Edmund Botsford was born November 1, 1745 in Woburn, Bedfordshire, England. By the age of seven, he had lost both parents and was living with an aunt. At twenty, he arrived in Charleston, S.C. in January 1766. He was converted under the ministry of Oliver Hart at the Charleston Baptist Church on November 1, 1766. He was licensed to preach in February 1771, and preached his first sermon to a congregation near Tuckasee King, Ga. on June 27, 1771.  He traveled and preached in Georgia and South Carolina, and was ordained March 14, 1773. Botsford settled in Briar Creek, Burke County, Ga. in May 1774 and stayed there until the spring of 1779 when the Revolutionary War caused him and his family to flee to Virginia. In 1782, Botsford became pastor of the Welsh Neck Church in Society Hill, S.C. He moved to Georgetown, S.C. in February 1797 to become pastor of the Georgetown Baptist Church. He remained there until his death on December 25, 1819.

According to Mallary’s The Memoirs of Elder Edmund Botsford, 1832, Mr. Botsford was married four times. In 1791, Botsford married his second wife, Mrs. Catherine (McIver) Evans, who died in 1796. By this marriage, Botsford had one daughter, Catherine “Caty” McIver Botsford (1793-1883), who married Moses Fort (1790-1850).

In 1799, Botsford married his third wife, Mrs. Ann Deliesseline, and she died in 1801.  By this marriage, they had a daughter, Ann, and a son, Edmund Park [ca. 1800-1819].  According to Mallary’s Memoirs of Elder Edmund Botsford, Edmund Park Botsford was residing in Philadelphia ca. 1816-1817, working as an apprentice in a printing office.  He died in February 1819.

After her husband died, Catherine Fort was said to be engaged to her cousin, John Kolb McIver (1789-1846); his first wife died in January 1846. He died in October 1846 but made provision in his will that she be the guardian of his younger children; Mary (McIver) Furman (1820-1892), Sarah Margaret (McIver) Pressley (1831–1899), John Kolb McIver (1835–1863), and Cornelia J. (McIver) Davis (1838–1912).

Source: “Elder Edmund Botsford of South Carolina,” by J. Glenwood Clayton, The Journal of the South Carolina Baptist Historical Society, November 1976; Memoirs of Elder Edmund Botsford, by Charles D. Mallary, 1832; Roderick McIver and His Family by Louise McIver McMaster, Helen Howard Smedberg McIver, Frank Adam, and Colice Campbell. 1952.