My Heroes... Edward Rutledge

I first became aware of Edward Rutledge with the movie 1776, by John Cullum. I hadn't watched 1776 for a number of years and watched Northern Exposure. I struggled to place the man. I watched the movie again and was amazed. The Northern Exposure character was nothing like the 1776 character. A sign of a good actor. But this is not about John Cullum.

He was the youngest son of seven children of an Irish immigrant physician who died at too young leaving his twenty-seven-year-old wife a widow. Fortunately, she brought a wealthy dowery to the marriage neither squandered. Edward was given a classical education. At twenty, he went to London to study law at the Inner Temple, London.

I had no idea the Temple was built by the Knights Templar. There's a topic I'd like to study.

By 1773, Edward was back in South Carolina and admitted to the bar. He was the youngest, at only twenty-five, to sign the Declaration of Independence. He supported independence fiercely. He also opposed every proposition posed to extend slavery. (Another fallacy in 1776, which I'm finding depicts a number of false narratives.)

He was a prisoner of war for over a year. His mother was also forced to move from the country to the city, so the British could keep an eye on her. Clearly not a wilting violet.

In his sixtieth year, while he was the governor of South Carolina, he succumbed to gout, a flare brought on by a cold.

A man of honor and courage and unyielding determination and not quite what I expected.