Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Born: August 5, 1749
Died: lost at sea in 1779
Colony/State: South Carolina
Occupation / Public Role: Planter, military officer, delegate to the Continental Congress
Contribution to the Founding Era: Delegate to the Continental Congress, signer of the Declaration of Independence, one of the youngest signers, and the only signer to serve in Congress as the son of another Continental delegate.
Thomas Lynch, Jr. was born in Prince George’s Parish, Winyah, South Carolina, into a prominent planter family. He was educated at Eton and Cambridge, and also studied law at the Middle Temple in London before returning to South Carolina in 1772. After coming home, he became a planter on the North Santee River and entered the colony’s public life.
Before independence, Lynch became active in South Carolina’s revolutionary movement. He served in the First and Second Provincial Congresses of South Carolina from 1774 to 1776, was a member of the constitutional committee in 1776, and also served in the South Carolina state general assembly in 1776. He also held a military role, serving as a captain in the First South Carolina Regiment of the Continental Line before his election to Congress.
Lynch entered the Second Continental Congress in 1776, effectively replacing his father, Thomas Lynch, who was too ill to continue serving. He signed the Declaration of Independence as one of South Carolina’s four signers. The National Constitution Center notes that he was one of the youngest signers of the Declaration, and the House history office records that he was born in 1749, making him just 26 when he signed.
His public career was cut short by illness. The House history office states that Lynch did not seek reelection to the Continental Congress owing to ill health. In 1779, he and his wife set out on an ocean voyage to the south of France, hoping the trip would help restore his health, but their ship was lost at sea and they were never seen again.
Thomas Lynch, Jr. is one of the more tragic figures among the signers. He was young, well educated, politically connected, and positioned for a long public career, but history cut him off early. He signed the Declaration, served the Revolutionary cause, and then vanished into the Atlantic before he could grow old enough to become one of the long-shadow founders. That is a hard, strange ending for a man whose name sits on one of the nation’s central documents.
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- Declaration of Independence
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