Colin J. McRae

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Colin J. McRae (1813–1877) was an American politician and businessman.[1][2][3]

Biography

Colin J. McRae worked as a businessman in Mobile, Alabama.[1] For example, in the 1860s, he co-owned a foundry in Selma, Alabama, which made ordnance and iron plates for gunboats.[4] Some of those gunboats were used by the Confederacy during the American Civil War.[5] His brother, John J. McRae, served as 21st Governor of Mississippi from 1854 to 1857.[1] He also had a sister, Catherine McRae.[1] From 1863 to 1865, he served as the chief financial agent of the Confederate States of America to Europe.[1][2][3]

After the Civil War, he fled to British Honduras (now known as Belize) in exile, where he purchased land and ran a plantation and mercantile business.[1][2] His brother died on a visit to his plantation.[1] His sister married Christopher Hempstead, an American businessman who was also in exile in Belize.[1] Colin bequeathed his business to them after his death.[1] They leased it to tenants until 1894.[6]

In October 2011, a college student at the University of New Hampshire found relics of his Belize plantation house on an archeological expedition in the middle of the Belize Valley.[2] His records were found in Monterey Place in Mobile, Alabama.[1]

Bibliography

  • Charles S. Davis, Colin J. McRae: Confederate Financial Agent (Tuscaloosa, Alabama: Confederate Publishing, 1961).
  • Ray J. Fletcher, Colin J. McRae, Confederate Agent in Europe (Tallahassee, Florida: Florida State University Press, 1956).

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 Colin J. McRae Collection, Columbia, South Carolina: South Carolina Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Lori Wright, Uncovering History: Student Helps Discover Confederate Soldier’s Homestead in Belize,The College Letter: Newsletter of the College of Liberal Arts, October 2011
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Andrew Lambert, Colin J. McRae, Confederate Financial Agent: Blockade Running in the Trans-Mississippi South as Affected by the Confederate Government's Direct Procurement of European Goods Borderland Smuggling: Patriots, Loyalties and Illicit Trade in the North East, 1783–1820, The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology, August 2009
  4. ↑ William F. Donnelly, American Economic Growth: The Historic Challenge, Ardent Media, 1973, 152
  5. ↑ Edwin Layton, Colin J. McRae and the Selma Arsenal, Alabama Review, XVIII (1966), 132-133
  6. ↑ Donald C. Simmons, Jr., Confederate Settlements in British Honduras, Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2001, p. 91
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