#142: The General Lachlan McIntosh House on East Oglethorpe Avenue

"And to this your ruling passion of love for your country it is that we owe the opportunity now afforded of congratulating you on your safe arrival in the City of Savannah."

—Nobel Wimberly Jones, Lachlan McIntosh, Joseph Clay,

The General Lachlan McIntosh House on East Oglethorpe Avenue

In May 1791, the First President of The United States of America, George Washington, arrived in Savannah as part of the southern extension of his tour of the entire country. Only two months earlier, Vermont became the fourteenth state admitted to the Union, expanding the original Thirteen Colonies that had joined together and heroically fought off the British Empire to win its independence.

Only nine years before President Washington's visit, the British abandoned Savannah soon after the surrender of Lord Cornwallis at the Battle of Yorktown in October 1781.

Included in the committee of distinguished Savannahian citizens welcoming the President to the city, General Lachlan McIntosh had arrived in Savannah in 1736 as a young boy and came of age when the Georgia Colony required his services in its defense against the Spanish in Florida.

McIntosh's father was captured and imprisoned by the Spanish in 1740 and died of his injuries soon after. Following his father's death, young Lachlan McIntosh went to live at the Bethesda Orphanage, only recently founded by evangelist George Whitefield.

Two years later, joining his older brother William, Lachlan McIntosh left the Bethesda Orphanage at the personal request of General James Oglethorpe to become a cadet at nearby Fort Frederica. The fort is now a National Monument located on St. Simons Island, Georgia. Between 1736 and 1748, Oglethorpe built the fort to protect the fledgling Georgian Colony against any Spanish encroachment from the south. The fort was named after Frederick, Prince of Wales and son of King George II. However, the name was feminized to distinguish the military installation from Fort Frederick in South Carolina.

McIntosh moved to Charles Town (now Charleston), South Carolina, in 1748, becoming an aid to wealthy merchant and slave trader Henry Laurens. He returned to Savannah in the mid-1750s to purchase land and enslaved Africans to work it. He became a prosperous rice planter along the Altamaha River, eventually becoming a leader in the movement for Independence in Georgia.

By 1776, McIntosh organized the defense of Georgia and fought the Royal Navy during The Battle of the Rice Boats on the Savannah River. He was soon promoted to Brigadier General in the Continental Army, charged with defending Georgia's southern flank against British incursions from Florida.

Rivalries flourished among factions seeking authority and leadership among the rebels who inhabited Georgia to oppose the British. A more radical faction led by Button Gwinnett accused General McIntosh and his family members of being Tories. When Gwinnett became the leader of the Georgian Colony, he had both of Lachlan's brothers, William and George, arrested for treason.

The jealous rivalry resulted in a pistol duel between the two leaders in May 1977. Both men were wounded. Button Gwinnett died from his wounds three days later, which forced McIntosh to leave Georgia. He soon joined George Washington at Valley Forge, serving during the brutal Winter of 1778.

While visiting Savannah, President Washington stayed in General McIntosh's home. Constructed in 1770, the General Lachlan McIntosh House on East Oglethorpe Avenue may be the oldest brick residence in Georgia. General McIntosh died in 1806. You can find his grave down the street from his home in Savannah Historic District in Colonial Park Cemetery (see PFS-84 and PFS-85).