Arthur’s son Henry inherited a large share of his father’s estates in Carolina and Barbados and was reputed to be one of the wealthiest men in Carolina. According to one contemporary account, he owned some 20 plantations and 800 slaves. Nonetheless, after his marriage to Mary Williams he moved his residence and base of operations to his wife’s Ashley River plantation, which they named Middleton Place. The manor house was already standing at that time, but Henry added the two flanker buildings (the southernmost of which now serves as the main house), and laid out the formal gardens, terraces, and ornamental lakes that made Middleton Place one of the most elegant of the lowcountry plantations. Rice, introduced into the Carolinas in the late seventeenth century, had become by Henry’s time a staple crop of the Ashley River region and was becoming the main product of Middleton Place (Fig. 1). [Illustration: Figure 1. Locator map of Middleton Place, Dorchester County, South Carolina.] Like his father, Henry held a number of public offices under the royal government, but it was in the rebellion against that government that he gained political renown, first as president of the South Carolina Provincial Congress and later as a delegate to the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia. Only seven of Henry and Mary’s eleven children lived to adulthood, but both surviving sons were members of the Provincial Congress, and when Henry’s health began to fail in 1776 his elder son Arthur replaced him as delegate to the Second Continental Congress. At 34 Arthur Middleton was the senior South Carolina delegate to sign the Declaration of Independence. The American Revolution took a heavy toll on South Carolina. Several major campaigns were fought in the former colony, and Charleston and the surrounding lowcountry were occupied by the British from 1780 to 1782. During this time, 63 leading Charlestonians, including Arthur Middleton, were imprisoned in British St. Augustine. By 1780, Henry was seriously ill, and, like other lowcountry residents, he and his sons suffered serious financial losses from the plunder and disruption that accompanied the British occupation.