First elected mayor of Columbia, South Carolina
Biography by his granddaughter Sarah Tradewell McIntosh Taylor and great-granddaughter Jouett Taylor Prisley:
James was the eldest of eight children, an obvious achiever, of erratic temperament, married twice and father of thirteen children, several who did not reach adulthood, and none of the sons who did fathered children to carry on this line.
During the Reconstruction, he made no compromise with the Union. “One of the most famous members of the Columbia bar,” he was remembered in the obituary of an adult son, and as a prosecuting attorney he lost only one case. He was graduated from South Carolina College (now University of South Carolina) at age 20 in 1830 and studied law with Columbia’s notable Maxcy Gregg for whom he named a son that died in infancy.
When the South Carolina legislature granted a charter to the first militia company of “Governor’s Guards” in December 1843, prior to the Mexican War, James was elected its first captain. In 1857 he had the distinction of being Columbia’s first elected mayor, serving two terms, 1857-58 and 1858-59. Previous city leadership had been by aldermen or intendants. His portrait was hung in City Hall, and a miniature of the portrait is still in the family.
HIS DARK SIDE
There was a dark side to his nature, which was no secret in documents or family memory. The family of his first wife mentioned “a drinking problem.” He was hotheaded and known to have fought duels, which were against the law in South Carolina. Mary Boykin Chestnut, wife of a U.S. senator from the state at the beginning of the War for Southern Independence, wrote this in her Diary From Dixie on 3 June 1862:
Another account by William Gilmore Simms told of a time that Tradewell “hid out” while authorities sought to arrest him on learning that he made a challenge to duel. After two or three days a Board of Honor arranged an amicable settlement to the matter, but the original provocation to Tradewell’s honor was not stated.
Yet again Simms related the instance when a city official, William Myers, fractured Tradewell’s head with a stick. Tradewell recovered quickly but challenged Myers to a duel in North Carolina thus evading local law. Myers was generally regarded as fearless, but this time his courage failed. Tradewell and his second, Edward Young, arrived at the chosen spot and so did Myers’s second, a Major Smart, but no Myers. According to rules of the code duello, the major offered to stand for Myers, but Tradewell refused the encounter saying his grievance was only against Myers. How ironic that misery and death ensued anyhow. Young, Tradewell’s second, caught a cold so severe that he died within a few days, and his aged father shortly thereafter. Myers retired to his plantation and was not seen in Columbia for ten years. Had he flatly refused the original challenge, he would have lost no esteem of his peers as his courage was undoubted, while Tradewell was known for his irrational behavior. The incident however made history in the fortunately rare South Carolina tradition of duels. “There was never but one other known case of a backout from a duel in South Carolina,” Simms noted, “and then the poor man died of chagrin.”
James Tradewell’s granddaughter, Ella Tew Lindsay, wrote to her brother James on 14 Jul 1925: “I think Grandpa Tradewell was the best looking of all our progenitors and the least admirable. Have you ever thought, James, how brilliant he was, certainly at one time, and now there is no stone at his grave, his sons left no descendants, and their very graves are obliterated under the church.” (A floor marker was added in Washington Street Methodist Church when church expansion spread atop the graveyard.)
FIRST MARRIAGE
Tradewell married first in Nov 1832 to Elizabeth Christiana Boatwright. He was 22 years old and she was a year younger. She died in 1854 after the birth of five children: [1] [2]
Treadwell descendant Judith Allison (Aldrich) Crenshaw tells the story that in 1836, after James and Elizabeth's second child was born, that James and his brother William invested $35,000 in land about five miles from Tallahassee. William moved his family and slaves there by 1840, but there is no record that James and Elizabeth ever held residence there.
SECOND MARRIAGE
James D. Tradewell married second on 21 Feb 1856 in Columbia to Sarah Emma McCaine, in a ceremony by the Rev. C. Murchison. [6] James and Emma had eight children, four of whom died before the age of two: [7] [8] [9] [10]
UNRECONSTRUCTED CONFEDERATE
Tradewell never bowed to Union victory and reportedly refused to sign the oath of allegiance to the national government. As an officer in the Governor’s Guards as well as a practicing attorney, and therefore an officer of the courts of South Carolina, he may have been denied the privilege of allegiance had he wanted it. He therefore lost all opportunity to practice law or hold any public office.
DEATH AND BURIAL
James Douthit Tradewell died 23 Nov 1880 and was buried at Washington Street Methodist Church in Columbia. [11]
OBITUARY from the Columbia Register, 25 Nov 1880:
Burial notice from the Columbia Register, 27 Nov 1880, pg. 4:
Death notice from the Christian Neighbor, 02 Dec 1880, pg. 194:
James D. Tradewell is enumerated in the 1850 census with nine enslaved Africans Americans: [12]
See also:
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Categories: Edgefield County, South Carolina | Columbia, South Carolina | Mayors | Richland County, South Carolina, Slave Owners | Notables