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“M” is for Middleton, Arthur

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  “M” is for Middleton, Arthur [1742-1787]. Legislator, Signer of the Declaration of Independence. Middleton was educated in England at Cambridge and the Middle Temple. In 1765 he was elected to the Commons House of Assembly. In 1768 he and his wife began a three-year tour of Europe. In 1775 he re-entered politics and soon emerged as a leader within the extreme faction of the local “patriot party.” He was a member of the committee that drafted South Carolina’s first constitution and was elected a delegate to the Continental Congress. In Congress he signed the Declaration of Independence and helped frame the Articles of Confederation. He was in Charleston when it fell to the British and sent to St. Augustine as a prisoner of war. Arthur Middleton was exchanged in 1781 and returned to Congress.

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Dr. Walter Edgar has two programs on South Carolina Public Radio: Walter Edgar's Journal, and South Carolina from A to Z. Dr. Edgar received his B.A. degree from Davidson College in 1965 and his Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina in 1969. After two years in the army (including a tour of duty in Vietnam), he returned to USC as a post-doctoral fellow of the National Archives, assigned to the Papers of Henry Laurens.