Charles Pinckney (South Carolina chief justice)


Charles Pinckney was a noted South Carolina politician and colonial agent. He was also the father of two candidates for Vice-President and President. For four presidential elections in a row, from 1796 to 1808, one of his sons would receive votes in the Electoral College.

Early life

Pinckney was born in Charleston South Carolina in 1699. He was the uncle of Colonel Charles Pinckney and the great-uncle of Governor Charles Pinckney.

Career

Pinckney studied law in England, and had become a politically active leader in the colony. He was South Carolina's first native-born attorney, and served as advocate general of the Court of Vice-Admiralty, justice of the peace for Berkeley County, and attorney general. He was elected as a member of the Commons House of Assembly and Speaker of that body intermittently from 1736–1740, and he was a member of the Royal Provincial Council.
Pinckney also served as attorney general of the Province of South Carolina in 1733, speaker of the assembly in 1736, 1738 and 1740, chief justice of the province in 1752-1753, and agent for South Carolina in England in 1753-1758.

Personal life

In 1744, Pinckney married, as his second wife, Eliza Lucas, the daughter of Lt. Colonel George Lucas, of Dalzell's Regiment of Foot in the British Army. They were the parents of four children, three of whom lived to adulthood:
Pinckney died on October 29, 1758 in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina.