William Wragg (1714 - 1777)

Born 1714 in South Carolina

Ancestors

Descendants

Died 3 Sep 1777 at about age 63 in At sea

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Biography

William Wragg, a South Carolina born attorney, legislator, and plantation owner, practiced law in England but returned to South Carolina circa 1750. Wragg's first wife was Mary Wood (d. 1767). He married second his cousin Henrietta Wragg (1737-1802), and their children were William Wragg (d. 1803), Henrietta Wragg (who married Rev. Milward Pogson), Elizabeth Wragg, and Charlotte Wragg (who married William Loughton Smith). William Wragg Smith (1808-1875) was the son of William Loughton Smith and Charlotte Wragg.

William Wragg holds an interesting place in loyalist history. He is the only civilian participant in the American Revolution to be memorialized within London's Westminster Abbey. Within the same hallowed walls lie the bodies of General Burgoyne and the British spy John André, but a plantation owner from South Carolina is the lone American loyalist to have his name engraved in the abbey.

Wragg was born in 1714 in Charleston, South Carolina to the merchant Samuel Wragg and his Huguenot wife, Marie DuBose. Three years after his birth, William's father bought a 12,000-acre plantation, naming it Ashley Barony. Samuel Wragg was not always supervising his many slaves in the fields as he also had to oversee his transatlantic trading company. One such business journey threatened to be the end of both the plantation owner and his young son.

Four year-old William was no doubt thrilled to be sailing with his father on the Crowley in May, 1718. However, when when the ship was just off of Charleston, it was attacked by pirates who were blockading the city's harbour. And not just any buccaneers -- these men were led by Captain Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard, the scourge of the seas. His ship, the Queen Anne's Revenge, and three others had already plundered four colonial merchant ships when they boarded the Wraggs' ship.

Teach had all of the Crowley's 80 passengers thrown into the hold, including little William. Locked in the dark and cramped quarters, none of the hostages had any reason to believe they would live another day. Samuel Wragg tried to negotiate the release of Blackbeard's captives, finally convincing the pirate that they could be exchanged for ransom. Oddly enough, Captain Teach's only demand was for a chest of medicine. (Besides suffering from the wounds of battle, some of Blackbeard's crew had contracted malaria and syphilis.)

Samuel Wragg volunteered to go ashore and procure the chest. He offered to leave little William behind as a guarantee that he would return. (No doubt his four year-old son was still down in the hold when his father proposed such an alarming arrangement.) Blackbeard did not let Samuel leave his son; he recognized that the wealthy merchant was too strategic a passenger to release, and so he sent another hostage to secure the needed medicine.

After days went by and no drugs were delivered to his ship, Blackbeard threatened to have Wragg killed and then ransack Charleston. He ordered his small flotilla to sail for the undefended city. Men quickly took up muskets to ward off the pirates while women and children desperately sought out hiding places. In the end, a chest containing £300- 400's worth of medicine was sent out to the Queen Anne's Revenge. Satisfied, Blackbeard stripped the Crowley's passengers of most of their clothes and had them put ashore where they were forced to walk through the woods back to Charleston.

Miraculously, little four year-old William Wragg survived his imprisonment and the long walk to Charleston. Unabashed by his encounter with Blackbeard, he once again boarded a sailing ship a few years later, this time to receive an English education. He attended Westminster School, Middle Temple and then Oxford University. (Did he persuade any of his school mates that he had actually been held hostage by the pirate Blackbeard?)

After a short time in the legal profession, Wragg returned to South Carolina. He married Mary Wood, and the couple had two daughters. The speaker of South Carolina's House of Assembly, John Matthews, made Miss Mary Wragg his wife in 1766; Judith Wragg would marry an English soldier in the Prince of Wales Regiment in 1781. At the death of his father in 1750, Wragg became one of the wealthiest men in South Carolina and the lord of the family's massive estate.

A later writer described the new master of Ashley Barony as "a man of lofty character, highly respected, and of abundant fortune". He was one "who dared to differ with his people and to sacrifice everything for the truest of all liberty, the liberty of his own conscience".

Political Career

Had he not involved himself in the politics of South Carolina, the most exciting time in Wragg's life would have been his days as a child hostage of Blackbeard. However, the storm clouds of the American Revolution were beginning to gather on the horizon. Wragg was appointed to the colony's Royal Council, but by 1756 he had become involved in a power struggle over whether the council or the colony's assembly should control the tax office. The new governor of the colony suspended Wragg for being "the chief incendiary" in the dispute.

Over the succeeding years, his sense of duty led Wragg to defend British policies, creating many enemies within the rebel faction. He put his loyalist views into print in 1769 with the publishing of "Reasons for Not Concurring in the Non-Importation Resolution".

In 1774, the rebels of South Carolina declared that the 60 year-old Wragg was "inimical to the liberties of the Colonies" and confined him to Ashley Barony. In July of 1777, the revolutionary council banished him for refusing to take an oath of allegiance to the rebel cause.

Leaving Henrietta and his daughters behind, Wragg boarded the Commerce for England. His son Billy and African slave Tom were his only company. What was supposed to be a transatlantic journey to the safety of Europe would prove to be yet another tragic voyage for a travelling Wragg father and son.^[1]

Birth

Date: 1714

Place: Charleston, South Carolina

Father: Samuel Wragg (abt 1690-30 Nov 1750)

Mother: Marie (DuBosc) DuBose (abt 1692)

Education

He atttended Westminster School, Middle Temple and then Oxford University in England.

Marriage

Spouse: Mary Wood (ABT 1716 -16 Dec 1767)

Date:

Place:

Children:

Mary Wragg: (abt 1746-bef 5 May 1799)

+John Matthews (Gov)

The speaker of South Carolina's House of Assembly, John Matthews, made Miss Mary Wragg his wife in 1766;

Judith Wragg: Wragg (abt 1750-)

+John (Maj) Carden (abt 1750-)

She would marry an English soldier in the Prince of Wales Regiment in 1781

Spouse 2: Henrietta Wragg (second cousin) 1737-1802)

Date: 1769

Children:

William Wragg (1766-1768 ? – 1803)

uknown Wragg (abt 1770)

Henrietta Wragg (bef 1770 and 1778)

Married Rev Milward Pogson

Elizabeth Wragg (bef 30 Apr 1773-1825)

Charlotte Wragg (bef 1770 and 1778– )

Married WIlliam Loughton Smith

Child: William Wragg Smith (1808-1875)

. His new wife, Henrietta, was 23 years his junior and the daughter of his uncle Joseph Wragg. Over the next eight years they had four children: William, Henrietta, Elizabeth, and Charlotte.

Occupation

Lawyer

Death

Place: At Sea: Shipwrecked

Date: 03 Sep, 1777

Location in the Abbey: South choir aisle

Type of memorial: Tablet

Type of material: Marble

Inscription

“Sacred to the memory of William Wragg Esqr. of South Carolina who when the American Colonies revolted from Great Britain inflexibly maintain’d his loyalty to the person and government of his Sovereign and was therefore compell’d to leave his distrest family and ample fortune. In his passage to England by the way of Amsterdam he was unfortunately shipwreck’d and drowned on the coast of Holland the 3rd day of September 1777. In him strong natural parts and the love of justice and humanity improved by education formed the valuable character of a good man and left those who have survived him to deplore the loss of a most tender husband, affectionate parent, kind master, and warm friend. His surviving afflicted sister in England caused this monument to be erected 1779”.</ blockquote>

The memorial consists of a mourning woman leaning on a sarcophagus and on the front is a relief of the shipwreck, with the Dutch coast shown in the background. Two small figures are shown clinging to wreckage in the water. One was Wragg’s son William and the other a slave boy (Tom Skene) who rescued him - both survived. Young William died unmarried in 1803. The carved ornaments include dolphins and shells, with the infant Neptune on a sea-lion and the infant Bacchus on a lion. The memorial is signed by the sculptor Richard Hayward.^[2]

Sources

Further Reading:

• "William Wragg: Blackbeard's captive" by Stephen Davidson
• Wragg Family Papers, 1722-1859: South Carolina Historical Society: William Wragg
• Biography of Rev Milward Pogson, author unknown, Pogson Collection, College of Charleston.

Footnotes

1. ↑ http://www.uelac.org/Loyalist-Trails/2009/Loyalist-Trails-2009.php?issue=200940. Last accessed 1/24/2015.
2. ↑ Westminster Abbey:William Wragg