David Rogerson Williams

WILLIAMS, David Rogerson, a Representative from South Carolina; born in Robbins Neck, S.C., March 8, 1776; attended school at Wrentham, Mass., and Rhode Island College (now Brown University), Providence, R.I.; studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1797 and practiced for three years in Providence, R.I.; editor and proprietor of the City Gazette and Weekly Carolina Gazette of Charleston, S.C., 1801-1803; engaged in cotton planting and manufacturing in Darlington County, S.C., from 1803 until his death; built the first cottonseed-oil mill in South Carolina; elected as a Democratic Republican to the Ninth and to the succeeding Congress (March 4, 1805-March 3, 1809); elected as a Democratic Republican to the Twelfth Congress (March 4, 1811-March 3, 1813); brigadier general in the United States Army July 9, 1813, to April 6, 1814, when he resigned; Governor of South Carolina 1814-1816; member of the State senate from 1824 until he was accidentally killed November 17, 1830, while superintending the construction of a bridge over Lynchs Creek, Witherspoons Ferry, on the road to Georgetown, S.C.; interment on his plantation near Society Hill, Darlington County, S.C.-Biographical Dictionary of the United States Congress