HENRY & JOHN LAURENS

story by Mark W. Buyck, III

Henry and John Laurens are two of the most significant South Carolinians of the Revolutionary War period. Henry Laurens was the second President of the Continental Congress and was serving in that capacity when the Articles of Confederation were signed. His son John was an aide-de-camp to General George Washington, as well as close friends with Alexander Hamilton and the Marquis de Lafayette. Henry Laurens was born in Charleston in 1724, the grandson of Huguenot immigrants. In 1744, he was sent to London to train in the counting house of a prominent merchant. Upon returning to Charleston three years later, Henry opened a trading house. He would eventually become one of the most prominent merchants in the Colonies. He dealt in imports from England and the slaves the English brought from Africa. He exported deer skins, naval stores, rice, and indigo. He used his profits to purchase eight (8) plantations and the enslaved necessary to operate them. At the time of the Revolutionary War, he was one of the wealthiest men in the Colonies.

John Laurens was born in Charleston in 1754. His mother died in 1770 and the next year Henry took John and his 2 younger brothers to England for their education. They relocated to Geneva and lived there until 1774 when Henry returned to Charleston where he would take a leading role in the Colonist’s cause. John remained in Europe and returned to London to begin the study of law in the Middle Temple at the Inns of Court. John was not particularly fond of the study of law, but he did enjoy the companionship of his London acquaintances who intellectually broadened his perspective.

In 1775–76, Henry Laurens became the President of the South Carolina Provincial Congress. In 1776, he helped write the first South Carolina Constitution. Upon its adoption, he was elected Vice-President of the State. He was elected to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia in 1777. On November 1, 1777, he succeeded John Hancock as the President of the Continental Congress.

In 1777, John Laurens abandoned his study of law, returning to the Colonies to volunteer for military service. In August of 1777, Washington invited Laurens to join his staff. He participated in the September 1777 Battle of Brandywine. In October of that year, he was commissioned with the rank of Lt. Colonel. He spent the Winter of 1777-78 with the Continental Army at Valley Forge. He spent the 1778 campaign with Washington.

In the Fall of 1779, the Continental Congress appointed Henry Laurens as its minister to the Netherlands. He sailed to Amsterdam and successfully negotiated Dutch support for the war. In May of 1780, on a return voyage to Amsterdam, the British seized the ship in which Laurens was travelling. It was reported that Laurens heaved his satchel into the sea; however, the British retrieved it and discovered the extent of the Dutch assistance to the Colonies’ cause. Laurens was charged with treason, taken to London, and imprisoned in the Tower of London. The British then declared war against the Dutch Republic, the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War. There is a plaque in the Tower of London which reads:

“Slave trader and later politician Henry Laurens was the Towers’ only American prisoner. The British captured Laurens at sea in 1780 during the American War of Independence. Held in Yeoman Warder James Futterell’s home for 15 months before his release. Laurens befriended Futterell and his wife and kept extensive diaries. He noted that the guards played “Yankee Doodle” on his arrival which cheered him up, but was appalled at having to pay for his own food and security.”

By May of 1779, John Laurens was back in South Carolina, as the war in the South was becoming more active. He commanded an infantry regiment during the Battle of Savannah. In May of 1780, he was one of the 5,000 American soldiers who surrendered after the fall of Charleston. The next month, he was placed on a British transport ship and sent to Pennsylvania. Upon arrival, he was paroled on the condition that he remain in Pennsylvania until he was exchanged. His exchange occurred in November of 1780 and he promptly asked General Washington to reassign him to the southern department which he did.

Before he had the opportunity to set off for South Carolina, the Continental Congress elected John to a position of Special Minister to France. Despite his protestations, he ultimately agreed to accept the position which he held from December 1780 until September of 1781. Working closely with Benjamin Franklin, Laurens was successful in securing loans and supplies for the Continental cause. He returned to the Colonies just in time to rejoin Washington at Yorktown, where he represented the American forces in the surrender negotiations with the British. Following the British surrender, their commander Lord of Cornwallis was exchanged for Henry Laurens.

Following Yorktown, John Laurens once again returned to South Carolina and was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives. He was a member of the Jacksonborough Assembly, which first convened on January 8, 1782. Contrary to popular belief, the war did not end with the surrender at Yorktown. The British still maintained a sizeable force in the Colonies, including Charleston.

By February of 1782, John Laurens returned to active duty.

He served as the Southern Army’s Intelligence Officer tracking British and Tory communications in and around Charleston. On August 27, 1782, John Laurens was killed in a minor skirmish on the Combahee River. He was one of the last colonists to die in battle during the war.

In 1783, Congress sent Henry Laurens to Paris to participate in the negotiations of what would become the Treaty of Paris. The Treaty was signed on September 3, 1783 officially ending the American Revolutionary War. The American representatives were Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, John Adams, and Laurens. Henry Laurens’s public service was nearly complete. He declined urgings to return to the Continental Congress and the South Carolina Assembly. He did serve in the 1788 South Carolina Convention when South Carolina became the 8th state to ratify the United States Constitution. In 1784, he began rebuilding his home, Mepkin Plantation. The British had burned his previous home there during the war. Henry Laurens died on December 8, 1792 at Mepkin. John and Henry Laurens’s remains are located in the Mepkin Abbey Botanical Garden alongside subsequent owners Clare Booth Luce and Henry Luce. In 1949, much of Mepkin was donated to the Roman Catholic Church and it is now the location of Mepkin Abbey, a Trappist monastery.