William Wragg (1714-1777)

He was born in South Carolina and studied in England at Westminster, St. John’s College, Oxford, and the Middle Temple. He returned to Charleston in 1734 and rapidly rose to prominence as a planter and politician. When his father died he inherited the 6,000-acre Ashley Barony, a townhouse in Charleston, 6,900 acres on the Pee Dee River, and three plantations: River Settlement, Middle Settlement, and Wampee. He was a Member of the Governor's Council (1753), a Justice of the Peace (1756), and served in the South Carolina Assembly from 1763 to 1768. He refused to sign the Revolutionary Articles of Non-Importation (1769) or to recognize the authority of the Continental Congress. In 1777, he was banished from America and was lost at sea when his ship sank off the coast of Holland. He was married twice. By Mary Wood he had two children and by his first cousin, Henrietta Wragg, he had four children. He was the father-in-law of Governor John Mathews and U.S. Congressman William Loughton Smith. On his death in 1777 his estate included 7,100 acres and 256 slaves, valued in total at £36,359.