Ignatius Few, fourth and last son of William and Mary Wheeler Few was born August 20, 1750, near Head of Elk, Maryland, and given the favored name from his mother's side of the family. The first John Wheeler had named a son Ignatius, and there was at least one Ignatius Wheeler in each of the next five generations. Many years after Ignatius's death, his son wrote the following descripition of his father: "In person he is said to have resembled his mother, small in stature, very fair complexion, a clear blue eye, fine, light colored hair, and aquiline nose-...he was a man of vivid imagination, but of strong discriminating mind, constitutionally irritable, but kind, generous, placable and yet bold and decided-..."

Eight years of age when his father moved the family to North Carolina, Ignatius soon was performing the customary farm chores expected of pioneer boys. By late 1771 in Georgia, Ignatius became a clerk in a country store. Soon after "the shot heard round the world" was fired at Lexington, Ignatius was commissioned first lieutenant, First Georgia Dragoons, 1776, and served with distinction until the end of the war. While on detached command in Florida, Ignatius and his little party were cut off and he was made a prisoner and held in the old Spanish fortress at Saint Augustine for several months where he contracted a fever. This could have been responsible for the onset of tuberculosis from which he suffered the rest of his life. He rose to the rank of Captain in 1777 and was breveted major in 1783.

After the war Captain Few returned to Columbia County where he became a successful planter and merchant and amassed a large fortune. The residence of Ignatius, Mount Carmel, Columbia County, was originally owned by his father who deeded it to him. He in turn willed it to his son Ignatius Alphonso Few. Part of Ignatius Few's drive for success in wealth, position, and the like might have been an antithesis to his unhappy marital life. He and Mary Candler were married January 1, 1778. Mary was born March 21, 1762, in North Carolina, the oldest of 11 children born to William and Elizabeth Anthony Candler. The marital difficulties of Ignatius and Mary was due in part to the difficulties of the times. Mary had a temperamental nature and there was a difference in their ages and interests. At 28, Ignatius was a hardened veteran of two years' service in the Revolution; following the wedding, he left for additional duty that stretched, off and on, for four more years. Mary was a young girl of 16, technically left with the responsibilities of the management of Mount Carmel plantation and the company of small children and slaves. Before her 20th birthday Mary had given birth to three children: Elizabeth, 22 January 1779; Mary, June 7, 1780, died January 1781; and William born February 5, 1782. The fourth and last child, Ignatius Alphonso Few, was born in Warren County, Ga., April 11, 1790. What precipitated the final break between Ignatius and Mary is not known but a formal separation was drawn up and signed 10 August 1792. In the final confrontation, "Captain Few stated that one William Slatter had made his escape from Justice after having in concert with Said Mary Few procured poison of said DeYamport to administer to him, Few." Ignatius appealed to the legislature to grant a divorce, but in Georgia at this time, divorces were much different from today and were little more than legal separations.

At some time after Captain Few and Mary Candler Few separated, he brought Mary Frail Hicks to live at Mount Carmel, and she became the mother of his last six children, called by him in his will, his "separate family". Mary Frail Hicks was the oldest daughter of John and Elizabeth Frail. The name variously appears a Frail, Frails, Freel, Freil and sometimes Frale. In his will Ignatius referred to her a Mary Frails alias Hicks. She probably was a widow with one son. The earliest reference to the Frail family in Columbia County, Ga. is a March 15, 1775 deed to John Frail. John Frail's wife was Elizabeth.

Ignatius requested the Georgia legislature to enact a bill to legitimatize his six children by Mary Frail Hicks. Thus by the act of the state of Georgia [2 Dec 1809], Lavinia, Leonidas, Alfred, Lodoiska, Camillus and Crassus became the legal as well as the natural heirs of Ignatius Few. Ignatius died February 18, 1810, at age 60. and was buried in the family cemetery at Mount Carmel.

1808 tax records reprinted in Georgia Pioneers 12, May 1975, 71-72

Mount Carmel residence, named changed to Rose Hill, is in today's Winfield, near the Columbia-McDuffie county line, 3 1/2 miles west of the Winfield Store, owned by the John Dozier family