Background
James Habersham was born in 1712, in Beverley, Yorkshire, England, the son of James and Elizabeth Habersham, and was baptized on June 26 (or January 26), 1715.
(A ct of Congress, in the you 1869, BY WH. BLCON STEVENS, ...)
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James Habersham was born in 1712, in Beverley, Yorkshire, England, the son of James and Elizabeth Habersham, and was baptized on June 26 (or January 26), 1715.
As a young man James Habersham migrated in 1738 to the infant colony of Georgia, the settlement of which had been begun under James Edward Oglethorpe only five years before. Habersham came to the colony in the ship that brought his friend George Whitefield, the evangelist, successor of John Wesley in Georgia, to establish an orphanage in the new colony. Soon after their arrival Habersham opened a school for destitute children and later cooperated with Whitefield in establishing the Bethesda Orphanage, said to have been one of the first institutions of that sort in America.
When Whitefield returned to England in 1741, Habersham took charge of the orphanage.
In 1744, however, he resigned that charge to organize the firm of Harris & Habersham, the first and for years the most important commercial enterprise in the colony. The firm carried on a large trade with the Northern colonies, England, and the West Indies, exporting deer skins, rice, indigo, lumber, naval stores, and cattle. Habersham also developed large farming interests.
The proprietary government of Georgia, dominated by Oglethorpe, had forbidden the use of African slaves and sought to direct the energies of the colonists into grape growing and the production of silk. Conditions were unfavorable to these light forms of industry, however, and it became evident to many that Georgia would be forced to follow the example of South Carolina, which had found prosperity in rice production. For this purpose Whitefield and others deemed slaves necessary, and Habersham was one of the most outspoken advocates of the introduction of slaves. On this subject he wrote to the trustees of the colony in 1739. When the trustees finally yielded in 1749, Habersham rapidly developed rice plantations.
Just before the Revolution he owned 198 slaves and was producing about seven hundred barrels of rice annually, from which he received an income of some $10, 000.
In the new government adopted for Georgia after the colony became a royal province upon the resignation of the trustees or proprietors in 1752, Habersham was appointed a councillor and secretary of the province (1754); in 1767 he became president of the upper house of the General Assembly.
When James Wright, the governor, left the province on leave of absence in 1771, Habersham replaced him as "President and Commander-in-Chief of his Majesty’s Province of Georgia, Chancellor, ViceAdmiral, and Ordinary of the same for the time being. ” As acting governor, although he did not approve many of the oppressive acts of Great Britain, Habersham resolutely resisted the rising tide of revolutionary spirit, dissolving the General Assembly when it ventured to elect as speaker a man distasteful to the Crown.
His burdens as acting governor, as manager of his own extensive business and properties, and as temporary manager of Governor Wright’s eleven plantations, were too much for Habersham’s strength. On the return of the Governor in 1773 his health much impaired, went North for a change of climate, and died in 1775 in New Brunswick, New Jersey, in great distress of mind that public affairs should have taken the revolutionary turn he so much dreaded.
James Habersham is best remembered today as the first business man of Georgia and one of the largest planters of his time. He is credited with opening the first direct trade between Savannah, Georgia and London, England. Habersham was also an influential advocate for slavery in the colonies. He served as King Secretary of the Province and as President of the King's Council.
(A ct of Congress, in the you 1869, BY WH. BLCON STEVENS, ...)
A native-born Englishman and keenly appreciative of the disinterested motives which induced the British Crown and many Englishmen to accord to Georgia a measure of support wanting elsewhere, James Habersham was a stanch Loyalist in the years leading up to the Revolution. In opposition to his adult sons, Habersham remained a Loyalist during the American Revolution.
"A gentleman of property, no Liberty Boy, but a firm friend to Government and a very worthy, honest man. ” - Governor Wright
James Habersham was married on December 26, 1740, to Mary Bolton, at Bethesda, Whitefield performing the ceremony. Of the ten children born of this union, three sons survived. They were all educated at Princeton and became ardent patriots, and two of them, Joseph and John, were eminent citizens during and after the Revolutionary War.
