John Beaufin Irving (1800-1881)

He was born at Ironshore, his family's plantation in Jamaica. He was brought up in England at 10 Rodney Street in London. He was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, and graduated as a doctor of medicine in Philadelphia. In 1823, he married Emma Maria Cruger and they settled at Charleston, South Carolina. Aside from his medical practice, he served as Sheriff for several years, managed a theatre, wrote for the local press and finally became a rice planter, buying the Kensington Plantation on the Cooper River. In 1839, he was given the Irving Tower Estate in Jamaica (which he later sold in 1847) and co-ownership of Ironshore and Hatfield with his elder brother, Jacob. They owned one other plantation in Jamaica, Crawle, which they sold to a Baptist group who established the town of Duncans for freed slaves. Irving lost everything in the Civil War and moved to new York where he restarted his life at the age of 65. He briefly returned to Carolina before moving back to West Bergen, New Jersey, where he died in 1881. He had two sons, Aemilius of Codesville, South Carolina, and John, of New York.