Andrew Low and the Sign of the Buck

Jennifer Guthrie Ryan and Hugh Stiles Golson, Andrew Low and the Sign of the Buck: Trade, Triumph, Tragedy at the House of Low. Savannah, Frederic C. Beil, 2011.

He was Savannah’s wealthiest merchant and an economic force in the United States and England. His influence as a cotton broker and his support of the Confederacy jeopardized his fortune and freedom, but he endured incarceration in Fort Monroe. Although Andrew Low has cast a long shadow in Savannah, little has been known of his origins and personal life. Although his stately residence is one of Savannah’s finest museums, the story of its family has long needed a rewrite.

Descendant Jennifer Guthrie Ryan and her cousin Hugh Stiles Golson have produced an historic narrative that fills in the voids while highlighting the family’s place in history on both sides of the Atlantic. The Low family’s rise follows the course of international affairs while their members are players on the edge of history.  Jacobite politics create the opportunity to open stores abroad, and the Low trade company, “The Sign of the Buck,” hangs out its shingle in Savannah in 1800. The successful venture brings more brothers and cousins to Savannah, and prior to the War of 1812 the Lows were responsible for inciting a riot against French privateers which had interrupted commerce from England. Several mariners died and the French government protested, but a cover-up was successful as the locals banded together behind the same fabricated account.

Andrew Low, Jr. became the heir apparent who turned the merchant business into a cotton factorage powerhouse. With company representatives and property in Savannah and Liverpool, as well as company ships, A. Low Company became a major player in supplying English cotton mills. Because the war years and the unexpected death of his second wife took a toll on the merchant, Andrew Low took his children to England to be reared. His daughters were presented to the Queen and his sporting son Willie regularly enjoyed the company of Bertie, the Prince of Wales. Willie’s marriage was a failure, but his Savannah-born wife moved on to found the Girl Scouts in America.

Jennifer Guthrie Ryan is a British born journalist, researcher, and documentary producer who lives now in Taos, New Mexico. For fifty years she worked on programs on politics, history, culture, and music for NBC, CBS, LWT, feature films, radio, and print, from Africa, Australia, Europe, the U.S. and the Caribbean. Hugh Stiles Golson is an historian, preservationist, and educator who resides in Savannah.  He edited Caroline Lovell’s Light of Other Days and regularly consults on programs dealing with Savannah’s history. Both authors are descendants of the Low-Stiles family.