David Ramsay and the Scottish Enlightenment in South Carolina

David Ramsay and the Scottish Enlightenment in South Carolina

In Pre-Revolutionary America, Philadelphia and Princeton were the centers of the Scottish Enlightenment in North America. Studied in these two places and worked with Benjamin Rush, Ramsay was directly influenced by the Scottish Enlightenment thinking. Recommended by Dr. Benjamin Rush, he settled on Charleston in the Spring of 1774 and began the practice of medicine and started his political career. In his life, he had three marriages. He firstly was married to Sabina Ellis in February, 1775, then to Frances Witherspoon in March, 1783. Unfortunately, these two marriages did not last a long time, because both Sabina and Frances were died shortly after their marriages with him. Sabina died in June 1776 and Frances on December 14, 1784. On January 28, 1787, he was remarried to Laurens’s daughter— Martha Laurens and become son in law to Laurens. This marriage lasted 24 years until Martha’s death in June 1811. After her death, Ramsay collected her private letters and published them in her Memoirs of the life of Martha Laurens Ramsay.