author

Alexander Hewatt

A Scottish-born minister who became the first historian of South Carolina and Georgia, he wrote from close personal knowledge of colonial Charleston and its world. His best-known work remains a vivid early account of the southern colonies, shaped by both observation and exile.

2 Audiobooks

An Historical Account of the Rise and Progress of the Colonies of South Carolina and Georgia, Volume 2

An Historical Account of the Rise and Progress of the Colonies of South Carolina and Georgia, Volume 2

by Alexander Hewatt

An Historical Account of the Rise and Progress of the Colonies of South Carolina and Georgia, Volume 1

An Historical Account of the Rise and Progress of the Colonies of South Carolina and Georgia, Volume 1

by Alexander Hewatt

About the author

Born in Roxburgh, Scotland, around 1739, Alexander Hewat was educated at Kelso Grammar School and the University of Edinburgh before traveling to Charleston in 1763 to serve as minister of the Scots Church, also known as First Presbyterian Church. His years in South Carolina gave him firsthand experience of colonial society, politics, and everyday life.

He is best remembered for the two-volume An Historical Account of the Rise and Progress of the Colonies of South Carolina and Georgia, published in 1779. The book drew on documents, local knowledge, and his own observations, and it helped earn him a lasting reputation as the first historian of South Carolina and Georgia.

Hewat remained loyal to the British crown during the American Revolution, and that loyalty came at a high cost: his property was seized and he was expelled from South Carolina in 1777. Afterward he lived in Britain, where his historical writing and sermons continued to circulate; he died in London on March 3, 1824.