NOTE: This website will consist primarily of photos and documents and not be a 
genealogy page that lists ancestors and their descendants. That can be found 
in our Rhodes history book. I may include the genealogy later though that will 
be a very painstaking and time consuming endeavor. For now I want to share 
pictures and documents of new discoveries that might be of interest to the 
family. Some pictures on the site were in the Rhodes book. 
Thomas Rhodes (1775-1809), son of George Rhodes and Elizabeth Betsy Bache of 
Bridgnorth, Shropshire, England, came to the Beaufort, SC, area around 1792 to 
visit his Uncle John Rhodes who was an established planter and merchant. The 
voyage was rough and Thomas decided to stay. He clerked for his Uncle John 
Rhodes who had a mercantile business in Beaufort and Charleston. He married in 
Charleston, on July 10, 1795, Mary Wright, daughter of John Wright. They had 
two children, Thomas Wright Rhodes and Sarah Rhodes. After Mary's death, 
Thomas married, around 1800, Mary Cater, daughter of Thomas Cater and Rachel 
Miles Cater. They had three children, George Rhodes, Rachel Cater Rhodes and 
Nathaniel Henry Rhodes. These children were born on Callawassie Island, SC. 
Thomas was a planter on Callawassie Island during this time and there is some 
speculation that he leased the island from Thomas Heyward, signer of the 
Declaration of Independence (reference: "A Short History of Callawassie 
Island, South Carolina, The Lives and Times of its Owners and Residents, 1711-1985" 
by William Behan (2004). Some of the documents on this site were contributed by Bill 
Behan including the 1795 marriage agreement between Thomas Rhodes and Mary Wright. He 
had discovered these documents while researching the book. 
There is some evidence that Thomas was also in the mercantile business for a 
while. There were adverstisements in the Savannah newspaper from 1796 until 
1799 for Rhodes and Smith (Archibald Smith) on the Savannah Waterfront and 
later for Thomas Rhodes. An advertisement posted by Thomas' Uncle John Rhodes 
of Beaufort, during this time, asking that certain runaway slaves, if found, 
be turned over to Thomas Rhodes in Savannah. This 1796-1799 period were 
the "lost years" of Thomas Rhodes in that we do not know what he did or where 
he was prior to being on Callawassie Island in the early 1800s. He had clerked 
for his Uncle John Rhodes and had learned something of the mercantile 
business. When he became of age the prospects were mostly planting that took a 
lot of money for land and slaves or setting up some kind of business or trade. 
Savannah was a location nearby that would not compete with Thomas' Uncle John 
Rhodes and his partners. Some of the advertisements are posted on this site. 
Thomas' grandfather Nathaniel Rhodes (1716-1790), had formed a chemical company in 
Bridgnorth, England, that manufactured sulfuric acid by what was then a new 
method. Thomas' father George Rhodes inherited this firm in the 1790s. Thomas 
died on Callawassie Island, SC, on April 25, 1809. He had become a naturalized 
citizen of the United States in 1808.