| Colin J. McRae | |
| Term Start: | February 4, 1861 |
| Term End: | February 17, 1862 |
| Predecessor: | New constituency |
| Successor: | Constituency abolished |
| Birth Name: | Colin John McRae |
| Birth Date: | 22 October 1812 |
| Death Place: | (present-day Puerto Cortés, Belize) |
| Nationality: | American |
| Relations: | John J. McRae (brother) |
Colin J. McRae (born Colin John McRae; October 22, 1812 – February 1877) was an American politician who had served as a Deputy from Alabama to the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1862.[1] [2] [3]
Colin J. McRae was born on October 22, 1812, in Anson County, North Carolina.[4] His brother, John J. McRae, served as the 21st Governor of Mississippi (1854–1857).[1] Before the Civil War, McRae was a merchant from Mobile, Alabama.[1] He co-owned a foundry in Selma, Alabama, which made ammunition and iron plate for gunboats.[5] Some of these gunboats were used during the war.[6]
McRae served as Confederate States Financial Agent in Europe from 1862 to 1865.[1] [2] [3]
In 1867, McRae moved to Puerto de Caballos, British Honduras (present-day Puerto Cortés, Belize), where he purchased land and ran a plantation and mercantile business centered on mahogany.[1] [2] McRae died there in February 1877.[4] [7] He bequeathed the plantation and mercantile business to his sister and her husband.[1] They leased the plantation to tenants until 1894.[8] The location of his grave, in Belize, is unknown.[4]
In October 2011, a college student at the University of New Hampshire found relics of his Belize plantation house on an archeological expedition in the middle of the Belize Valley.[2] His records were found in Monterey Place in Mobile, Alabama.[1] They are held at the South Carolina Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum, in Columbia, South Carolina.