Gabriel Manigault

Gabriel Manigault (March 17, 1758 – November 4, 1809) was an American architect. His sister, Henrietta Manigault, was the wife of Nathaniel Heyward, a wealthy rice planter who accumulated at least twenty-two plantations and assorted lands throughout the low country.

Career He studied law in Geneva and London in the 1770s; it was in England that he was exposed to the emerging Adamesque style. Manigault returned to Charleston in 1780 during the American Revolutionary War. He participated in the defense of the city during the Siege of Charleston that year. Following the city's fall, Manigault was forced to take an oath of allegiance in order to maintain his family's numerous assets. Following the war, he turned his attention to rice planting on the nearly 25,000 acres he had inherited from his father, Peter. The wealth obtained from this endeavor allowed him to practice as an amateur or "gentleman" architect.

In Charleston, he designed the First Bank of the United States building (now Charleston City Hall), completed between 1800 and 1804, and South Carolina Society Hall, constructed in 1804. Manigault's architectural talents also extended to the domestic realm. In 1803, a fine "urban villa" in the Adamesque style was completed for his brother Joseph Manigault on Meeting Street in Charleston.

Personal life

In 1785, Manigault was married to Margaret Izard (1768–1824), the daughter of Alice (née DeLancey) Izard and Ralph Izard, a member of the Continental Congress and a United States senator from South Carolina from 1789 to 1805. After her father's death in 1804, her mother lived in Philadelphia. Together, Gabriel and Margaret were the parents of:

Harriet Manigault, who married Samuel Wilcocks. Emma Manigault