Chancellor and Judge Francis Hugh Wardlaw, Born 16 December 1800, Died 29 May 1861. He was a member of the Secession Convention of 1860; he was the author of the Ordinance of Secession and was one of the signers.
Francis H. Wardlaw, son of James Wardlaw and Hannah Clarke Wardlaw, was born at Abbeville Court House, S. C., December 16th, 1800; was baptized by Rev. Robert P. Wilson, of the Presbyterian Church; went to the common English schools of Abbeville, taught by Francis Walker, William Sadler, Flinn, Clary, Hooper, James Curry, and Thomas Fulton. In 1812 he went to Willington, in Abbeville District, and there attended for two years Dr. Waddell's famous Classical Academy. He spent the year 1815 at home at Abbeville Court House, in studying arithmetic, algebra, trigonometry, and surveying, under Captain William Robertson, and in writing in the Clerk's office under his father, then Clerk of the Court for Abbeville District. He entered the South Carolina College April 13th, 1816, and graduated with first honor of his class in December, 1818. Read law in the office of A. Bowie, Esq., at Abbeville Court House, and was admitted to practice law at Charleston, January, 1822, and equity at Columbia, May, 1822. He settled at Edgefield near the end of February, 1822, and practiced law there in partnership with Whitfield Brooks until the fall of 1825; with William Garrett from 1826 to 1828; with D. L. Wardlaw from 1831 to 1841, and with William C. Morange from 1841 to 1846; was editor of a newspaper at Edgefield from March, 1829, to the spring of 1832; elected to the State Convention from Edgefield in 1832, and to the House of representatives of South Carolina Legislature in 1834 and 1838; was partner of R. H. Spann's in 1850; was elected Chancellor December 3rd, 1850, and Judge in the Court of Appeals December 21st, 1859; delegate from Edgefield in the conventions of 1852 and 1860, being one of only four or five persons who were members of all three conventions above mentioned; 1832, 1852, and 1860.
He was married at "Airville" near Hamburg, in Edgefield District Wednesday evening, April 22nd, 1835, to Ann Gresham Lamar, daughter of Thomas Gresham Lamar and Martha Leland Cary, by Rev. Henry Reid, Presbyterian minister from Augusta. By this union he had seven children, three of whom died young. One son, Lieutenant T. Lamar Wardlaw, was killed at Fort Moultrie, July 17th, 1862, another son, Francis H. Wardlaw, died December 5th, 1887, at Edgefield where he was practicing law. One son and one daughter only are now living, Mrs. J. W. Hill, of Edgefield, and J. Lewis Wardlaw, of Fairfield County. Chancellor Wardlaw died at Columbia in the house of Major Theodore Stark, May 29th, 1861, and was buried at Edgefield Court House, South Carolina.