Royal Judge John Drayton

Born at Magnolia Plantation in 1713, John Drayton did not inherit Magnolia, so he purchased an adjoining tract and built Drayton Hall in 1740, later acquiring Magnolia from his nephew. In a will hastily drawn on the night he died while fleeing the British, he left Magnolia to his son Thomas and the smaller Drayton Hall tract to his son Charles. For reasons not understood, although reputed the colony's richest man, he left nothing to his oldest and most illustrious son, William Henry Drayton, a revolutionary patriot, statesman, and soldier who died while serving in the Continental Congress in Philadelphia.

South Carolina · United States