{{Short description|American Landowner & Participant in the Patriot War (Florida)}} {{Infobox person | name = | image = John Houstoun McIntosh.jpg | alt = | caption = John Houstoun McIntosh | birth_name = | birth_date = {{birth date|1773|5|1}} | birth_place = McIntosh County, Georgia | death_date = {{death date|1836|2|9}} | death_place = | other_names = | occupation = Planter, Filibuster | years_active = | known_for = Leader of American filibusters during the Patriot War (Florida) | notable_works = | spouse = {{marriage|Eliza Bayard|1792}} | children = 3 | relatives = Duncan Lamont Clinch (Son-in-Law) }} '''John Houston McIntosh''', also sometimes spelled John Houstoun McIntosh, (1773-1836) was a wealthy planter in Georgia who helped lead a rebel group during the Patriot War in Florida.
==Early life and family== John H. McIntosh was born on May 1, 1773, in what is now McIntosh County, Georgia.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Patrick |first1=Rembert |title=Florida Fiasco: Rampant Rebels on the Georgia-Florida Border 1810-1815 |date=1954 |publisher=University of Georgia Press |location=Athens, GA |page=56}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Tabby Sugar Works of John Houston Mcintosh |url=https://georgiahistory.com/ghmi_marker_updated/tabby-sugar-works-of-john-houston-mcintosh/ |publisher=Georgia Historical Society}}</ref> John was the only son of George McIntosh and Ann Priscilla Houstoun. In 1792 John married Eliza Bayard, a woman from a prominent New York family,<ref>{{cite web |last1=Florida Memory |title=On the Border, Part I |url=https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/295247 |website=Florida Memory |access-date=27 May 2022}}</ref> and they had 3 children, Catherine Ann McIntosh, John Houston McIntosh Jr., and Eliza Bayard McIntosh.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Pearcy |first1=Matthew |last2=Humphreys |first2=Andrew Atkinson |title=Andrew Atkinson Humphreys' Seminole War Field Journal |journal=The Florida Historical Quarterly |date=2006 |volume=85 |issue=2 |page=213 |jstor=30150704 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/30150704 |access-date=7 May 2022}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Bulloch |first1=Joseph |title=A History and Genealogy of the Families of Bayard, Houstoun of Georgia |date=1919 |publisher=University of Wisconsin |location=Madison, Wisconsin |page=15 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XQc7AAAAMAAJ&pg=PP3 |access-date=7 May 2022}}</ref> Eliza would eventually marry Duncan L. Clinch, who would go on to serve as an officer in the U.S. army during the Second Seminole War.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Rembert |first1=Patrick W. |title=Aristocrat in Uniform: General Duncan L. Clinch |date=2016 |publisher=Applewood Books |location=Carlisle, MA |isbn=9781429093842 |page=46}}</ref>
==Politician and landowner== In 1798, John Houston served on the Georgia constitutional convention. He would then become a justice of the inferior court of Camden County, Georgia. At some point, John began growing rice and cotton at his plantation, called Refuge, on the Satilla River in Camden County.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Florida Memory |title=On the Border, Part I |url=https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/295247 |website=Florida Memory |access-date=16 May 2022}}</ref>
In 1803, he purchased land in Florida and, despite living mostly in Georgia, he took an oath of allegiance to the Spanish crown and was deemed a "colonial subject of Spanish Florida."<ref>Patrick, p. 56</ref>
==The Patriot War of Florida== By around 1811, McIntosh was residing at Fort George Island where he grew cotton and operated a sawmill. It was there that he met with George Mathews. Mathews was looking for influential Floridians who could help to overthrow Spanish rule and bring the Florida territory into the U.S.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Kruse |first1=Paul |title=A Secret Agent in East Florida: General George Mathews and the Patriot War |journal=The Journal of Southern History |date=1952 |volume=18 |issue=2 |page=200 |doi=10.2307/2954272 |jstor=2954272 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2954272 |access-date=7 May 2022|url-access=subscription }}</ref>
On March 16, 1812, the Patriot group elected McIntosh as the leader of their group. The group was composed mostly of militia men from Georgia but also had a contingent of U.S. troops from Point Peter, a garrison near the Florida-Georgia border. A day after McIntosh was elected leader, the group marched into and captured the town of Fernandina with the support of 5 Navy gunboats.{{sfn|Kruse|1952|pp=209}}
After the successful capture of Fernandina, the Patriots established an interim government with the intention that they'd eventually join the United States. On July 17, 1812, a constitution was drafted and 14 members of the Patriot group signed the document including McIntosh, who served as President.<ref>{{cite web |title="Patriot Constitution" of the Republic of East Florida, 1812 |url=https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/264067 |website=Florida Memory |publisher=Florida Department of State |access-date=13 May 2022}}</ref>
==Later life== Following the Patriot War, McIntosh returned to Georgia. Believing that the government owed him for financial losses incurred during the war, McIntosh sued the United States government for around $125,000 (or over $3 million in 2020), an amount of which was eventually awarded to his heirs.<ref>{{cite web |title=Value of $100,000 from 1820 to 2022 |url=https://www.officialdata.org/us/inflation/1820?amount=125000 |website=CPI Inflation Calculator |access-date=5 September 2022}}</ref><ref>Patrick, p. 302</ref> Because of the failure of and destruction resulting from the Patriot War, McIntosh, like other leaders in the rebellion, had his reputation tarnished. He fought hard to exonerate his name, both with politicians and the public. For example, in 1823 he submitted an article to the ''National Intelligencer'', in which he argued that he was being unfairly slandered for having caused the war.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Cusick |first1=James G. |title=The other War of 1812 : the Patriot War and the American invasion of Spanish East Florida |date=2007 |publisher=University of Georgia Press |location=Athens |isbn=9780820329215 |page=307}}</ref>
During the 1820's, he built the McIntosh Sugarworks.
McIntosh died in 1836.{{sfn|Cusick|2007|page=308}}
==References== {{reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:McIntosh, John Houston}} Category:People from McIntosh County, Georgia Category:1773 births Category:1836 deaths Category:American filibusters (military) Category:19th-century owners of plantations in the United States Category:19th-century Georgia (U.S. state) state court judges Category:People from Camden County, Georgia Category:County judges in the United States Category:Owners of plantations in Georgia (U.S. state)