Christopher Gadsden

Christopher Gadsden (February 16, 1724 – August 28, 1805), a soldier and statesman from South Carolina, was the principal leader of the South Carolina Patriot movement in the American Revolution. He was a delegate to the Continental Congress and a brigadier general in the Continental Army during the War of Independence. He was also the designer of the famous Gadsden flag.

Early life

Gadsden was born in 1724 in Charleston, South Carolina. He was the son of Thomas Gadsden, who had served in the Royal Navy before becoming customs collector for the port of Charleston. Christopher was sent to school near Bristol, England. He returned to America in 1740, and served as an apprentice in a counting house in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He inherited a large fortune from his parents, who died in 1741. From 1745 to 1746 he served during King George's War as a purser on a British warship. He entered into mercantile ventures, and by 1747 he had earned enough to return to South Carolina and buy back the land his father had sold because he needed the money to pay off debts. He built Beneventum Plantation House about 1750.

Christopher Edwards Gadsden

Christopher Edwards Gadsden (November 25, 1785 – June 24, 1852) was the fourth Episcopal Bishop of South Carolina.

Gadsden was born in Charleston, South Carolina in 1785, the son of Phillip Gadsden and his wife, Catherine Edwards. He was a grandson of Christopher Gadsden, the South Carolina Revolutionary leader. As a youth, he attended both the Episcopal Church of his father and his mother's Congregational Church. He married Eliza Bowman in 1816. She died in 1826, and Gadsden remarried in 1830 to Jane Dewees, the youngest daughter of William Dewees. He had no children by his first marriage, but had eight with his second wife.

Beginning in his junior year, Gadsden attended Yale University, graduating in 1804. He was ordained deacon in the Episcopal Church in 1807 by Bishop Moore, and in 1810 was ordained priest by Bishop Madison. Soon thereafter, he became rector of St. John's Church in Berkeley County, South Carolina. In 1814, Gadsden became rector of St. Philip's Church in Charleston, the oldest congregation in the diocese. He received a doctorate of divinity the following year from South Carolina College.