Dr. John Moultrie, a physician, illustrates the sometimes painful divisions within families that civil war and revolution can cause. The older brother of General William Moultrie (see William Moultrie), John Moultrie studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh, and became the first native South Carolina physician to practice in the colony. A Justice of the Peace, member of the Commons House of Assembly, and a major in the militia, he also raised indigo, manufactured turpentine, and was appointed to an executive post in East Florida by the Crown in 1771. Though his brother became a revolutionary hero, Dr. Moultrie remained loyal to the King and Parliament of England. When, by the Treaty of 1783, England ceded Florida back to Spain, Moultrie was forced to leave, and he lived out the rest of his life in England. Portrait by Philip Reinagel (1749-1883), about 1790.
Courtesy of the Gibbes Museum of Art/Carolina Art Association.
