Four primary documents from the South Carolina judge who signed against his loyalist father's wishes, presided over loyalist treason trials, was captured at Charleston, and outlasted every other South Carolina signer.
Thomas Heyward Jr. was born July 28, 1746 at Old House Plantation in St. Helena Parish, South Carolina. He received a classical education and completed his legal studies in England before returning to South Carolina and being admitted to the Charleston bar on January 22, 1771. His father, Colonel Daniel Heyward, was a loyalist who retained his allegiance to the Crown. When Thomas signed the Declaration of Independence, his father was opposed.
Heyward had joined South Carolina's resistance movement early, serving on the Committee of Ninety-Nine in 1774, the Council of Safety, and the Provincial Congress before being elected to the Second Continental Congress in 1776 to replace Christopher Gadsden. He signed the Declaration of Independence on August 2, 1776.
Heyward returned to South Carolina in 1778 after his father's death, to manage the sixteen family plantations. He signed the Articles of Confederation on behalf of South Carolina on July 9, 1778. He was appointed judge of the criminal courts of the new South Carolina government and accepted a captaincy in the Charleston Artillery Company of the South Carolina Militia.
In his judicial capacity, Heyward presided over the trials of several men charged with treason for corresponding with the British Army. The verdicts affirmed their guilt and the executions were carried out. This made Heyward specifically obnoxious to the British government, a fact that shaped what happened when Charleston fell.
Thomas Heyward Jr. · Signer of the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation · Judge of the criminal courts of South Carolina · Captain of the Charleston Artillery Company · Captured at the Siege of Charleston, May 1780 · Imprisoned at St. Augustine, Florida · Released July 1781.
On May 12, 1780, British forces under General Henry Clinton accepted the surrender of Charleston, the largest American military defeat of the Revolution. Heyward was captured at the head of his artillery battalion. He was one of three South Carolina signers of the Declaration taken prisoner at Charleston, alongside Edward Rutledge and Arthur Middleton.
The three were transported to St. Augustine, Florida and held at the British fort there. Heyward was held until July 1781. During his imprisonment his plantation was plundered by the British, who carried off all of his enslaved workers. His first wife Elizabeth died the year he was released, having rushed to meet him following his exchange.
Heyward was released in a prisoner exchange in July 1781 and returned to Philadelphia before making his way back to South Carolina. He was elected to the Fourth General Assembly in 1782, supported the federal Constitution at the South Carolina ratifying convention in 1788, and served on the subsequent state constitutional convention. He retired from public life in 1790 to his White Hall Plantation in St. Luke's Parish.
He was the last of the four South Carolina signers to survive. He died March 6, 1809, at sixty-two, at Old House, South Carolina. He is buried at the Heyward Family Cemetery at Old House. His papers are at the South Carolina Historical Society in Charleston.