Born in 1726, William Logan was 50 years old when the War for Independence began. By profession, he was a planter and merchant, owning a fleet of ships. When hostilities began, he obtained a letter of marque and became a privateer, an efficient mode of Naval Warfare at the time. He was a tax collector and supplied ships and supplies to the Revolutionaries. During the Siege of Charleston, he remained in that city and was arrested, along with other “obstinate non-jurist rebels,” by order of Cornwallis; imprisoned in Charleston; then in a hot and filthy prison ship in the harbor of St. Augustine for several months. During this time and later from the jails of Philadelphia, the old widower wrote long and hopeful letters to friends and relatives. During the years before the Revolution, William’s only child, George Logan, was in Scotland, studying medicine at the University of Edinburgh. Upon completion of his studies, in 1775, Dr. George Logan married Honour Muldrup, daughter of the Danish consul for Scotland. This was a bitter pill for his father, William; that his son had married a foreign woman in GREAT BRITAIN on the eve of the War of the Revolution! When George and Honour’s first child was born, they named him William, which did much to assuage Grandfather William’s displeasure. After the war, at the age of 55, William was impoverished by the capture and destruction of his merchant ships and privateers and the breaking up and burning of his plantations. His health was seriously impaired by the hardships of imprisonment. In 1793, his son, Dr. George Logan, died. Nonetheless, William Logan distinguished himself by serving as a member of the South Carolina House of Representatives and a member of the Privy Council. He died in 1802, aged 75.
From: A Record of The Logan Family of Charleston, South Carolina by George William Logan, Richmond, VA 1894
From: A Record of The Logan Family of Charleston, South Carolina by George William Logan, Richmond, VA 1894