Eliza Lucas Pinckney

Eliza Lucas Pinckney is famous for developing a blue dye and becoming the first woman inducted into the South Carolina Business Hall of Fame. Her story is anything but ordinary for a woman of her time. Eliza became a plantation mistress at the age of 16 in the absence of her father and is credited with perfecting indigo as a Carolinian cash crop. Later in life, her narrative intertwined with the Revolutionary War story. She was an enthusiastic supporter of the Revolution and she helped Francis Marion (the “Swamp Fox”) evade British troops by entertaining a group of them at Hampton Plantation near Georgetown. Each of her children played a part in the Revolution as well, with her two sons serving as Patriot Generals. She would eventually suffer major losses when the British looted one of her plantations. Shortly afterward, she wrote to a friend, “I have been rob[b]ed and deserted by my slaves; my property pulled to pieces, burnt and destroyed; my money of no value, my Children sick and prisoners.” When the Patriots emerged victorious, Eliza’s fortunes certainly changed for the better but luck was not on her side forever. She became ill with cancer and passed away in 1793. President George Washington volunteered to be a pallbearer at her funeral as a gesture of his respect for her. She was buried at St. Peter’s Church in Philadelphia, where she had gone for cancer treatments.