Lachlan McIntosh

Lachlan McIntosh (March 17, 1725 – February 20, 1806) was a British-American military and political leader during the American Revolution and the early United States. In a 1777 duel, he fatally shot Button Gwinnett, a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

Early life

Arrival in Georgia

Lachlan McIntosh was born near Raits, Badenoch, Scotland. McIntosh’s father, John McIntosh Mòr, moved the family to Georgia in 1736 with a group of 100 Scottish settlers founding the town of New Inverness, (which was later renamed Darien) at the mouth of the Altamaha River. John McIntosh led the colonists as they carved out the new settlement from dense forest. The dangers of frontier life were brought home to Lachlan in 1737 when his younger brother Lewis McIntosh was killed by an alligator while swimming in the river.

Georgia was then governed by James Oglethorpe who had founded the colony in 1732. It was a highly militarized colony and clashes with neighboring Spanish Florida and its fortress city of St. Augustine were common. In one of these clashes in 1740, during the War of Jenkins' Ear, Lachlan’s father was captured by the Spanish and held prisoner for two years. The elder McIntosh was eventually released, but his health had deteriorated during his captivity and he died a few years later. Before his death he had supported the Colony's British Board of Trustees in their opposition to the introduction of African slaves into Georgia, which was demanded by an increasing number of colonists in need of labor. This earned him the gratitude of Oglethorpe. The “Mòr” of his title is Scots Gaelic for “big”.