Elias Vanderhorst (1738-1816)

He inherited a considerable fortune when his father died during his infancy. He was an uncle of General Arnoldus Vanderhorst (Governor of South Carolina) and a great-uncle of the artist Washington Allston. In 1759 and 1760, he served in the wars against the Cherokees and then became a merchant in Charleston, Maryland and Boston with financial interests in the labor of enslaved Africans. He served as a Brigadier-General in the Militia of South Carolina, but an unfortunate business venture led to the loss of his fortune and dependence on his mother-in-law's income, prompting his move to Bristol (England) in 1774. In 1787, he became a Burgess of Bristol, but he does not appear to have exercised his right to vote. In 1792, in defiance of the government in London, he was invited by the merchants of Bristol to serve as Consul of the United States of America for the Port of Bristol, acting as a go-between to facilitate their American trade until his retirement in 1815. In his diary, he related that he had such a great social life in the city he was scarcely able to do any work. He is honorably mentioned in the last edition (1803) of Jane Porter's Thaddeus of Warsaw. In 1763, he married Elizabeth Raven Cooper (or Cowper) and they had ten children of whom six (listed) survived infancy.