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The
McLaws Family — Parents, James and Elizabeth Huguenin McLaws
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| Alexander
McLaws, Lafayette McLaws's grandfather, was returning to
Scotland when his ship was wrecked off the coast of Georgia
near Darien in 1783. He set out to move the family as far inland
as possible choosing Augusta "as it was far away from the
sea." (1) |
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The
Georgia Legislature passed three acts in 1780, 1783, and 1786,
that "when taken together," operated "as a sort
of charter for Augusta; and up to the year 1798, when the charter
of the present city was granted, Augusta, with a brief exception.
. .was governed by a board of commissioners."
(2)
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| In
1790, seven years after arriving in Augusta, James
McLaws was born to Alexander and Janet McLaws.
Their youngest son, he married Elizabeth
Huguenin on January 24, 1815. Elizabeth was raised
in St. Luke's Parish, South Carolina. She was the daughter of
David and Elizabeth Huguenin and grew up at Roseland, the Huguenin
family plantation. Union Major Henry Orlando Marcy described
the plantation, located near the Coosawatchie River, in his
diary. (3) |
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James
entered politics after beginning his career as a cotton factor.
Augusta voters elected him to the newly created Richmond County
superior and inferior court clerk position on January 10, 1822.
He held this post through fifteen successive elections. James
McLaws was Augusta's oldest native citizen when he died in 1850.
Elizabeth preceeded him in 1848. (4)
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(1)
ASG, 3.
(2) Jones, Charles C., Jr., Memorial
History of Augusta, Georgia: From Its Settlement in 1735 to
the Close of the Eighteenth Century. Syracuse: D. Mason
and Co., 1890, 157.
(3) ASG, 4.
(4) ibid.
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| For
additional information about members of the McLaws family, feel
free to check the MENU. |
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