[1] When he was just five months old, his family moved to Savannah, Georgia, where his father died of dropsy in September 1772.
When his mother, a friend of the Marquis de Lafayette, returned to New York (where she died in 1799), he remained in Savannah.
He was confirmed by the United States Senate on January 10, 1822, and received his commission the same day.
Her father was a wealthy Englishman who built the first brick house in Savannah and her mother was the widow of John Meck of Germany.
[1] Together, they were the parents of eleven children, including:[3] His wife died of dropsy in August of 1835.