Henry Middleton, rice planter, politician and diplomat, was born in London, September 28, 1770, the son of Mary Izard and Arthur Middleton. As a young man, he traveled extensively in England and on the European continent before embarking on a political career as South Carolina Governor, U.S. Congressman and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of St. Petersburg.
Although well taught at home by tutors, the Revolution and his father’s early death in 1787 prevented his attending a university. Nevertheless, he was carefully groomed to take up the responsibility for public service inherent to his family. His uncles Charles Cotesworth Pinckney and Edward Rutledge sent him north in 1790 to obtain “a thorough Knowledge of . . . his own country,” as they wrote in letters of introduction to Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. Traveling to Europe later, Henry was in post-revolutionary Paris at the time of the controversial XYZ affair that strained relations between the France and the United States. Pinckney, was one of the American diplomats who left France after refusing to give a bribe to the French Foreign Minister.
In 1794 he married Mary Helen Hering, daughter of a British Army Captain, in England. On returning to South Carolina with his wife and three young sons, he took up the management of his family’s properties. An avid horticulturalist, Henry Middleton enlarged his grandfather’s gardens. He was a friend of André Michaux, the famous French botanist who introduced many exotic plants to America. Michaux visited Middleton Place, bringing with him the first camellias to be planted in an American garden. The Library in the Middleton Place House contains Thomas Walter’s Flora Caroliniana (1788) with Middleton’s notation, “NB: This was Michaux’s copy.”
He soon began a long career in politics, being elected to the State House of Representatives in 1802. His career went on to include tenure as State Senator, Governor of South Carolina, and member of the U.S. House of Representatives. During James Monroe’s tour of the South in 1819, Middleton hosted the President at Middleton Place.
Henry’s public life continued in early 1820 when President Monroe appointed him Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Russia. Fluent in French, the diplomatic language of the time, and familiar with Europe as well as knowledgeable about national affairs, he was well suited for the assignment. Henry Middleton, his wife, and several of their ten children left for Russia anticipating the normal stay of two or three years. Instead they stayed ten, during which time Middleton proved himself to be an adroit and able diplomat.
Returning home in 1830, Henry was diligent in managing the rice plantations that were the source of the family’s income. Henry Middleton died on June 14, 1846, in Charleston, where he was accorded a public funeral with military honors before being taken to Middleton Place for burial.
Henry Middleton’s children surviving to adulthood were:
- ARTHUR (1795-1853): Harvard graduate, lawyer and diplomat. Married, 1821, Anne Van Ness of Washington, D.C.; married second, 1841, Paolina, Countess Bentivoglio, in Rome, Italy.
- HENRY (1797-1892): Graduate of West Point, engineer and lawyer. Married, 1858, Ellen Goggin
- OLIVER HERRING (1798-1892): Attended South Carolina College, then midshipman, U.S. Navy, resigned and turned to planting. Married, 1828, Susan Chisolm of Edisto Island.
- JOHN IZARD (1800-1877): Graduated, Princeton. Married, 1828, Sarah McPherson Alston, became a Waccamaw River planter; Signer of the South Carolina Ordinance of Secession.
- MARIA HENRIETTA (1802-1838): Married, 1834, Edward Jenkins Pringle; entire family was lost in the explosion at sea of the steamship Pulaski in 1838.
- ELEANOR (1804-1826): Died in Dt. Petersburg, Russia.
- WILLAMS (1809-1883): See separate page
- EDWARD (1810-1883): School in England and Paris, then U.S. Navy; remained naval officer during the Civil War. As a Federal Officer, he was helpful to the family in paving the way for reclaiming property, etc. in the immediate post-war period. Married, 1845, Edwardina de Normann; married second, 1865, Ellida Juel Davison.
- CATHERINE (1812-1894): In school in England during most of parents’ time in Russia.
- ELIZABETH, or ELIZA (1815-1890): With Catherine attended school in England. Married, 1839, Joshua Francis Fisher of Philadelphia. Following the Civil War, the Fishers offered their Middleton relatives a great deal of help, financial and otherwise, and were responsible to a considerable degree for Williams’ holding on to Middleton Place rather than abandoning it.