John Mullryne (died 6 January 1786) was a

British Army The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...

colonel who established

Bonaventure Plantation Bonaventure Plantation was a plantation founded in colonial Savannah, Province of Georgia, on land now occupied by Greenwich and Bonaventure cemeteries. The site was , including a plantation house and private cemetery, located on the Wilmingto ...

Savannah A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) biome and ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach th ...

Province of Georgia The Province of Georgia (also Georgia Colony) was one of the Southern Colonies in colonial-era British America. In 1775 it was the last of the Thirteen Colonies to support the American Revolution. The original land grant of the Province of G ...

, in 1761. A supporter of

the Crown The Crown is a political concept used in Commonwealth realms. Depending on the context used, it generally refers to the entirety of the State (polity), state (or in federal realms, the relevant level of government in that state), the executive ...

, he later drew the ire of the

colonists A settler or a colonist is a person who establishes or joins a permanent presence that is separate to existing communities. The entity that a settler establishes is a settlement. A settler is called a pioneer if they are among the first settli ...

after aiding (with the help of his son-in-law Josiah Tattnall Sr.) the escape of James Wright, the British royal governor of the Province of Georgia, through his property during the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which Am ...

."BONAVENTURE: A HISTORICAL SKETCH"
-

Telfair Museums Telfair Museums, in the historic district of Savannah, Georgia, was the first public art museum in the Southern United States. Founded through the bequest of Mary Telfair (1791–1875), a prominent local citizen, and operated by the Georgia His ...

, July 27, 2018

Early life

Mullryne was born in

Montserrat Montserrat ( , ) is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean. It is part of the Leeward Islands, the northern portion of the Lesser Antilles chain of the West Indies. Montserrat is about long and wide, wit ...

in the

Windward Islands The Windward Islands are the southern, generally larger islands of the Lesser Antilles of the Caribbean islands or the West Indies. Located approximately between latitudes 10° and 16° N and longitudes 60° and 62° W, they extend from D ...

but emigrated to

Beaufort, South Carolina Beaufort ( , different from that of Beaufort, North Carolina) is a city in Beaufort County, South Carolina, United States, and its county seat. Chartered in 1711, it is the second-oldest city in South Carolina, behind Charleston, South Carolina ...

, where he became a successful merchant. He married Claudia Cattell on 23 October 1735 in Montserrat. Their youngest daughter, Mary (1741–1781),''The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine'', Vol. 14, No. 1 (Jan., 1913), pp. 3-19 (17 pages)
D. E. Huger Smith married Josiah Tattnall Sr. They had another daughter, Catharine. In 1762, around a year after purchasing the land that became

, Mullryne had built a

plantation house A plantation house is the main house of a plantation, often a substantial farmhouse, which often serves as a symbol for the plantation as a whole. Plantation houses in the Southern United States and in other areas are known as quite grand and ...

for his family on the property. The first house, made of English brick, was destroyed by a fire on 7 January 1771.''Tombstones I Have Known'', Lamar Weaver, Charaman M. Campbell, 2001
/ref>

John Berendt John Berendt (born December 5, 1939) is an American author, known for writing the best-selling non-fiction book '' Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil'', which was a finalist for the 1995 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction, and '' The Ci ...

wrote in his 1994 book ''

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil ''Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil'' is a non-fiction novel by John Berendt. The book, Berendt's first, was published on January 10, 1994, and follows the story of Jim Williams, an antiques dealer on trial for the killing of Danny Hansf ...

'' that a formal dinner party, held by either Mullryne or Tattnall,''Historic Bonaventure Cemetery: Photographs from the Collection of the Georgia Historical Society'', Arcadia Publishing (1998)
/ref> was in progress when one of the servants informed the host that the roof was ablaze and that nothing could be done to stop it. The host "rose calmly, clinked his glass, and invited guests to pick up their dinner plates and follow him into the garden", where they ate the remainder of their meals in the glow of the flames. The house was replaced by a brick mansion.Bonaventure Plantation
- SavannahGA.gov By the end of 1771, Mullryne and Tattnall owned around of land in Georgia. In February 1776, during the early stages of the Revolutionary War, Mullryne and Tattnall declared their loyalty to

George III George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 173829 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and King of Ireland, Ireland from 25 October 1760 until his death in 1820. The Acts of Union 1800 unified Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain and ...

by assisting in the escape to

Cockspur Island Cockspur Island is an island in the south channel of the Savannah River near Lazaretto Creek, northwest of Tybee Island, Georgia, United States. Most of the island is within the boundaries of Fort Pulaski National Monument. The island was so ...

of Georgia's newly ousted royal governor, James Wright, to the HMS ''Scarborough'' by way of their land in

Thunderbolt A thunderbolt or lightning bolt is a symbolic representation of lightning when accompanied by a loud thunderclap. In Indo-European mythology, the thunderbolt was identified with the 'Sky Father'; this association is also found in later Hel ...

. For this, the pair had the Bonaventure estate confiscated by the Revolutionary government in 1782 and sold at public auction to

John Habersham John Habersham (December 23, 1754 – December 17, 1799) was an American merchant, planter, and soldier from Georgia. He was the son of loyalist official James Habersham, the younger brother of patriot leader Joseph Habersham. They were bo ...

, a friend of the Tattnalls, who sold the property in 1788 to Josiah Tattnall Jr., who had married two years earlier. Mullryne and Tattnall fled the colonies and were told never to return, or face death.

Death

Mullryne died on 6 January 1786 in

Nassau, Bahamas Nassau ( ) is the capital and largest city of The Bahamas. It is on the island of New Providence, which had a population of 246,329 in 2010, or just over 70% of the entire population of The Bahamas. As of April 2023, the preliminary results of ...

. His burial location, if there was one, is unknown, but it is understood that no Mullryne is buried in either Bonaventure Cemetery or Greenwich Cemetery; there is a Mullryne Way in the former cemetery, however.

References

; {{DEFAULTSORT:Mullryne, John 1786 deaths 18th-century British Army personnel People of Georgia (U.S. state) in the American Revolution Military personnel from Beaufort, South Carolina Montserratian businesspeople Military personnel from Savannah, Georgia People from Nassau, Bahamas