had bought property and plantations in Florida, including what became known as
Drayton Island.
The Drayton sons were sent to England to complete their educations. Afterward, with his older brother Jacob, William studied law in Charleston.
Both became lawyers.
Marriage and family
About 1804 William Drayton married Anna Gadsden (d. 1814), a cousin once removed. They had four children:
*Emma Gadsden (c. 1804 – 1840)
*
Thomas Fenwick (1809–1891), became a Confederate Army general
*
Percival (1812–1865), became a career US Naval officer
*William Sidney (b. c. 1814–1860), became a US Naval officer and shipping businessman
After Anna's death, in 1817 Drayton married Maria Heyward.
Two of their five children survived to adulthood. Maria Heyward Drayton was also close to her young stepchildren.:
*William Heyward, became a lawyer in Philadelphia.
*Henry Edward, became a doctor in Philadelphia. The two younger Drayton brothers married the sisters Harriet and Sarah Coleman, respectively.
Thomas Drayton, a
West Point
The United States Military Academy (USMA), also known Metonymy, metonymically as West Point or simply as Army, is a United States service academies, United States service academy in West Point, New York. It was originally established as a f ...
graduate, stayed in South Carolina when the family moved north and bought a
plantation at Hilton Head. He resigned from the US Army to join Confederate forces after secession. He and his brother Percival "commanded opposing forces" in the battle of
Port Royal, South Carolina
Port Royal is a town on Port Royal Island in Beaufort County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 14,220 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Hilton Head Island-Bluffton-Beaufort metropolitan area. Port Royal is home to Marine Cor ...
, when Union forces captured the forts.
["Drayton Family Papers"](_blank)
including correspondence from 1783–1896, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, accessed May 1, 2012
File:TFDrayton.jpg, Thomas Fenwick Drayton, General CSA
File:Percival Drayton.jpg, Percival Drayton,Captain USN
File:Port Royal.jpeg, Battle of Port Royal November 7, 1861
Career
William Drayton served in the
War of 1812, where he was commissioned as a colonel (a rank he used all his life). In a November 12, 1816 letter to president-elect James Monroe,
Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845) was an American lawyer, planter, general, and statesman who served as the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. Before being elected to the presidency, he gained fame as ...
recommended, unsuccessfully, that Drayton, a Federalist who had shown loyalty to the Madison administration and the union through his military service, be appointed Secretary of War to heal the breach between the Federalist Party, now largely moribund on the national level, and the Republicans. Colonel Drayton was elected in 1824 to represent
South Carolina's first district in the
U.S. Congress, and served from 1825 to 1833 with repeated re-election.
A unionist during the
nullification
Nullification may refer to:
* Nullification (U.S. Constitution), a legal theory that a state has the right to nullify any federal law deemed unconstitutional with respect to the United States Constitution
* Nullification Crisis, the 1832 confron ...
controversy, in 1833 he moved his family to
Philadelphia. Two years later in 1835, he was elected a member of the
American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...
. While a unionist, Drayton continued to support slavery. In Philadelphia he wrote and published ''The South Vindicated from the Treason and Fanaticism of the Abolitionists'' (1836), a
pro-slavery tract. He briefly became the president of the defunct
Second Bank of the United States
The Second Bank of the United States was the second federally authorized Hamiltonian national bank in the United States. Located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the bank was chartered from February 1816 to January 1836.. The Bank's formal name, ...
in 1841.
Drayton died on May 24, 1846 in Philadelphia and was interred at
Laurel Hill Cemetery.
Legacy and honors
*His papers are held by the
Historical Society of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
*The author
Edgar Allan Poe dedicated his collection ''
Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque'' (1840) to him.
[Quinn, Arthur Hobson. ''Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography''. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. p. 129. ]
Bibliography
The South Vindicated from the Treason and Fanatacism of the Northern Abolitionists H. Manly (Philadelphia), 1836
Notes
External links
biographic sketch at U.S. Congress websiteDrayton Family Papers including correspondence from 1783–1896,
Historical Society of Pennsylvania
{{DEFAULTSORT:Drayton, William
1776 births
1846 deaths
19th-century American politicians
American bankers
American people of the War of 1812
Drayton family
Burials at Laurel Hill Cemetery (Philadelphia)
Jacksonian members of the United States House of Representatives from South Carolina
Members of the American Philosophical Society
People of British Florida
American people of English descent
Politicians from Charleston, South Carolina
South Carolina Unionists
Writers from Charleston, South Carolina