Christopher Gadsden, an American statesman, born in Charleston, S. C, in 1724, died there, Aug. 28, 1805. His father having lost his large estate in play with Admiral Anson, the son engaged in mercantile business with such success as to recover it all by purchase. He was one of the boldest in denouncing British oppression from the time of the stamp act, and is said to have been the first to speak of American independence, He was a delegate to the stamp act congress, which assembled in New York in 1765, and to the first continental congress in 1774, in which he urged an immediate attack upon Gen. Gage at Boston; became senior colonel and afterward brigadier of three South Carolina regiments in 1775; was actively engaged at the siege of Charleston in 1776; was one of the framers of the constitution of South Carolina, adopted in 1778; resigned his military commission in 1779; and as lieutenant governor of the state signed the capitulation when Charleston was taken by Sir Henry Clinton in 1780. Shortly after, in violation of the terms of capitulation, he was arrested with 77 other influential public men, hurried on board a prison ship, and conveyed to St. Augustine. He alone of the prisoners refused to enter into any engagements to secure a degree of freedom on parole, and was therefore incarcerated for 42 weeks in the dungeon of the castle of St. Augustine. Being exchanged, he was sent to Philadelphia, and after his return to Charleston, as member of the state legislature, he opposed the confiscation of the property of loyalists.

He was elected governor of the state in 1782, but declined the honor, preferring to retire to private life.