Lynch Jr. was born at Hopsewee Plantation in Prince George Parish, Winyah, in what is now Georgetown, South Carolina.

Thomas Lynch was introduce to Elizabeth Allston during a ball held at the childhood home of John Drayton Sr., Magnolia Plantation and Gardens in Charleston, South Carolina.

[4] He served as a prominent figure in South Carolina politics, which contributed to his descendants' access to higher education and wealth.

His father admired English education and encouraged him to remain in Great Britain to study law and the principles of the British constitution.

[6] He enjoyed managing the cultivation of crops at the plantation, which was dependent on the labor of numerous enslaved African Americans.

His widowed mother later married South Carolina Governor William Moultrie, another influential political figure.

Lynch served alongside Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, John Rutledge, Charles Pinckney, Henry Laurens, Christopher Gadsden, Rawlins Lowndes, Arthur Middleton, Henry Middleton, Thomas Bee, and Thomas Heyward Jr. in the Provincial Congress.

[4] In hope that he could manage his father's illness, Lynch asked his commanding officer, Colonel Christopher Gadsden, if he could travel to Philadelphia.

On March 23, 1776, the General Assembly of South Carolina named Lynch Jr. to the Continental Congress as a sixth delegate.

[4] Lynch Jr. was the second youngest delegate in the Continental Congress and filled in his father's place due to illness.

[10][11] Less than a month after signing the Declaration of Independence, Lynch Jr. threatened that South Carolina would secede from the United States; his threat expressed the interests of his constituents, the elite planter class.

His will required that the heirs of his female relatives change their last name to Lynch in order to inherit a share of his family estate.

[6] At the time of his death, Thomas Lynch Jr. owned three plantations and held more than 250 enslaved African Americans, who were valued as personal property and part of the estate.

[citation needed] His sister, Sabina, responded by changing her name and that of her descendants in order to inherit the estate.

After Sabina Lynch died, the family estate passed to her youngest sister, Aimeé Constance Dé'Illiard Drayton.

Goodrich continues: "In all the relations of life, whether as a husband, a friend, a patriot, or the master of the slave, he appeared conscious of his obligations, and found his pleasure in discharging them.