Peter Manigault

https://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/manigault-peter/

Lawyer, legislator, planter. Manigault was born on October 10, 1731, in Charleston, the only child of the wealthy merchant Gabriel Manigault and Anne Ashby. He was educated at a classical school in Charleston and served as a law apprentice under Thomas Corbett. From 1750 to 1754 he studied law in London at the Inner Temple. In 1754 Manigault returned to Charleston and established a law office. On June 8, 1755, he married Elizabeth Wragg, with whom he would have seven children, only four of whom survived infancy.

Although Manigault did not actively practice law, his legal training enabled him to pursue a political career, collect debts owed to London merchants, and manage the South Carolina business and plantation interests of absentee landowners. In 1755 Manigault was elected to the Commons House of Assembly, a position he held until he resigned in 1772. During the Stamp Act protests in 1765, he was elected Speaker of the Commons House of Assembly, and he was reelected as Speaker for seven consecutive years. One of the greatest achievements of the Commons House of Assembly during this time was the establishment of the circuit court system throughout the state in 1769.

In order to qualify to be seated in the Commons House of Assembly, one was required to “own a settled plantation of five hundred acres and ten slaves or other property to the value of one thousand pounds.” To meet these requirements, Manigault’s father deeded him 2,476.5 acres at Port Royal. In 1757 Manigault began acquiring tracts of adjoining land for working plantations. Because of his large land and slave holdings, he became one of the wealthiest men in eighteenth-century British North America. His first plantation collection combined tracts on Goose Creek from the estates of Godin and Wilson and comprised almost 1,300 acres. The Godin property was renamed Steepbrook Plantation and became Manigault’s country home. Both of these plantations were managed as one with an overseer supervising eighty-two slaves in the growing of rice, indigo, corn, peas, and potatoes and raising sheep, oxen, cattle, horses, and poultry. A second group of rice plantations on the Santee River, Mount Ann or Manigault’s Ferry and Gab Mount or Gaymount, consisted of 2,316 acres employing 110 slaves and included a private ferry across the Santee River. The third major working plantation, Mount Harriet, was created at the confluence of the Congaree and Wateree Rivers. He also owned numerous, smaller tracts of land. According to his 1774 probate inventory, Manigault left an estate valued at £32,737.8 sterling.

In 1772 Manigault resigned from the Commons House of Assembly due to his and his wife’s health problems. After his wife died in February 1773, he returned to England to try to regain his health, which was declining. Manigault died in England on November 12, 1773, and his body was returned to Charleston for burial in the family vault of the Huguenot Church.

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Peter Manigault (son of Gabriel Manigault and Anne Ashby) was born 10 October 1731 in Charleston, South Carolina, and died 12 November 1773 in London, England. He married Elizabeth Wragg on 08 June 1755 in Charleston, South Carolina, daughter of Joseph Wragg and Judith DuBose. He is buried in the family plot at the French Protestant Huguenot Cemetery in Charleston.

Children of Peter Manigault and Elizabeth Wragg are:

• Gabriel Manigault, b. March 17, 1758 in Charleston and died November 4, 1809 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Married Margaret Izard.
• Anne Manigault, b. October 9, 1767 in Charleston and died August 4, 1811. Married Col. Thomas Middleton.
• Josehp Manigault, born October 19, 1763 in Charleston and died June 5, 1843 in Charleston. Married Maria Henrietta Middleton.
• Judith Manigault, b. January 5, 1765 and died May 10, 1765.
• Peter Manigualt, b. January 30, 1766 and died August 25, 1766
• Elizabeth Manigault, b. October 12, 1767 and died January 14, 1768 in Charleston.
• Henrietta Manigault, b. 21 April 1769, Charleston, South Carolina, d. 28 June 1827. Married Nathaniel Heyward.

Links to additional material:

• http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/f/o/s/John-Cantzon-Foste...
• http://www.e-familytree.net/F213/F213230.htm

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Speaker of the South Carolina House of Assembly on three occasions.