Edward Rutledge

Ancestor Number

A098738 »

Date of Birth

November 23, 1749

Place of Birth

Charleston, SC

Date of Death

January 23, 1800

Place of Death

Charleston, SC

Spouse(s)

Henrietta Middleton, Mary Shubrick

Children

Henry Middleton Rutledge, Edward Rutledge, Sarah Rutledge

American Revolution Service

Served as Lt. Colonel in the Charleston Battalion of Artillery 1776–1777 in South Carolina. he is a Signer of the Declaration of Independence.

State of Service

South Carolina

Donor

The South Carolina State Society, NSDAR

Edward Rutledge, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, was born in Charleston, South Carolina, on November 23, 1749.

He was the youngest son of eight to Dr. John Rutledge, of Scots-Irish descent and Sarah Hext, born in South Carolina and of English descent. When he was 20, Rutledge became a student of law at the Middle Temple in 1767 and was admitted to the English bar in 1772. He returned to Charleston and married Henrietta Middleton, the sister of Arthur Middleton, on March 1, 1774. The couple had two sons and a daughter.

Rutledge was first elected to the First Continental Congress in July 1774. In August that same year, at age 26, he became the youngest signer of the Declaration of Independence.

In 1779, he was appointed a Lieutenant Colonel in the Charleston Battalion of Artillery, and he served under General William Moultrie in the victory over the British forces under Major Gardiner, driving them from Port Royal Island in the Battle of Beaufort. A year later he was taken prisoner during the British siege of Charleston on May 12, 1780. Rutledge was held in a prison off the coast of St. Augustine for 11 months and was exchanged in July 1781.

Rutledge served in the South Carolina State House of Representatives from 1782 to 1796. From 1796 to 1798 he was elected as State Senator and in 1798 was elected as Governor of South Carolina. Rutledge voted in favor of ratification of the U.S. Constitution in South Carolina’s Constitutional Convention in 1790–1791. During his time in the legislature Rutledge drew up the act which abolished primogeniture, worked to give equitable distribution of the real estate of intestates, and voted against opening the African slave trade.

Rutledge died in Charleston on January 23, 1800, while still Governor and was buried in St. Philip’s Churchyard Cemetery. In 1969 a historical marker was installed at the entrance to St. Philip’s Churchyard by the South Carolina Daughters of the Revolution honoring both Edward Rutledge and Charles Pinckney.