Prominent Family Members 

MICHAEL DRAYTON
(1563-1631)

Michael Drayton was born at Hartshill in Warwickshire in 1563 and as a youth he became page to Sir Henry Goodeere of Polesworth. Goodeere is to be credited for Drayton's education. Drayton fell in love with Sir Henry's daughter, Anne, who served as an inspiration for 'Idea'.

Drayton's career as a poet was long: from his first published work in 1591 to his last in 1630. Drayton constantly revised his works, rewriting and reissuing them, sometimes under different titles. His first published work was Harmonie of the Church (1591), a metrical rendering of scriptural passages, rife with alliteration. Soon thereafter Drayton, a disciple of Edmund Spenser, wrote Idea, the Shepherd's Garland (1593), consisting of nine eclogues, or pastoral verse dialogues. Drayton revised and reissued it in 1606.

One of Drayton's finest works, England's Heroical Epistles (1597), a collection of verse letters by lovers, earned Drayton the title of 'our English Ovid'. The work was in the model of Ovid's Heroides, but instead of mythological lovers, Drayton's lovers were figures from English history.

Drayton's only extant play, The First Part of Sir John Oldcastle (1600), played on the popularity of Falstaff from Shakespeare's plays, with whom he was friends with. It may have been collaboration, like the now lost plays of which only records survive.  

In 1627 appeared The Battle of Agincourt, an attempt at epic, The Miseries of Queen Margaret, and Nymphidia, the Court of Fairy, Drayton's most popular work. Nymphidia is a mock-heroic series of fairy poems, or 'Nimphalls'1, much influenced by Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Drayton's last published work, The Muses' Elizium, is a return to the pastoral. Michael Drayton died in London on December 2, 1631. He was buried in Westminster Abbey under a monument with an epitaph by Ben Jonson commissioned by the Countess of Dorset.

ROYAL CHIEF JUSTICE WILLIAM DRAYTON
(1732 - 1790)

Born at Magnolia Plantation he spent his early youth being educated in England and like many others, received his legal training at one of the Inns of Court in England. In 1755 he was called to the English bar. A year later he returned to South Carolina, where he was for six years a member of the assembly, and gained considerable knowledge of public business from his intimacy with Governor Lyttleton, whom for a time he assisted as private secretary. In 1765, on the death of the first chief justice of East Florida, another Carolinian named James Moultrie, Governor Grant appointed Drayton temporarily to the position and to the Council, and recommended him for the permanent appointment. His warm recommendation, therefore, must have been the result of advice from friends; he referred to Drayton as an excellent man who would be a great acquisition to the province. The place, however, went to another. At this time Drayton moved with his family to St. Augustine, where he took a house on the bay front.  He became a considerable landowner in the province and was later appointed by President Washington as a First Judge of the United States District Court. A prolific writer as a jurist, he once wrote, Change starts when someone sees the next step.

WILLIAM HENRY DRAYTON
(1742 – 1779)

Born next door to Magnolia Plantation at Drayton Hall in 1742, William Henry Drayton contributed much to the history and cause of freedom as a citizen of South Carolina. His contributions continue to affect us to this day from the South Carolina Constitution, the South Carolina Great Seal, the Declaration of Independence, and the tradition of celebrating the 4th of July with fireworks. Here are a few of the significant accomplishments and contributions by William Henry Drayton

• In the year 1774, William wrote a pamphlet as “Freeman”, entitled Letter from Freeman of South Carolina to the Deputies of North American Assembled in the High Court of Congress at Philadelphia which was addressed to the American Congress. In this missive he stated the grievances of America, and drew up a bill of American rights.  This was well received and substantially chalked out the line of conduct adopted by Congress which was then in session.
• Drayton's outspoken views made him one of the leading Whigs in the colony. Drayton was selected as a member of the Provincial Congress in 1775. He also had the critical responsibility of planning the colony's defense. As the most radical member of the revolutionary faction in Charleston, Drayton led raids against the city's royal post office and armories, thereby obtaining both crucial information regarding the intentions of the British ministry and arms for the patriot forces.
• Later that same year he was elected as president of the South Carolina Provincial Congress which oversaw the creation of the state constitution and formation of the first official government of South Carolina after breaking off from England.
• In the capacity of president of the South Carolina Provincial Congress, he issued the first order that was given in South Carolina for the firing on British forces on November 9th, 1775.
• In February of 1776, five months before the thirteen American colonies would formally declare their independence; William Henry Drayton became the first prominent South Carolinian to openly call for a break from England.
• During his tenure as president of the provincial congress, he oversaw the formation of South Carolina’s first independently adopted constitution.  On March 26, 1776, William Henry Drayton signed his name to the document.  This made South Carolina only the second colony to officially establish an independent form of government after New Hampshire, which had adopted a temporary constitution only two months earlier
• William Henry Drayton would be appointed to design one of the two sides of the South Carolina State Seal with Arthur Middleton.
• As the new legislature took control of the state’s government, William Henry Drayton was rewarded for his work by being appointed as the first Chief Justice of the South Carolina courts as well as being appointed to the Privy Council.  He was also elected to the legislature by the voters in the Saxe-Gotha district.  This made William Henry Drayton the only man at the time to have a voice in all three branches of government.
• In 1778 Drayton was elected to the Second Continental Congress.
• Drayton spent time at Valley Forge with General Washington while investigating the corruption of the commissary department. Became friends with Washington and von Steuben.
• Proposed to the Continental Congress in 1779 that the 4th of July be celebrated by a great feast followed by a great display of fireworks. A tradition that continues to this day.
• In February of 2006, William Henry Drayton was inducted into the South Carolina Hall of Fame.

GOVERNOR JOHN DRAYTON
(1766 – 1822 )

John Drayton served as governor of South Carolina from 1800-1802 and from 1808-1810. The eldest child of William Henry Drayton, he was born at Drayton Hall. He was educated at the College of New Jersey, and the Inner Temple in London between 1779 and 1785, in spite of the Revolutionary War. He served in the state House of Representatives from 1792 until 1798, when he was elected lieutenant governor. The death of Governor Edward Rutledge made him governor, a position to which he was elected in his own right in 1800. A strong supporter of education, he pushed the General Assembly to pass the act creating the South Carolina College (later becoming the University of South Carolina), and he served as the first president of its board of trustees. The first South Carolina governor to travel extensively in the Upcountry during his tenure in office, he was reelected governor in 1808 after increased representation was given to the Mountainous and Piedmont regions of the state. He was later appointed a United States District Judge by President Madison.

WILLIAM DRAYTON
(1776 - 1846)

A Representative from South Carolina, he was born in St. Augustine, Florida on December 30, 1776. He attended preparatory schools in England and upon returning to the United States in 1790 he settled in Charleston, S.C. where he studied law. He was admitted to the bar on December 12, 1797, and commenced practice in Charleston. He became a member of the State house of representatives from 1806-1808, then on the eve of war with England he entered the United States Army as lieutenant colonel of the Tenth Infantry on March 12, 1812. He soon became the colonel of the Eighteenth Infantry on July 25, 1812, followed by inspector general on August 1, 1814, and served throughout the War of 1812. Following the war he resumed the practice of law in Charleston. He was elected to the Nineteenth Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Joel R. Poinsett and reelected as a Jacksonian to the Twentieth, Twenty-first, and Twenty-second Congresses and served from May 17, 1825, to March 3, 1833. During that time he was the chairman for the Committee on Military Affairs (Twentieth through Twenty-second Congresses). He declined an appointment as the Secretary of War in the Cabinet of President Jackson and also as Minister to England. He opposed nullification in 1830 and moved to Philadelphia in August of 1833. He finally became the president of the Bank of the United States in 1840 and 1841. He died in Philadelphia on May 24, 1846 and is interred in the Laurel Hill Cemetery.

GENERAL THOMAS FENWICK DRAYTON
(1808 - 1891)

Thomas Fenwick Drayton was the most prominent of the Draytons at the outbreak of the war.  He was the son of Colonel (and Congressman) William Drayton.  Thomas Fenwick went to West Point and was a classmate and lifelong friend of Jefferson Davis.  He graduated from West Point in 1828, one year ahead of fellow classmate Robert E. Lee.  He resigned his army commission in 1836 and returned to private life, eventually serving as the president of the Charleston and Savannah railroad.  At the outbreak of the Civil War, his old friend Jefferson Davis gave him a commission as brigadier general and assigned him as the commander of the military district at Port Royal, South Carolina.  He was later given a brigade command in General James Longstreet’s Division of the Army of Northern Virginia fighting at the battles of Second Bull Run, South Mountain and Antietam.  He was late at the battle of Second Manassas in 1862, and then badly beaten in the battle of South Mountain. According to another friend, former West Point classmate and commanding General of the Army of Northern Virginia, Robert E. Lee, at the battles of South Mountain and Antietam, his brigade “broke to pieces.”  Lee had no choice but transferred him. During the war’s final two years, General Drayton served in the Trans-Mississippi Department, eventually commanding a sub district of Texas. After the war he settled in Georgia and became a farmer. He later moved to North Carolina, where he became a life-insurance salesman. He died in Florence, South Carolina on February 18, 1891.

ADMIRAL PERCIVAL DRAYTON
(1812 - 1865)

Percival Drayton was Thomas Fenwick’s brother. Both brothers had been born in Charleston, but as an adult, Percival called Philadelphia his home. Since his older brother had gone to West Point, Percival went to Annapolis.  Unlike his brother, he stayed in the military and had risen to the rank of commander in the United States Navy by 1855.  He supported the Union at the outbreak of the war in 1861 to such an extent that he insisted its preservation was worth sacrificing his Southern family ties. He was given command of the USS Pocahontas in October of 1861 and was sent to support the blockade in and around Charleston. Although Percival and Thomas Fenwick served on different sides and vastly different capacities throughout the war, they are both remembered for fighting in the battle of Port Royal during November of 1861.  Percival commanded the USS Pocahontas and during the battle actually fired on his brother who commanded the Confederate fort.  It was the only instance in the war of brothers commanding opposing forces. General Thomas Drayton unsuccessfully defended the fort against his brother and the Confederate forces were forced to withdraw from Hilton Head as a result of the battle. 

Percival Draytons skill and accomplishments as sailor and commander were eventually noticed by Rear Admiral David Farragut. Admiral Farragut promoted Percival to captain and made him his fleet captain and sailing master aboard the USS Hartford. During the battle of Mobile Bay it was Percival who was on the receiving end of perhaps the most famous quote of the war, when Admiral Farragut commanded, “Damn the torpedoes! Four bells! Captain Drayton, go ahead. Full speed!” 

After the war, Percival remained in the Navy until his untimely death on August 4th, 1865.  In both world wars the navy had a destroyer named the USS Drayton in his honor.