Thomas Lynch: SC Signer of the Declaration of Independence
- katellashisadventure
- Jul 15
- 4 min read
Thomas Lynch Jr. was born on August 5, 1749, at Hopseewee Plantation in Prince George’s Parish, South Carolina. The home is still in existence today and sits on 58 acres of the original 13,000 acres. The home has been preserved rather than restored and has been owned by five different families since it was built sometime in the 1730s. His parents were Thomas Sr. and Elizabeth (Allston) Lynch, and he was the third of four children, two of whom were half-siblings. Lynch was the only son, and his family ancestry can be traced to Austria, then Kent, England, and finally to Ireland. His paternal Great-grandfather, Jonack Lynch, immigrated to America in the 1690s. His mother’s family was a prominent family located in Georgetown, South Carolina.
Lynch was sent to the Indigo Society School in Georgetown, South Carolina, before being sent to England for further schooling at the age of thirteen. He attended Eton and Cambridge, while in England, and in March of 1767, was admitted to the Middle Temple Law School. He also went to Conville and Calmus College in May of 1767. He does not return to South Carolina until 1772 and does not take up the law, which he studied for. Instead, he was presented with Peachtree plantation and became a gentleman planter.
On May 13, 1772, Lynch married Elizabeth Shubrick, who was the daughter of Thomas and Mary (Baker) Shubrick. Her sister, Mary, married Edward Rutledge, and her other sister, Hannah, married William Heyward, the brother of Thomas Heyward Jr. Like in Virginia, several of the South Carolina signers are related by marriage. Lynch and Elizabeth would have no children. She would pass with him in 1779.
The year after their marriage, Lynch began to get involved in the patriot movement, speaking at several assemblies, and getting elected to office. He was a member of the first and second South Carolina Provincial Congresses in 1774 and was a member of the South Carolina Constitutional Committee. Then, in 1775, he was appointed a Captain in the militia and given the command of a South Carolina regiment of provincial regulators. They go to North Carolina to recruit members, but he gets extremely sick with bilious fever on this trip and never fully recovers his health. Bilious fever is also known as malaria or typhus. Most likely, in this case, it was malaria, as it was prevalent in the southern states at the time. Once he recovers from the fever, he rejoins his regiment.
By March of 1776, the General Assembly of South Carolina had organized, and he was elected a representative. While serving as a representative, he receives word of his father’s illness in Philadelphia and attempts to move to that location to be with him. Colonel Gadsden would reject his request to join his father. However, he was elected to the Second Continental Congress to replace his father and quickly relocated to Philadelphia. It appears his father had a stroke, and they were the only father-son duo in Congress.
The South Carolina delegates to the Continental Congress were young men. This was done because the older men were heavily involved in creating a new state government. Upon his arrival in Philadelphia, Lynch gets sick, as well, but he stays in Congress through the voting for and signing of the Declaration, then attempts to return to South Carolina with his father. He was the second-youngest South Carolina signer, being just three days shy of his 27th birthday when the Declaration was signed. He leaves Congress after the signing, and his father makes it as far as Annapolis when he passes away. Space was actually left for his father to sign the document, between Edward Rutledge’s and Thomas Heyward Jr.’s signatures, if he regained his health. Interestingly, while in Annapolis, it appears that Lynch Sr. lost a gold mourning ring[1] he owned, as it appeared at an antique auction in 2008. It had been in the same family for 200 years, and it was unknown how the family had come into possession of the ring. An anonymous buyer bought the ring for a five-figure sum and vowed it would never leave the state of South Carolina again. The price was not disclosed, but prior to the ring being bought, the bids were in the $20,000 range.[2]
Lynch continued on his journey to South Carolina after he buried his father, as his own health was suffering, and he retired from public life to concentrate on managing his plantation. On May 11, 1779, he drew a will, which bequeathed his estate in a specific order of inheritance. Anyone who inherits his estate must take on the surname of Lynch, and he requested that his father’s remains be reinterred at the Parish Churchyard at Santee. His nephew, John Lynch Bowman, the son of his sister, Sarah, would change the order of his names to inherit the estate. His nephew has three sons and four daughters. His three sons would be killed in the Civil War and leave no descendants.[3]
Because of his declining health, it was recommended that he travel to France for a different climate. However, because of the precarious situation, due to the war, he and his wife, Elizabeth, had to first travel to St. Eustatius [4] in the West Indies, where they would get on a boat to go to Europe. He died in the autumn of 1779 when his ship was lost at sea. It is presumed it went down in what is now known as the Bermuda Triangle during a storm. He was the youngest of the fifty-six signers at the time of his death, even though he was the second-youngest signer.
Tidbits His family name comes “from a field of pulse called lince,” according to Reverend Goodrich in his book on the signers. |
[3] Kiernan, Denise, and Joseph D’Agnese. Signing Their Lives Away: The Fame and Misfortune of The Men Who Signed The Declaration of Independence, (Philadelphia: Quirk Books, c2009)
[4] This local is now known as Stata in the Netherlands Antilles.
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