Lawrence McNeill

Lawrence McNeill (August 22, 1849 – November 16, 1915) was an American businessman, prominent in Savannah, Georgia. He was president of Savannah Lighting Company and Savannah Lumber Company, and was a director of the Citizens and Southern Bank, of Savannah, and the Atlantic National Bank, of Jacksonville, Florida.

Life and career

McNeill was born in 1849, on a plantation in Robeson County, North Carolina, to Laughlin McNeill and Mary Priscilla McEachern, both natives of North Carolina. His father was a farmer and planter for the majority of his career.

At the age of 27, he was working in the turpentine business in Beaufort County, South Carolina. Two years later, around 1879, he was in partnership in said industry with his twin brother Walter. Walter died in 1887, aged 37, at which point the firm dissolved.

In 1903, he had built what is now known as the Metts–McNeill House, at 513 Whitaker Street in Savannah, on the western side of Forsyth Park. He is interred in Savannah's Bonaventure Cemetery, alongside his wife, who survived him by 31 years.