The man regarded as South Carolina's most important politician was born in the Abbeville district of the state on 18th. March 1782. John Caldwell Calhoun was the son of Patrick Calhoun, born in Co. Donegal in 1727. The Calhouns had come to America in 1733, when Patrick was six, settling first in Pennsylvania, then moving to Virginia, and later to North Carolina. In 1750, Patrick married Jane Craighead and in 1756 the couple settled at Long Cane Creek in present-day Abbeville Co., South Carolina. 

There Patrick established himself as an entrepreneur and a doughty defender of his community against Indian frontier tribes. Sadly, the Long Cane Massacre of 1760 cost Patrick the lives of his widowed mother and his eldest brother, as well as (in some accounts) his wife and two aunts.

Ten years later, at the age of 43, he married Martha Caldwell, the daughter of another Irish immigrant couple. Patrick served in the South Carolina legislature from 1768 to 1774, becoming a "Regulator" of frontier vigilante justice and taking the patriot side in the Revolutionary War. 

He and Martha raised a family of four boys (James, William, John and Patrick) and a girl, Catherine. Catherine Calhoun later married Rev. Moses Waddell, founder of the "Log College" and future president of the University of Georgia. Waddell would fill the gaps in John C.'s education.

John C. re-entered formal education in 1800 at the age of 18. In 1802 he enrolled at Yale University, from which he graduated in 1804, taking up the practice of law and joining the South Carolina bar in 1807. In the same year he was elected to the state legislature.  He represented South Carolina in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1810, when he was just 28, and by 35 was in the cabinet of  President James Monroe as Secretary for War. 

In 1802 a cousin, John Ewing Colhoun (sic) died in office after brief service as a U.S. Senator for South Carolina. John C. was a regular visitor to his cousin's widow at her Rhode Island retreat and in 1811 married her daughter Floride. 

In 1825 he became Vice President to John Quincy Adams in the latter's single presidential term. When his fellow-Irishman Andrew Jackson  became president in 1829, Calhoun continued to serve as vice-president for the first of "Old Hickory's" two terms. 

He moved to the Senate in 1833 and was re-elected at every poll up to his death in 1850, although his service was interrupted by a brief term as Secretary of State in the last year of the Tyler administration (1844-45). As a senator, he became (with senators Henry Clay and Daniel Webster) one of a powerful "Triumvirate", renowned for its controlling inputs into the business of Congress and the  major issues of the day.

Known familiarly as "The Cast Iron Man," John C. Calhoun was always aware of his Irish roots, saying "I am proud of my descent from so generous and gallant a race." Although he never liked Charleston much he was buried here – in the graveyard across the street from St. Phillips Episcopal Church. His grandson Patrick Calhoun acquired a Meeting St. mansion through marriage. (see also The Calhoun Monument under locations)