Chapter XIV

ANN PRISCILLA, WIFE OF GEORGE McINTOSH, AND THEIR SON JOHN HOUSTOUN McINTOSH

THERE is little factual information concerning the short life of Ann Priscilla, the only daughter of Sir Patrick and Lady Houstoun. It stands to reason she was the pet of the four older brothers and special guardian of the younger one so near her own age. Lady Houstoun, the mother, had the moral support of her stalwart sons following her husband’s death; but, surely, it was to the little daughter that she turned for feminine companionship and sympathy when she needed surcease and recreation from her manifold duties of plantation life. There was evidently a home in Savannah by 1763 which made life more interesting for a growing girl than the far-away plantation. The mother, no doubt with the help of teachers, guided her daughter’s education, but one likes to bring forth the picture of the mother and daughter sitting on the piazza at Rosdue, sewing together and discussing the news from town, or one reading while the other was engaged in needlepoint or cross-stitch work.

When the family took up its residence in town, probably for the winter months, Nancy Houstoun of course attended the “best schools.”¹ There were many from which Lady Houstoun could select for her young daughter’s education. During the time that Nancy was of school age, that is from 1763 to 1772, those who advertised in the Georgia Gazette were: John Portrees, who in 1763 taught school at Gibbons’s plantation near Savannah; Timothy Cronin, who had his school in the town in the house where the late Mr. Heleventine had his school, and “in addition to writing and mathematics he promised Dancing twice a week”; John Holmes, who included classical languages in his curriculum; Peter Gandy, who taught in a part of Mrs. Cunningham’s house adjoining that of the Honorable James Read, Esq.; John Franklin, who taught “reading, writing and arithmetick after a new and most concise method at 12 s. 6 d. Sterling per quarter at his school next door to Mr. Robert Boltons’ Alexander Findlay and James Seymour, whose school was located “in the lower end of Broughton St., next door to Mr. Andersons the Surveyor”; James Cosgrove, who could boast of a classical education at seminaries and academies in the British Isles and in America, opened a school in 1768 for “the education of young Gentlemen and Ladies in reading English with propriety and emphasis; writing accurately all the different hands in use. . . Mathematics. . . the English and French tongues Gramatically.” His wife taught young ladies to “sew and read.” There was also a boarding school kept by Elizabeth Bedon, who included all kinds of needle work with her reading, writing and arithmetic courses.² If Lady Houstoun was not satisfied with the practical and cultural advantages offered in the several schools in Savannah, she may have employed Edward Langworthy, “who taught young ladies English, Grammar, writing, etc., privately.”³

Life changed only slightly in the colony, and customs that prevailed in one decade can well describe the social conventions of the previous one or the one following it. By the time Nancy was approaching young womanhood transportation consisted of coaches for the rough roads to the outlying plantations, carriages for city life, and the use of the “chair,” carried by Negro slaves when ladies attended church. One of the chief interests of the social class was church worship, and the established religion of the colony was that of the Church of England. Christ Church, for which Ann Priscilla’s father had had the “iconography” made in 1745, was the church the Houstoun family attended, and it was only two blocks from the Houstoun residence in Broughton Street.

When Ann Priscilla was fifteen years old, word reached Savannah that the Reverend George Whitefield, the minister of the church from 1738-1746, had died in Newburyport, Massachusetts. Although he was buried there, the people of Savannah mourned his death, and it must have made a deep impression on the young girl when she attended divine service following the news of his death, to find the “pulpit and desks of the church, the benches, the organ loft and the pews of the Governor covered with black.”⁴ The Reverend Samuel Frink was the rector at that time.

One of the delightful ways of entertaining in Savannah in the seventeen-seventies was the giving of formal dinners. That meant lavishness in all kinds of viands, and manifested the Southern custom for setting a well-laden table. Game from the nearby woods and fresh fish from the tide waters were added to other delicacies. Served with each course was the wine that was especially appropriate, for every “gentleman” has his wine cellar always well stocked with madeira, port, and sherry, imported from abroad.

Ann Priscilla, having four young brothers active in the town’s political, commercial, social, military, and professional life, naturally gave the Houstouns a large circle of friends. Dinners at the Houstoun home must have been frequent affairs.

“Dancing Assemblies” held at the several taverns, Creighton’s, Liberty, or Tondee’s, had come into vogue by the time Ann Priscilla was a young woman. It is easy to surmise that she and her four brothers were active in community social life during the early seventeen-seventies. There were the three Habersham boys, sons of her father’s friend, James Habersham: James, Jr., Joseph and John, the latter almost the same age as herself; the three Johnston youths, sons of Dr. Lewis Johnston: William Martin, Andrew, and James. There were John Milledge and Richard Crooke; Josiah Bryan, the last son of Jonathan Bryan; and the sons of Sir James Wright, the Royal Governor, another friend of her father. All of them probably were frequent callers at the home of the Houstouns. Among her girl friends, no doubt, were her future sisters-in-law, Ann Moodie, Hannah Bryan, and Eliza Crooke Tannant, and many others.

But it was after two or three years of the gaities of Savannah’s social life that the thought of marriage surely began to take shape in Nancy Houstoun’s mind and the man who became her husband was not selected from among her Savannah friends, but was George McIntosh of St. Andrew’s Parish. He was the youngest of the four sons of John McIntosh Mohr, the leader of the Scottish clansmen of Darien. George’s brothers were William, Lachlan, and John, and they were known as the Borlam McIntoshes. George McIntosh was born in 1735 or 1736, and when he was eleven years old he was taken to Charles Town, South Carolina, by his brother Lachlan and put in a grammar school. When he had finished what education he could obtain there he was bound for four years to an architect, and after his apprenticeship he returned to Georgia and was appointed commissary of supplies for the troops in the garrison at Frederica and adjacent parts. His brother Lachlan had him instructed in geometry and surveying, and under his direction George learned to acquire valuable property, bought slaves, studied planting, and soon became a landed proprietor. As early as 1759 he built a house and made improvements on a tract of five hundred acres on the south side of the “Sapala” River in St. Andrew’s Parish, and later added to it by two hundred acres. That plantation was probably Rice Hope. George McIntosh became one of the most thriving planters in the colony. He was made the official surveyor of St. Andrew’s Parish in 1768. In 1764 he was elected to the Commons House of Assembly from St. Andrew’s Parish, and was returned in 1768 and in 1772. His membership in the house required his attendance in Savannah, and he fell in love with Nancy Houstoun probably during that time. He must have known her from childhood, as he was a friend of her brother Patrick. At the time of his marriage he was thirty-five or thirty-six years old, and his bride was sixteen or seventeen. Neither the date of the marriage nor the place where the ceremony took place is known. When Ann Priscilla’s mother made her will in June, 1772, she mentioned her daughter, Mrs. George McIntosh; so it is likely that the wedding took place in the spring of that year. It must have been to Rice Hope that George McIntosh took his bride. The young wife found many friends and acquaintances when she arrived in St. Andrew’s Parish to make her new home. Her brother Patrick was already living there on his Cathead plantation, not many miles from her house, and in the year of her marriage he was one of the elected delegates in the Lower House of Assembly from St. Andrew’s Parish. Other neighbors were Button Gwinnett, who lived on St. Catherine’s Island, and Raymond Demere, and Robert Baillie, both of whom lived on the mainland. On the first day of May, 1773, a son was born to the George Mclntoshes. He was named John Houstoun in honor of his mother’s favorite brother. The year after his son’s birth, George McIntosh was elected again to the Commons House of Assembly to represent St. David’s Parish, and the year following, when the Provincial Congress assembled in Savannah on July 4, 1775, George McIntosh, with his brothers Lachlan and William and eleven others attended as representatives of St. Andrew’s Parish. Before George McIntosh left for the provincial Congress he received a letter dated June 10, 1775, from John Houstoun which gave him news of the political activities that were stirring in Savannah:

The next month George McIntosh went to Savannah to attend the provincial congress at Tondee’s Tavern, and he was one of the first to sign the Article of Association, adopted on July 18. The following December he shipped one hundred and eleven tierces of rice from his Sapelo River plantation to his brother-in-law, George Houstoun, merchant, in Savannah, a circumstance that was referred to eighteen months later. In May, 1776, George McIntosh was a member of the Council of Safety and was present at four or five meetings, after which he returned, apparently, to his plantation for a few weeks.

2

The year 1776 brought disaster upon the McIntosh family, but the circumstance which created it was harmless enough in its inception. Reference to Sir Patrick Houstoun’s (sixth baronet) part in the rice episode has been made, but as George McIntosh was so involved it became necessary for him to vindicate himself. The whole episode is here explained:⁶ In June, 1776, George McIntosh joined with his two neighbors, Robert Baillie and Sir Patrick Houstoun, Baronet, in purchasing a small brigantine, Betsy and Nancy, of “240 barrels of burthen,” at the freight of ten shillings a barrel, Captain Vallence master, then lying in the Sapelo River near McIntosh’s plantation, and had her loaded with rice to go to Surinam and return with the value in Dutch goods. Unfortunately for George McIntosh, William Panton, keeper of an Indian store on the St. John’s River in East Florida, happened to go to Sapelo at that time. He plead with the three partners to be allowed to have a fourth part in the shipment, saying that he had no “respondents in Surinam that he was acquainted with trade (which none of the others were) and would take all the trouble off their hands, and continue the business from Surinam to Georgia.” Although McIntosh and Panton “differed widely in political sentiments,” McIntosh agreed reluctantly to Panton’s proposal, and then never “troubled or concerned himself afterward about the brig and cargo, except to get a clearance for the brig at Savannah for Surinam and gave bond in one thousand pounds sterling for the performance of the voyage.” McIntosh remained in Savannah through the remainder of the month of June, in attendance at meetings of the Council of Safety. The previous month he had taken oath before the council as a justice of the peace for St. Andrew’s Parish and swore to “maintain the Constitutional Authority of this country as established by Congress.” It is presumed McIntosh spent most of July and August at Rice Hope. He attended one meeting in September, six in October, and two toward the end of November.⁷ He was to hear evil tidings in August. The Betsy and Nancy, in the meantime, had begun her historic voyage down the Sapelo River, her bow pointing south, heading obstensibly for Surinam, Dutch Guiana. When the brigantine had “dropped down as far as Mr. Roderick McIntosh’s Bluff,” a Captain Stewart, owner of the ship, boarded her and said he intended to sell her, which he did, and with Captain Vallence went to Savannah. George McIntosh, who had just returned from the provincial capital for a short visit, approached the mate, James Johnston,⁸ and asked him to take charge of the vessel, saying that Panton would give him directions and letters to some Surinam merchants. Johnston agreed, and when he reached Sapelo Sound took Panton and his brother Thomas aboard the ship. The new captain was told by the Pantons that Thomas Panton was to direct the vessel and cargo, by the express desire of Mr. George McIntosh and Sir Patrick Houstoun. The captain asked if they had any orders from “those Gentlemen’s hands” to give him, and was told there were none. The captain wished to consult McIntosh as he was “displeased to have Thomas Panton put on board and the direction of the vessel given him,” but being informed that McIntosh had returned to Savannah, he “proceeded over the bar.” Once the boat had reached the sea Thomas Panton told Johnston to make for the St. John’s River. The captain objected and maintained that his clearance was for Surinam. In reply Panton said he was to get a clearance from Florida also, “to secure the vessel and cargo from the Men of War.” The captain then went up the St. John’s. His ship was boarded by “sixteen armed men belonging to Osborne,” a pirate. Panton then destroyed the Georgia clearance.

Before leaving the St. John’s River the brigantine’s name was changed to the St. Andrew, and on August 3, the governor of Florida, Patrick Tonyn, sent from St. Augustine a signed permit to Captain Johnston authorizing him to sail from the St. John’s River to the British island of Tobago and thence to the port of St. Augustine. The permit was addressed to “all Flag officers, Captains, Commanders, and other Commissioned Officers, in his Majesty’s Pay; and also to all others, to whom these presents shall or may concern.”

The ship then went to St. Augustine where Panton took out a new register and clearance papers for Tobago, in the Lesser Antilles, and “got the vessel clear from Osborne.” During the five weeks’ stay in the St. John’s the hatchway was not opened and only about ten barrels were taken out of the brig, which William Panton ordered out of the cabin to supply his Indian store up the river. No lumber was taken on board, only wood and water. On August 9, with Thomas Panton still on board, the vessel set sail for Tobago, but the sails were found to be in “bad order,” and being in need of water, the ship could not reach the island; so she ran down to Antigua and got a supply. Panton tried to sell the cargo there but failed; he went to Jamaica where he disposed of it, consisting of 230 barrels of rice. He then proceeded to purchase rum, sugar, and coffee, to the amount of the whole cargo. That business concluded, the ship left Jamaica and arrived back at St. Augustine, January 6, 1777.

Although the minutes of the Council of Safety do not record the name of George McIntosh as being present during the month of August, 1776, from his own account he did attend at least one session that month. He heard the report in August that the brigantine had discharged her cargo of rice at St. Augustine, and was then loading with skins and lumber for Europe, and it was that report which “raised the first clamor against him.” McIntosh declared in council, “that Mr. Panton must have deceived him, with the intent to make the whole his own property; that everyone must be convinced, that any person of common sense, for the profit that could be made upon sixty barrels of rice, which was his share of the cargo, would not forfeit a bond of £ 1000 sterling, which was only promised before.” McIntosh then delivered his statement to the President, Archibald Bulloch, who desired to have it ready “to put in force” if ever McIntosh was found to be privy to the vessels going to East Florida, “which fully satisfied the President, Council, and every other person at that time.”

Not long after the incident in the Council meeting, McIntosh’s neighbor, Button Gwinnett, who had returned from Philadelphia in August after signing the Declaration of Independence, “unravelled the whole mystery to him” which “gave him great satisfaction.” Besides giving McIntosh a full account of the alleged proceedings in the St. John’s River, including the intention of the pirate Osborne to take the brigantine as a prize, Gwinnett disclosed to McIntosh the rumor that “he would never see a farthing for his share of her,” to which McIntosh replied “he was indifferent about [that] and happy that his reputation was cleared.” The whole story soon became known and no more was said or thought of it for the time being, to the prejudice of George McIntosh.

For the next six months George McIntosh and his wife continued to live their “easy, domestic life,” while their evil genius, Governor Tonyn, for some unaccountable reason, had executed the deed that brought about the ruin of George McIntosh. On the evening of February 22, 1777, or sometime on the following day, Georgia was stunned by the news of the mysterious death of its revered president, Archibald Bulloch. Mrs. George McIntosh in her twenty-first year died, “the same day that Button Gwinnett was chosen president.”

It is not known whether Nancy Houstoun McIntosh died in Savannah or at Rice Hope, nor is it known where she was buried. She was survived, besides her husband, by her little son, John Houstoun McIntosh, who was not quite four years of age, and another child. Nancy was spared the sorrow of witnessing the humiliation and the indignities that were heaped upon her husband during the following months.

The day Button Gwinnett was elected president neither Nancy McIntosh’s husband nor her brother John Houstoun was present at the council meeting, but both attended on March 4 when Gwinnett’s commission was to be signed. The feud between Button Gwinnett and Lachlan McIntosh began when the latter received, the previous September, the command of the First Continental Battalion, an office which Gwinnett coveted and expected to receive. General McIntosh and Gwinnett were also rivals for the command of the Georgia brigade over which Lachlan McIntosh was made a brigadier general instead of Button Gwinnett. Bitter animosity existed thereafter between Gwinnett and the McIntosh family, and George McIntosh was the sufferer. And he suffered intensely. When at the March council meeting George McIntosh was handed the President’s commission to sign, he refused to do so, and told President Gwinnett he was not present when the latter “was elected and if he had, he would be the last person in the world he would choose; to which Mr. Gwinnett replied ‘By G—d this will be the last day you and I will ever sit together in Council.’” His words were a prophecy as the next day McIntosh, who was then sick, became extremely ill and was confined to bed.

In the latter part of March, Button Gwinnett received a letter from John Hancock, President of the Continental Congress, which was intended for Archibald Bulloch since he was president of Georgia at the time the letter was written.

President Hancock wrote from Baltimore, January 8, 1777, to the Honourable the President and Council of the State of Georgia:

The portion of the letter of the perfidious Governor Tonyn, intercepted at sea, referred to by President Hancock, was written from St. Augustine on July 19, 1776, while the brigantine was still in Florida waters. The Florida governor declared:

Also enclosed in Hancock’s letter was a copy of the resolution of congress instructing its president to recommend to the Georgia authorities the apprehension of George McIntosh.

After reading the above communications Gwinnett endeavored to hold a meeting of the council which had adjourned a short time previously, but being unable to secure a quorum, he took the responsibility of ordering the arrest of McIntosh and no doubt enjoyed his revenge. On the order of the President, the provost marshal with a party of men, called on George McIntosh at his home, arrested him and took him in a “harsh and cruel manner.” They carried him to “a dirty and offensive gaol,” occupied by felons, and he was fettered in irons. Savannah, already torn into factions, was in an uproar. No one knew why one of its prominent citizens and a member of the council was submitted to such indignity or with what crime he was charged. The unhappy prisoner himself was not apprised of the reason for his seizure; his friends, the chief justice, other magistrates, and the members of the council were likewise ignorant of the reason for the seizure.

The secrecy of the proceeding naturally led to the suspicion that McIntosh was guilty of a gross violation of the law, “which removed all their pity and compassion.” A few days after the incarceration of McIntosh, Gwinnett left for the “southward” to make preparations for his Florida expedition. During his absence, the council met on March 19 with the Honorable Jonathan Bryan as chairman, and sat upon the affair of George McIntosh “who was brought before them.” By that time McIntosh had knowledge of Tonyn’s intercepted letter and William Panton’s duplicity as he declared upon oath that:

Following McIntosh’s declaration of his innocence, council passed a resolution:

As a result of the council’s resolution, “a bond was immediately given in the enormous and excessive sum of £ 2000, sterling, in which most of the members of council, and many other respectable characters joined, and many more crowded in, who had not room, but not a single Tory as has been asserted.” McIntosh was suffered to “go at large,” under the belief that he had been cleared of the charge against him. He wrote a letter to William Panton which was approved by the Council, but he was requested to defer sending it until the Florida expedition was concluded for fear of giving intelligence to the British. McIntosh acquiesced, and, expecting no further trouble, was satisfied.

3

In March, 1777, affidavits, allegedly proving the innocence of George McIntosh, were taken before the magistrates in St. Andrew’s Parish and the Chief Justice in Savannah. On the twenty-fifth, Andrew Cook, his former overseer, appeared before Raymond Demere, one of the justices of St. Andrew’s Parish, and swore that he had lived with McIntosh since November, 1775, in the capacity of overseer or manager of his plantation to the time of making his affidavit. Cook made solemn oath that no rice or any other provision was sent or shipped from McIntosh’s plantation, except about one hundred barrels of rice which had been sold to George Houstoun on board his schooner for Savannah, in the month of December, 1775; that which was shipped in the brig, Betsy and Nancy in June, 1776; a few barrels of old rice, sent at different times to his indigo plantation for his Negroes’ provisions, and small quantities sold to neighbors in the parish for their consumption, the latter not exceeding twenty barrels.

Of considerable importance was the affidavit of Robert Baillie, “a professed Tory, or advocate for the old British Government, but deemed a very honest man.” His deposition was made before Raymond Demere, at “Sappello” on March 27, and was sworn to before Chief Justice Glen. In a long statement Baillie rehearsed the circumstance of the beginning of the transaction which he, George McIntosh, and Sir Patrick Houstoun had had with William Panton; of the negotiations Baillie had with the captain of the brig Betsy and Nancy in trying to induce Panton to have his vessel remove Baillie and his family and effects to some other country, and how the negotiations failed because the captain “apprehended great danger from the men of war”; of the visit of William Panton to his house where he told Panton he desired to “leave the province on account of the unhappy disturbances which he thought would greatly distress it, and in all probability would be involved in an Italian War”; and of his asking Panton if it would be possible to procure in East Florida a “new register and clearances in order to screen her from the men of war,” to which Panton had declared he did not think it possible, but that he would try. Panton left, the deponent said, and “after a considerable time” the contract was made with the captain of the Betsy and Nancy to ship the rice to Surinam.

On Panton’s return he informed Baillie he could not procure the register from East Florida as the brig was not in those waters. On being informed by Baillie that he, McIntosh, and Houstoun were about to charter the brig to go to a foreign market with a load of rice, Panton, who had with him “a few goods,” asked to “be concerned in the cargo of the brig,” and after disposing of his goods, upon receiving permission from the committee of St. Andrew’s Parish, he conferred with McIntosh, and it was decided to allow Panton to join the “charter party” in shipping the cargo of rice to a house in Surinam. Soon afterward McIntosh sent a clearance from Savannah. In a strange confession Baillie incriminated himself by declaring that it was privately agreed between Panton and himself that the brig should touch at St. Mary’s, Georgia, or St. John’s, Florida, for a register and clearance which was to be concealed from the knowledge of McIntosh, as it was known he would not concur in it. Then it was that the owner of the vessel, Captain Vallence, appeared in Darien, sold the boat to Baillie and Panton, and the mate James Johnston was appointed master. Baillie stated in his affidavit that he firmly believed the mate was unacquainted with the plan of the vessel’s touching at any other place than at the port of Surinam. He then declared that since the sailing of the brigantine from the Sapelo River he had never heard from Panton by letter, message, or otherwise. Baillie admitted that at the time the report prevailed that the Betsy and Nancy was in the St. John’s River, McIntosh frequently had expressed to him his great uneasiness, saying he was afraid they had been deceived. Baillie, having seen a letter from Governor Tonyn to Lord George Germaine respecting McIntosh, was induced to declare upon oath what he knew of that gentleman’s sentiments. In every conversation the deponent said he had had with McIntosh, he ever found him to be a warm friend of the American cause. He declared further that during Panton’s short stay at his house in June, 1776, political disputes arose frequently between Panton and McIntosh, when the latter always warmly supported the “Measures of the Continent.” Panton mentioned privately to the deponent his concern for McIntosh, saying that, on account of the active part the latter had taken in the disputes, he was apprehensive McIntosh would be a sufferer. Panton expressed himself as convinced that South Carolina would shortly be reduced by the British fleet and army then before it, and that the Province of Georgia would inevitably follow its fate. Baillie declared those sentiments induced him to believe Panton “urged by motives of friendship and regard for McIntosh, was the reason for representing to Governor Tonyn what he thought would prove favorable to McIntosh, in case matters terminated as he had suggested.” A strange deduction considering the outcome

On April 12, Raymond Demere, a strong supporter of the Patriot cause, appeared before Chief Justice Glen in Savannah and declared his belief in the loyalty of George McIntosh. He asserted he “had frequently the honor, with Mr. George McIntosh, to represent the parish of St. Andrew’s in Convention, and has ever had the strongest reason to believe him to be a warm friend to the American cause. . . Mr. George McIntosh was among the first of those advocates in this State who early stood forth at the hazard of life and fortune, to support the measures of the Continent. . . and uniformly conducted himself in avowing his attachment to the cause and supporting its interests.” Demere further declared that owing to McIntosh’s indefatigable pains most of the residents of St. Andrew’s Parish signed the association as early as they did, and was the means of keeping up the public meetings and committees. He knew of no action or circumstance of McIntosh’s conduct, he affirmed, that gave him reason to think otherwise than that he was a true and just friend to the American cause in which he so early engaged. Demere maintained that, as one of the principal charges against McIntosh was his having supplied the enemy in East Florida with provisions, he knew of “no one instance that has the least tendency towards the support of such an accusation,” and thought it “scarce possible that such a communication could have been carried on without his knowledge.”

Affidavits from those two men “widely different in political sentiments, and who had every means of knowledge and information,” proved according to George McIntosh’s statement, that his conduct, conversation, and practice were always uniform in his attitude toward the American cause, and also gave further confirmation that he had not sent any provisions to the enemy in East Florida or was concerned with supplying them.

More affidavits in McIntosh’s favor followed in the ensuing two months. On June 19, George Houstoun declared before the chief justice, that in December, 1775, he had sent his schooner to the plantation of George McIntosh at “Sappelo”; that the ship had returned to Savannah the following month with one hundred and eleven barrels of rice; and that since that time he had not purchased or received any rice from McIntosh. The master of the Betsy and Nancy, James Johnston, was examined on June 23, and gave his testimony. He recounted the history of the transaction of McIntosh and Houstoun with Panton, as far as he knew of it, and of the voyage of the Betsy and Nancy; but he gave it as his sincere opinion that had the boat not been boarded by Osborne and his pirates, a circumstance which caused Panton to destroy his Georgia clearances, the boat would have been taken to Surinam and thence returned to Georgia. He believed, he said, that the unexpected visit of the pirates caused the alteration in the voyage, but he did state that Panton had made the change without the knowledge of McIntosh and Houstoun, who, in his opinion, “intended the vessel and cargo for Surinam and were much surprised and offended with Panton for doing otherwise. He was also convinced, he said, that Panton had never accounted for or remitted any part of the proceeds of the voyage to the shippers but had “kept the whole in his own hands, and applied the whole to his own life.” As part of his evidence he produced the original permit signed by Governor Tonyn and sent from St. Augustine to the brig’s master before he left the St. John’s River. The permit authorized Johnston to proceed with his ship and the cargo of two hundred and sixty barrels of rice and five thousand staves for dunnage from the River St. John’s to His Majesty’s Island of Tobago, there to unload and return to St. Augustine. The text of the license, as Johnston pointed out, was in contradiction to the wording of the Governor’s letter wherein he falsely asserted that the brig’s cargo was landed in East Florida, as stated by Johnston, but the wording of the aforesaid letter read “Panton had brought four hundred barrels of rice into the St. John’s River. . . and had been greatly assisted by Mr. George McIntosh.”

The third and last deposition given on July 1, also before Chief Justice Glen, was from Samuel Stiles whose plantation was on the Ogeechee River near Savannah. He was a seafaring man, he said, and he had gone to East Florida to try to recover his schooner, the Race-Horse, which had been captured by Osborne. He stated that while there he was informed that the brig Betsy and Nancy, afterwards called the St. Andrew, had sailed out of the River St. John’s for Tobago without unloading her cargo.

In spite of all the evidence produced by McIntosh to prove his innocence, he was not cleared of guilt in the minds of the members of Georgia’s House of Assembly. Button Gwinnett, the enemy of the McIntosh family, had died in May from bullet wounds inflicted in a duel between himself and General Lachlan McIntosh. The first state constitution had been adopted, and the assembly had approved the proceedings of the late Council of Safety in putting George McIntosh in custody. At the same time it censured the council for letting him out on bail, and ordered that he be sent to the Continental Congress as soon as possible under a strong guard. The argument in favor of such a move was that the Continental Congress had ordered McIntosh imprisoned, and “no power inferior to them could release, try or acquit him, however innocent,” as Tonyn’s letter contained convincing proof of McIntosh’s treasonable conduct. George McIntosh, however, while showing deference to the president of the congress, felt the latter went too far in condemning him before obtaining firsthand information, and asserted that congress could not act as a judicial court. “These matters,” he contended, “they leave to the local laws of the particular states. . . having things of higher importance, fully to employ their time; and would be falling into the same error with the British Parliament, whereof we so much complained, in carrying persons for their trial, where they have neither friends, acquaintance, or money.”

In putting his defense in writing, McIntosh argued that the council had ordered that the suspected person be apprehended and secured, taking such effectual measures as judged necessary for the safety of the United States, not to put him in custody. McIntosh felt that as an innocent man, a great injustice had been done to him, who was entitled to the protection of the state, and that a dangerous precedent had been established which had proved alarming to the inhabitants of the state of Georgia.

Governor Treutlen and his council on June 10 ordered General McIntosh as one of his “securities,” to produce George McIntosh that morning. The summons was not complied with, and days later, John Martin, secretary of the council, applied to John Houstoun, one of the other bondsmen, requesting him to produce George McIntosh, and informed him that General McIntosh had apprised the secretary he had written to his brother to his plantation, but he had learned George was not there. The General, Martin wrote to Houstoun, would try to locate his brother and would write and acquaint him of the summons. Both bondsmen were notified that unless George McIntosh was produced, “agreeable to the tenor of the bond, the same would be forfeited.” On June 14, a second notice was issued to General McIntosh. On Monday June 16, George McIntosh returned to Savannah and “delivered himself,” whereby his bond, he thought, became void, and his bondsmen ceased to have charge of him. He asked to have a hearing before the Governor and council, but was refused although he used every possible argument to have his trial in Georgia, where, according to the constitution, he was entitled to have it held. When his arguments failed, McIntosh asked permission to send for William Panton because he was the only person who could throw light on the case and disprove the charges against him by giving his reasons for what he had written to Governor Tonyn. But the members of council said they would hang Panton if they saw him. McIntosh then asked permission to write to Panton requesting an affidavit of him, also that he might be treated “as a Gentleman” on his journey to Philadelphia whither the Governor and council had ordered him to go under guard, to appear before the Continental Congress. Both requests were allowed and entered on the minutes, with the stipulation that he could give the answer from Panton in three weeks’ time. The next morning, while council was in session, George McIntosh appeared at the door still in the custody of the provost marshal, “who followed him from nine in the morning till past one in the afternoon.” McIntosh sent in the letter he had written to Panton, but he was not called into the meeting, nor did he receive any answer from council. The accused man was surprised and uneasy when he was not called, fearing something had happened to change the opinion of council, and that he would not be allowed to send his letter to Panton as promised. He continued to make preparations for his journey, while “everything was kept in profound secrecy, (except out of door remour) although there were councils held almost continually.” After a period of suspense, before he was allowed to finish his examination, “and while a Taylor was taking his measure for a suit of clothes,” he received word from his brother Lachlan that John Martin had acquainted him that a fresh order had been issued by the council to produce the body of George McIntosh, calling on the general as one of the securities, expecting an immediate compliance with the order.

4

George McIntosh was startled at the turn of events, especially as he had heard a report that he was to be sent on to the congress under a guard of twenty military officers who were going there upon recruiting service. He was the more perplexed because he had not broken his parole. Having considered the “whole matter maturely,” he decided it was “prudent to retire out of the way for a while, until he saw how matters went on,” or until his fellow citizens “took the alarm at the precedent, and interfere in his behalf.” Naturally his conduct caused gossip and censure. A certain “Delegate of Congress and prime instrument in getting the resolve passed at the Assembly, declared publicly that Mr. George McIntosh should be sent to Congress and that he would take care that he [McIntosh] would never return.” Another person “high in office” went around in June “with a grave face and far more industry than he ever served the publick, declaring with his hand upon his heart, and a deep sigh, that he always thought Mr. McIntosh perfectly innocent till now, but his absconding fully convinces him of his guilt.” He accused McIntosh of having gone to St. Augustine, although he had seen a letter from McIntosh proving the contrary to be true, and “yet his worthy personage goes fervently,” McIntosh wrote, “to his prayers morning, noon and night.”

George McIntosh did not go to St. Augustine, but to St. Andrew’s Parish where he found that his property had been “squandered, neglected and dispersed.” On July 4, 1777, he wrote to an unnamed person from St. Andrew’s:

Two days later he wrote again from St. Andrew’s Parish, and the further accusations he made against the liberty-loving inhabitants of St. John’s Parish included whipping one of McIntosh’s trusty Negroes on his indigo plantation, because he would not tell where his master was; taking into custody the slaves and overseers of William McIntosh and James Spalding, when a fine crop of indigo was about to be harvested, almost ruining the population of the county and threatening to join them to their own; and driving off many of the inhabitants to the oyster banks where they could find sustenance. Concluding his letter, George McIntosh wrote, “Deplorable as my own situation is, not knowing yet what I shall be drove to, my heart bleeds for the distresses of some of the poor people the oldest settlers and natives of my country.”

As might be expected George McIntosh’s health had suffered after five months of harsh physical treatment, anxiety, anguish, and humiliation. He described his condition as “a mere skeleton, worn off his legs and hardly able to stand, and is grown indifferent to his family, property, and everything else.”

In August McIntosh’s pamphlet was issued and in the opening paragraph he wrote what he considered was necessary for the enlightenment of the public:

Governor Treutlen was furious; and it can be understood why, as McIntosh did not spare him or his council by vituperation and invective. George McIntosh left for Philadelphia to plead his own case before congress, after having failed in his effort to be given a hearing before his state’s legislative body. He arrived there on August 20. Through John Wereat, a friend of the McIntoshes, and the Continental agent, the executive council of Georgia learned of George McIntosh’s departure and in a letter to President Hancock Treutlen wrote: “He has skulked off like a guilty thing.”⁹ In telling of McIntosh’s pamphlet, which he described as “replete with falsehoods and misrepresentations,” he wrote:

Strengthened with letters from influential friends, including Jonathan Bryan, John Wereat, Henry Laurens, and other prominent men who believed in his innocence and who considered that his persecution was animated by the enemies of General McIntosh, George McIntosh presented his memorial to congress.

On taking a vote as to the legality of that body trying the case the vote was eight to two that congress had the power, and a committee composed of John Adams of Massachusetts, James Duane of New York, and William Williams of Connecticut, was appointed to examine all documents and papers. The committee reported the next day that there was no adequate reason for detaining McIntosh, and he was forthwith discharged.

McIntosh returned to Georgia a heartbroken man, but with the satisfaction that the highest body in the land had cleared him of guilt and his honor was saved. What became of him during the next three years can only be a matter of conjecture. From his own statement there were children, his son John Houstoun McIntosh, four years of age, and a baby, probably only a few months old. The Mclntoshes and Houstouns, in all likelihood, gave shelter and care to the three stricken members of their family. The baby died, and later John was spoken of as the only child. George McIntosh died intestate in 1780, before Charles Town fell to the British, but he was possessed of considerable real estate amounting to thirteen thousand and eighty acres divided into forty-five tracts situated in the different counties of Liberty, Glynn and Camden, a lot in Savannah, Negroes appraised at three thousand seven hundred and sixty-two pounds, and seventeen pieces of silver consisting of spoons and other old plate.¹¹

General McIntosh was in Augusta when he learned of his brother’s death, and although he left immediately, he did not arrive until several days after the funeral,¹² which took place in St. Andrew’s Parish. General McIntosh remained a few days at the “habitation” of his late brother, and examined the effects and papers which were “scattered about” and “huddled” into unlocked broken trunks, but found nothing of consequence except a grant and titles of land, which were all put into a small portmanteau trunk and secured by the General’s family when the British were approaching Georgia and while General McIntosh was a prisoner in Charles Town. Before he left Sapelo, the General engaged a “Waggoner” to carry to Charles Town to the care of Mr. Philip Minis, a “parcel of Indigo” belonging to his brother, to keep it out of reach of the enemy. When the inhabitants of St. Andrew’s Parish were fleeing from the enemy, all of the personal effects of the deceased were left at the Plantation on Sapelo River in the care of an overseer.¹³

Sir Patrick and George Houstoun and Robert Baillie were appointed administrators of the estate of George McIntosh, and in January, 1781, they advertised requesting all debtors of the deceased to make immediate payment, and others who had made demands upon him to apply to the administrators.

5

JOHN HOUSTOUN MCINTOSH

The son of George and Ann Priscilla McIntosh, John Houstoun McIntosh, became one of the significent figures in East Florida during the second Spanish occupation, and later an influential and wealthy planter in southern Georgia. On the death of John’s father, two of his Houstoun uncles, Sir Patrick and George, undertook the guardianship of the seven-year-old boy and the infant, if it was still alive. It can be assumed they lived in Savannah with their relatives. In 1784, John’s paternal uncle, William McIntosh, petitioned the chief justice for a revocation of the letters of administration to the Houstouns, and asked that the management of the estate of George McIntosh be granted to him as the eldest brother. His request was granted, whereupon he added his brother Lachlan’s name without his consent. General McIntosh later accepted the appointment, and the two brothers took over the administration of the estate, and continued to manage it for several years.

As John Houstoun McIntosh grew older, he inquired concerning the status of his late father’s estate, and, prior to 1793, through his guardian, Sir George Houstoun, Baronet, filed with the court a bill of complaint against his McIntosh uncles.¹⁴ On September 11, 1793, as one of the defendants, General McIntosh filed his answer in the superior court, sworn to before Judge John Houstoun. In it he recited the history of his brother George’s life, and some of the actions of the former administrators, the Houstoun brothers. Sir George had filed writs to recover a debt to him from the estate, but the litigants appeared to have had a difference of opinion. The judgment of the court found Houstoun to be in error. He was required to pay certain sums to the estate. That, however, was not the conclusion of John Houstoun McIntosh’s proceedings in equity against the McIntosh uncles. It was not until 1795 that the suit was settled. The previous year impartial arbiters were selected by the two “parties” to whom the several allegations of each could be submitted for examination. The menchosen were James Mossman, Joseph Habersham, and Richard Wylly. Evidently a thorough investigation was made and both sides must have consented to the decision of the referees, because it was as late as August 11, 1795, that the suit was ended. On that day John Young Noel, solicitor for the defendants, William and Lachlan McIntosh, appeared in court and produced the “award” of the arbiters, which was “filed agreeably to the Rule made, and moved that the same be entered up as a judgment of the court.” After hearing “Mr. Gibbons,” counsel for the complainant, John Houstoun McIntosh, the court ordered the award made. The defendants were to deliver to the complainant sundry funding certificates totaling approximately $3,500. John Houstoun McIntosh in his part of the award was to “indemnify and save harmless” the defendants from all “claims and demands to which they may be liable by Elizabeth Moore, late widow of Philip Moore for the use and acceptation of the Farm called Constitution Hill near Savannah or the furniture left in the House on the Said Farm.”¹⁵ The document was dated May 11, 1794, and was witnessed by George Woodruff and McCradie & Co. Thus ended the McIntosh vs. McIntosh controversy. In the meantime John Houstoun McIntosh had married.

When William Houstoun and his wife went to Savannah in June, 1788, to stand as sponsors at the baptism of their niece Rachael Moodie Houstoun, they were accompanied by Mrs. Houstoun’s sister Eliza (or Elizabeth) Bayard, the daughter of Nicholas and Catherine (Livingston) Bayard of New York. Eliza Bayard was also a godmother of the infant, and she may have met John Houstoun McIntosh at that time. She was nineteen years old, and he was fifteen. In spite of the four years’ difference in their ages, they were married in the Dutch Reformed Church in New York, April 20, 1792. It is conjectured that McIntosh took his bride to his plantation, Refuge, in Camden County, Georgia, on the Satilla River. The property of five hundred acres had been a Crown grant to George McIntosh in 1765.¹⁶ His son planted both cotton and rice. Eleven years after his marriage, John Houstoun McIntosh bought from John McQueen Fort George Island, Florida, at the mouth of the St. John’s River. The island bore the Indian name Alamacani originally, but Oglethorpe, who made it an outpost for his Georgia colony, renamed it for his British sovereign. McIntosh lived at Fort George for ten years. His house, which overlooked Nassau Sound, was built by McQueen in 1798. It was a large and substantial building on a tabby foundation. It had slender columns in front and a steeply sloping roof. In 1808, McIntosh’s young daughter Mary died on the island, and was buried near her aunt Mary, Mrs. William Houstoun.

6

During the period when the United States was incensed over the British seizure of American seamen, the Washington government feared that Florida might be a probable base of naval operations for the British, should war break out. After the Revolution, the Loyalists and many others of English descent, flocked to East Florida, particularly into that section which comprised the territory lying between the St. Mary’s River and St. Augustine. In 1763 Spain ceded Florida to Great Britain in exchange for Havana, and in 1783, Great Britain retroceded it to Spain, at which time a large proportion of the English population left Florida, but a number continued to live there under Spanish rule. Subsequently, not only the government of the United States, but the border-land Georgians, and the inhabitants of East Florida as well, desired annexation to the United States. Among the latter was John Houstoun McIntosh, who by 1811 had become the leader of the Scottish and American residents of East Florida. McIntosh had acquired property in Negroes, horses, and boats, and held profitable contracts for cutting pine timber. The President of the United States, James Madison, who had secret designs on East Florida, sent George Mathews (Governor of Georgia, 1787), there to represent him. Mathews had served successfully as one of the commissioners of West Florida, which was under the jurisdiction of the American government. He was vested with full authority to act for the President, and, as it was revealed later, to aid and abet the residents of East Florida. The task was easy since the inhabitants were ready to revolt. They were anxious to free themselves from the sovereignty of Spain, and to wrest their land for cession to the United States. And that, too, was what Madison wished to accomplish. In the early spring of 1812, two hundred or more planters of East Florida, and some of their Georgia neighbors, met at a plantation on the St. John’s River to form an independent republic.¹⁷ They elected John Houstoun McIntosh director of the Territory of East Florida.

Soon after his appointment Mathews went to St. Mary’s, Georgia. There he learned that Amelia Island, off the coast of Fernandina, Florida, had become a rendezvous for smugglers, and captains of British ships were violating the non-intercourse act of 1810. Secure in the confidence and support of Mathews, and through him, of the President, the first move of the revolutionists, or patriots, as they styled themselves, was to attack the Spanish fort on Amelia Island. Mathews, exercising his prerogative, had communicated with Commodore Hugh George Campbell, who had carried United States gunboats to the harbor of Fernandina. The patriots demanded surrender from the Spanish officer of the fort, Don Jose Lopez. The commander obeyed, and John Houstoun McIntosh hoisted the flag of the United States over the fort. A company of United States troops was then garrisoned there.

The patriots had bigger plans ahead should their initial venture succeed. On March 12, 1812, McIntosh wrote a confidential letter to George McIntosh Troup, of Darien (elected governor of Georgia in 1823), a member of the United States House of Representatives, telling him that the province of East Florida “would be in the quiet possession of the officers of the U. States.” He continued:

Flush with the victory of Amelia Island, the patriots, led by a detachment of United States regulars, began their march on St. Augustine. They were attacked by Indians and a company of free Negroes led by a free black, and were forced to retreat. Undeterred by failure to take St. Augustine, and incidentally the governor, the revolutionists adopted a constitution on July 17. The constitution was signed by John Houstoun McIntosh and others, who were fully convinced that they had the backing of the American government. All were anxious to have their republic a component part of the United States.

President Madison, in the meantime, found himself in an embarrassing situation. On one side the Spanish minister was remonstrating against the actions of Mathews, and on the other the British minister was protesting against a “flagrant violation of neutral territory.”¹⁹ Madison slipped out of the predicament by repudiating his accredited representative and declared that Mathews had overstepped his authority. He recalled Mathews and in his place appointed David B. Mitchell, Governor of Georgia. Mitchell’s instructions were to withdraw the American troops from Amelia Island, and to protect the patriots of East Florida.

When McIntosh and his followers learned of Mitchell’s assignment to Mathews’s post, they became alarmed, and soon were cognizant of the fact that they were the dupes of a timorous President. On July 30, McIntosh, as the elected head of the Republic, wrote an official letter to James Monroe, Secretary of State. After apprising the Secretary of his election “to the office of Director of East Florida who engaged in the Revolution,” McIntosh rehearsed all that led up to it. He wrote that it was the desire of “the whole planting interest, in declaring themselves free” after suffering for a long time “under a Government, corrupt in itself,” to take possession of the country and hold it until they surrendered it by cession. He declared that the revolutionists had believed in the protection of the United States, under the assurance of Mathews. He described the signing of a deed of cession between Mathews and the commissioners appointed by “our constituted authority,” a copy of which deed the patriots were told had been sent to the President. McIntosh then continued:

Humiliation and ruin faced McIntosh. After waiting two months for a reply from the Secretary of State, and receiving none, he wrote again on October 3:

The writer, under the supposition that his letter had miscarried, said that he enclosed a copy of his former communication, also that he had written to Commodore Campbell. McIntosh explained further:

After performing his duties to the satisfaction of the President, Governor Mitchell was recalled late in the year 1812. He was replaced by General Thomas Pinckney, commander of the United States troops who were still in East Florida. About March 27, 1813, “Mr. Morris,” General Pinckney’s aide de camp, arrived at St. Mary’s, and in a day or two proceeded to St. Augustine. The unsuspecting patriots, among them John Houstoun McIntosh, gained the impression that Morris’s mission was to be favorable to them. Their assumption was confirmed by his assurance that “he himself, was ignorant of the purport of his message and on his return a week later he repeatedly made the same declaration.”

Still intact, the government of the Republic of East Florida met on March 20, 1813, and wrote a proclamation which was issued to its constituents:

PATRIOTS OF EAST FLORIDA.

At last the corrupt Government of S^t Augustine has come forward with a proclamation offering “amnesty to the Insurgents who have cooperated in the invasion, (literally so called), of East Florida.” Weak must be the mind, that can have the least dependence upon a promise so hollow & deceitful. Can any one believe that such a corrupt, jealous, & arbitrary Government will adhere to promises however sacredly made? Will they not screw every tittle of your property from you under the pretext of making retribution for damages done to Individuals who have adhered to their oppressors? Aided by a venal Judge, supported by a cruel Government your enemies will harrass you as long as a cent remain with you. But it is needless to dwell upon the subject: the pardon no doubt has been manufactured in S^t Augustine — the Government of Spain knows nothing of it — it is designed to entrap the unwary, thinking that you are depressed by the rumor (however false), that the troops are to be removed. . . .

Can You! Will You! in poverty become the sport of slaves & the abhorred army in S^t Augustine?

It has been unanimously resolved by the Legislative Council, that they in their representative & individual capacity will not receive the pardon so treacherously offered; but will proceed & act to the utmost of their power until liberty & independence are secured. We call upon you all to write, & by our joint exertions secure our safety, property, liberty, & independence. There can be but two parties: friends & enemies, those that are not with us will be treated as foes. Measures are now, & will be taken to punish vigorously those who basely desert. Spies & emissaries will meet their just punishment.

Done in Council, 30^th March, 1813. . .

            [signed.]

                        B. Harris

                        Presid^t. of the Legislative Council

                        Daniel F [?] Delaney

                        Secretary of State

                        John H. M^cIntosh

                        Director Terr^y East Florida²²

General Pinckney arrived at St. Mary’s on April 12, and was waited on that day by McIntosh, who was told by the general that through the instrumentality of an agent of the United States government a general pardon had been obtained from the Spanish governor for the insurgents. President Madison, Pinckney informed McIntosh, was satisfied when the Spanish authorities acknowledged and published the pardon, and felt that his government had been exonerated, and was no longer committed to protecting the inhabitants of the Republic of East Florida.

Shocked at what he felt was ruin for him and for his compatriots, McIntosh told Pinckney: “few of us would be willing to depend on a mere pardon. We have planned our crops and the season is too late to plant elsewhere.” McIntosh presented Pinckney with a memorial from the people of the Republic, and begged him to delay ordering the troops out of the province until he could represent the situation to the President. Pinckney replied: “I have no discretionary power, my orders are positive, and I have already arranged matters with the Governor of St. Augustine.”

McIntosh then asked to have the troops remain in his country until the people could take out their “movable property.” Pinckney agreed, reluctantly, to postpone the march for a short period.

Not satisfied with his personal interview with General Pinckney and wishing to reiterate what he had said and to make his position stronger, McIntosh sent a letter to him the next day:

The following day General Pinckney replied in writing to McIntosh that his orders were to withdraw the troops of the United States from East Florida. McIntosh’s communication he promised to forward to the Secretary of State.

Not to be daunted, the indefatigable McIntosh wrote to the Secretary of State, on April 16 from St. Mary’s. He rehearsed in a long letter all that had transpired since his letter of March 30, and dwelt in detail on the matter of the Spanish promise of pardon. McIntosh was sensible of the responsibility he bore to his constituents in acting as their intermediary and he knew that, moreover, his own affairs and property were in jeopardy if they were abandoned to the Spaniards. For his own part he wrote:

7

The evacuation of the United States troops from Amelia Island occurred on May 16 and peace and quiet were restored.²⁵ The promise of pardon was redeemed by the Governor of St. Augustine, but John Houstoun McIntosh was a marked man. His cause had been repudiated by the government under which he held citizenship and to which he felt he had displayed great loyalty, and he was regarded as a traitor by the government under which he had lived for several years. Because he and his companions were revolutionists, he might have lost his life, but the Spanish governor, recognizing the fact that he was a personage in Georgia, allowed him to leave Florida unmolested.

During the height of the revolution McIntosh was challenged by Don Manuel Solana, one of the Spanish leaders, who was incensed over the rebellion against his government. Solana wrote he would “fight him by day or night, on foot or on horseback, with any weapon.” With strong hatred of the Spaniards, a legacy from his Georgia ancestors who fought against them in the early Colonial days, McIntosh’s reply was sarcastic:

Apparently no challenge was sent from the governor and no duel took place.

In midsummer of 1813, McIntosh went to Washington to try to obtain some remuneration for the heavy losses he had sustained in the attempt to make East Florida a territory of the United States. He had friends, among them, George M. Troup, member of the House of Representatives, and William H. Crawford, Secretary of the Treasury, who were political friends of the administration. They advised McIntosh that, although they regretted his circumstances, they felt it necessary to oppose his application. However, he was “assured that the highest members of the government felt much for his distress, and that of others in the same situation,” and “that he could tell his friends in East Florida that every honorable exertion would be made to have their country annexed to the United States.”²⁷ McIntosh waited until his patience was exhausted. With no intimation that his pleas would be answered, he sent his appeal on August 14, 1813, in writing, to the Secretary of State, James Monroe. Explaining that the people of East Florida had surrendered the town and port of Fernandina to General Mathews, the United States commissioner, with the understanding that those who might make “pecuniary advances” in support of the “cause” would be reimbursed from the custom duties received at the port, McIntosh declared that he had borne “all the expenses which were incurred by the revolt of the people of Florida,. . . and which were very considerably beyond the sum of four Thousand Dollars.” Further, he understood that from three to four thousand dollars in custom duties had been collected under Commissioner Mitchell. He had been duly authorized, he continued, by the people of East Florida to receive such money. Mitchell had explained that it would be paid when ordered by the government of the United States. McIntosh requested Secretary Monroe that such an order be given.²⁸

By September McIntosh was back in Camden County, where he was endeavoring to retrieve some of his Florida property. While in St. Mary’s he wrote to the collector of the port asking to be relieved of the import tax on a large shipment of cotton from his Florida plantation. Referring to his change of residence and his loyalty to the United States, he wrote he was “a man. . . who has lost a very large possession and is now almost ruined from his attachment to that Government.”²⁹ Four years later he deeded Fort George to Captain Kingsley, a Scotsman, who obtained it by foreclosure of a mortgage.

McIntosh had already bought from James Seagrove in 1811, a tract of six hundred and fifty acres, called Marianna. It was situated on King’s Bay, across from Cumberland Island. When he went to live in Camden County he built at Marianna a large rectangular house “on brick pillars a few feet off the ground, with an octagonal wing of one story at each end of the rectangle, with octagonal roofs, so high in proportion to the rest of the building that they were suggestive of towers. The octagonal wings were about thirty feet in diameter.”³⁰ In 1819, McIntosh purchased two thousand nine hundred more acres adjacent to Marianna, formerly owned by John Boog, including “the Dark Entry” swamp, and in 1821, he acquired one thousand and forty acres, the remainder of the Seagrove grant, which he named New Canaan.

One of McIntosh’s friends was General David Blackshear (1763-1837), an early settler of Laurens County, Georgia. During the War of 1812, General Blackshear served under Major General John McIntosh, the first cousin of John Houstoun McIntosh. When General Floyd was wounded at the battle of Antossee, Alabama, in 1813, General Blackshear took his place in the Camden County district until General Floyd could resume command of his troops. The John Houstoun McIntosh family, presumably, visited the Blackshears in Laurens County soon after the war was over and evidently they made the return trip of one hundred and seventy odd miles by carriage. McIntosh wrote to General Blackshear soon after he arrived home:

In 1817 McIntosh was troubled again about his friends in East Florida. After the situation cleared, and the Spanish governor had taken back the territory on the withdrawal of the United States troops, undesirable persons began to congregate there. While Colonel Morales, the Spanish officer, was in command, Gregor McGregor, who claimed to be the brother-in-law of Simon Bolivar, the South American liberator, arrived in Fernandina and on July 14, 1817, captured the fort. In September, McGregor departed for the Bahamas for supplies and reinforcements, and left in charge one Hubbert, a former sheriff in New York. About the first of October, Louis de Aury, a Spanish naval officer, who was governor of Texas the year before, entered the harbor of Fernandina with a small fleet. The inhabitants appealed to him for assistance. He consented to help them if they would haul down McGregor’s emblem from the fort and replace it with the flag of Mexico. His request was granted and Amelia Island was declared part of the Republic of Mexico. Aury’s rule was brief. When the President of the United States learned of the invasion, he sent his troops to suppress what was called “the Liberation movement,” and Aury, without protest surrendered Fernandina to the United States navy and sailed out of the harbor. Fernandina was “held in trust for Spain,” but the occupation of Monroe’s troops was of short duration as yellow fever soon depopulated the town and also caused the evacuation of the marines.³³

The above account of the Florida situation was given in part in a letter to William H. Crawford, Secretary of the Treasury, from John H. McIntosh written from The Refuge on October 30, 1817, but he added interesting information:

Early in 1818 trouble began with the Indians in Florida, and the Seminole War was the result. General Andrew Jackson in February began to make preparations for his Florida campaign and on March 9 as he neared the border took command of eight hundred regulars and nine hundred Georgia militia. John Houstoun McIntosh, who held the rank of general, was with the latter, and after the capture of St. Mark’s, Florida, and the Seminole War, which lasted only a few weeks, the Georgia troops were disbanded, and General McIntosh and his Indian brigade were dismissed on April 24. McIntosh returned to his plantation, Refuge. He had been home barely two weeks when he wrote on May 5 to John Quincy Adams, secretary of state. Correspondence between Adams and the Chevalier Louis de Onis, Spanish minister to Washington, had been going on since the previous October on the proposed ceding of Florida to the United States. One of the terms of the treaty stipulated that “no grants subsequent to August 11, 1802 [were] to be valid.”³⁶ As McIntosh was to be affected by that proviso he wrote to the Secretary of State: “I am one of those persons,” he began, “who took up Lands in that Province, subsequent to the year 1802. . . .” After a lengthy remonstrance, he concluded that “it must be acknowledged, that an insurrection of a handful of men as we were, should not have taken place, had not that Gentleman [General Mathews] been sent among us. And after being assured by his Instruction that all private property should be secured to its owners, in the event of a change of Government, in favour of the U. States; after risking all we possessed to bring this change about; and after too, the clemency and forbearance of the Spanish Government, on not confiscating our property, for taking arms against their authorities, are we now to be treated as traitors, and made outcasts, at the very hour, and by the very instrument, with which you make us your fellow Citizens? Forbid Heaven! forbid it Justice! forbid it Mr. Monroe!”³⁷

While the treaty with Spain was pending, McIntosh, fearful that he and some of the property owners of East Florida were to be deprived of their land when Florida was finally ceded to the United States, wrote again to Secretary Adams on February 25, 1819. “Many persons of East Florida,” he began, “are much alarmed, at your insisting, in your correspondence with Don Louis de Onis, on all grants, subsequent to the year 1802, being annulled—I am satisfied for my own part, that Mr Munroe, will not ententionally bring to ruin, a number of individuals, whose only political crime, has been, an attachment to his Government and Administration.” “My object on the liberty I now take of addressing you,” he concluded, “is to inform you, that there is a well grounded expectation, that should the U. States get possession of the Province, either by arms or cession, that the Spaniards will endeavour to carry off with them, the records of the Country.”³⁸

McIntosh had reason to be apprehensive, as in the years to come he was to lose two thousand acres of land in Florida. The Treaty of 1819 between the United States and Spain for the purchase of Florida, dragged along between diplomats until 1821, when it was finally consummated on July 10 of that year. Seven years later congress passed a supplementary act on May 23, 1828, “providing for the settlement and confirmation of private claims in Florida,” when a committee was appointed to investigate all claims.³⁹ The committee took two years to complete its work, which seems to have been done thoroughly, and in January, 1830, Samuel Delucenna Ingham, Secretary of the Treasury, sent the comprehensive report to the president of the senate, John C. Calhoun. John Houstoun McIntosh was listed as having two claims: one, a royal grant of eight hundred acres, Mulberry Grove, on the St. John’s River, conveyed by the Spanish governor in 1805 to Timothy Hollingsworth, and sold by him to McIntosh on May 2 of the same year, and which was confirmed by the committee;⁴⁰ and the other, two thousand acres on the Miami River, which was rejected. The committee reported that the claim was “as good as a Spanish title can be made,” and if there had been no conflicting British claim there would be no hesitancy in confirming it, “but as there appeared to be, the recommendation was to reject it.” The original grant was made in 1770 after Florida had been ceded by Spain to the British in 1763, to William Thomas Jones by the British governor. Some years later Jones removed to Georgia, and when in 1783 Spain and Great Britain made a second trade, and Spanish rule was again over “Pasqua Florida,” Governor Quesada conveyed the Jones grant to John McQueen on November 5, 1795.⁴¹ John Houstoun McIntosh bought the land from McQueen in 1798. The Jones heirs had disputed the claim which was revealed when the federal committee made its investigation and gave its final report that the McIntosh claim should be unconfirmed. Thus John Houstoun McIntosh lost his claim in 1830 while many of his East Florida friends kept their lands through confirmation by the committee.

8

To revert to the time when McIntosh had begun to recover from his impoverished state after the East Florida revolution, he found another interest through the advice of a friend in a neighboring county. Between the years 1816 and 1826, Georgia was enjoying great prosperity from a cotton boom, and at the same time a new industry had become popular with planters on the Georgia seacoast. In 1806 Thomas Spalding (1774-1851), of Sapelo Island, friend and contemporary of John Houstoun McIntosh, began his experimentation in the sugar industry. By the time McIntosh had acquired his extensive acres in Camden County Spalding not only had achieved proficiency in the science of planting and making sugar, but he also had experimented in the construction of tabby building, and his result was known as “the Spalding method.” McIntosh had retrieved some of his lost fortune from his cotton crops on Refuge plantation. Induced by his friend, Thomas Spalding, McIntosh turned his talents to the sugar industry. After having cleared his land and planted sugar cane at New Canaan, he built a large sugar house after the Spalding pattern. On the suggestion of Spalding, who the previous year had visited Louisiana and had seen the horizontal mills propelled by steam, McIntosh installed the horizontal mill in his sugar house, with the use of animal power, and thereby, according to Spalding, had the first horizontal mill ever worked by cattle power.⁴² It was at Marianna that he spent the remainder of his days.

John Houstoun McIntosh lived to be nearly sixty-three years old. His remains and those of his wife, who survived him by eleven years, lie in a small enclosed burial ground not far from the ruins of his Marianna home.⁴³ The inscriptions are carved on large flat marble slabs:

Sacred
to the memory of
John Houstoun McIntosh
who was born in McIntosh County
Georgia
1^st. of May 1773
and died the 9^th. of Feb. 1836
How loved, how valued avails
thee not

                               To whom related or by whom begot
                                A heap of dust remains thee
                               ’Tis all thou art and all the proud shall be.

Sacred
to the memory of
Eliza
relict of
John Houstoun McIntosh
who gently breathed out her soul
and passed from this life to a better
Sept. 20, 1847
in the 78^th year of her age.⁴⁴

Of all the immediate descendants of Sir Patrick Houstoun, Baronet, it remained for John Houstoun McIntosh, the son of his only daughter, to provide the most spectacular episode in a dramatic career that involved international issues with five nations: Great Britain, Spain, Russia,⁴⁵ France, and the United States.

1. Johnston, Recollections of a Georgia Loyalist, 43.

2. Martha Gallaudet Waring, “Savannah’s Earliest Private Schools,” in The Georgia Historical Quarterly, XIV, No. 4 (December, 1930), 324-334. Prize essay in the contest of the Georgia Society of the Colonial Dames of America, March, 1930.

3. Georgia Gazette, November 8, 1769.

4. Elfrida De Renne Barrow and Lalla Palmer Bell, Anchored Yesterdays (Savannah, 1923), 58.

5. The Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Etting Collection.

6. The events narrated hereafter are taken from The Case of George M’Intosh, Esquire, a member of the late council and convention of the State of Georgia with the Proceedings thereon in the Hon. the assembly and council of the State. Printed in the year MDCCLXXVII. A copy is in the Library of Congress. A photostatic copy is in Hodgson Hall, Savannah, presented by the author to the Georgia Historical Society.

7. Revolutionary Records of Georgia, I, 128, 129, 136-143, 203-210, 216, 217.

8. Not Colonel James Johnston, Jr., who, in 1776 was a little boy.

9. Jenkins, Button Gwinnett, 162. Quoted from MS. letter in the Library of Congress, dated August 6, 1777.

10. Ibid., 162. Quoted from South Carolina and American General Gazette, October 2, 1777.

11. Editor, “The Case of George McIntosh,” in The Georgia Historical Quarterly, III, No. 3 (September, 1919), 137.

12. Ibid. In his statement General McIntosh does not say where the funeral took place.

13. Ibid., III, 138.

14. Chatham County Court House, Savannah, Judgments, Box 7, No. 1085. The document was missing from the box when searched (1942). It was issued before the period of recording judgments; therefore the date could not be ascertained nor the text examined.

15. Superior Court Minutes, Book G, No. 3, p. 363, Chatham County Court House, Savannah.

16. The original document was owned by the late Duncan Clinch Heyward of Columbia, South Carolina, a lineal descendant. The plantation was later owned by John Houstoun McIntosh Clinch of Savannah, the grandson of John Houstoun McIntosh. It became one of the largest rice plantations in the South, and remained in the family until the death of Mr. Clinch in 1905.

17. Corse, The Key to the Golden Isles, 109-13. In chapter IX, “The Rickety Gate is Unhinged,” Dr. Corse has confused John Houstoun McIntosh with a relative, Major General John McIntosh, a hero of the American Revolution.

18. Territorial Papers, Florida, January 1812 - December 1812, Vol. 2. Records of the Department of State in the National Archives, Washington, D. C.

19. Fuller, The Purchase of Florida, 196.

20. Territorial Papers, Florida, January 1812 - December 1812, Vol. 2.

21. Territorial Papers, Florida, February 1813 - December 1817, Vol. 3, John Houstoun McIntosh to James Monroe.

22. Territorial Papers, Florida, February 1813 - December 1817, Vol. 3.

23. Ibid.

24. Ibid.

25. The end of the ill-fated Republic of Florida took place in 1816 when Governor Coppinger had three districts laid off in East Florida where the revolutionists could reside if they would return to Spanish rule. They were allowed a magistrate’s court and a company of militia elected by the people, and on their acceptance they were promised “all the past should be buried in oblivion.” Caroline Mays Brevard, A History of Florida (Deland, Florida, 1924), 30.

26. Thomas Gamble, Savannah Duels and Duellists 1733-1877 (Savannah, 1923), 101, 102.

27. John Houstoun McIntosh to John Quincy Adams, Camden County, 5th May, 1818. Miscellaneous Letters relating to John Houstoun McIntosh. National Archives.

28. Territorial Papers, Florida, February 1813 - December 1817, Vol. 3.

29. Coulter, ed., Georgia’s Disputed Ruins : Floyd, “Certain Tabby Ruins,” 143. The letter is in the possession of Marmaduke H. Floyd of Savannah.

30. Ibid., 144, 145. The house remained standing until after the War Between the States. The author visited the site in July, 1928, with Mr. and Mrs. Floyd, and the octagonal foundations of the wings were plainly noticeable. There is an illustration on a MS. map at Hodgson Hall, Library of the Georgia Historical Society.

31. Relatives of General Blackshear.

32. Stephen F. Miller, Memoir of David Blackshear (Philadelphia, 1858), 465, 466.

33. Fuller, The Purchase of Florida, 234.

34. Not to be confused with Jared Irwin (1750-1818), Governor of Georgia in 1796.

35. Miscellaneous Letters, September, October 1817, relating to John Houstoun McIntosh. National Archives.

36. American State Papers. . . Public Lands (Washington, D. C., 1860), VI, 55.

37. Miscellaneous Letters, April, May, 1818, relating to John Houstoun McIntosh. National Archives.

38. Miscellaneous Letters, February, 1819, relating to John Houstoun McIntosh. National Archives.

39. American State Papers. . . Public Lands (Washington, D. C., 1860), 55.

40. Ibid., 67.

41. Ibid., 119. Photostatic copies of the letters of John Houstoun McIntosh, together with others quoted in the foregoing pages, have been presented by the author to the Georgia Society of the Colonial Dames of America. They are known as the Houstoun Collection and are in Hodgson Hall, Savannah.

42. Coulter, ed., Georgia’s Disputed Ruins, 146.

43. In November, 1928, the author visited the site of Marianna and copied the inscriptions.

44. The children of the John Houstoun Mclntoshes were: John Houstoun McIntosh, Jr., who first married Mary Higbee, by whom he had issue, second, Charlotte Higbee; George, who did not marry; Catherine, who first married Henry Sadler, and had issue, second, the Reverend Mr. Elliott, and had issue; and Eliza Bayard, who was the second wife of General Duncan Lamont Clinch, by whom she had several children. (Houstoun Family Tree).

45. In 1813, President Madison accepted the Czar of Russia’s offer to mediate on the question of a friendly alliance with Florida, Russia, and Spain.

For the complete story of East Florida and its relationship to the countries mentioned above see Fuller, The Purchase of Florida, Its History and Diplomacy, 182-212.