McRAE, COLIN JOHN, Confederate financial agent, was born October 22, 1812, at Sneedsboro, N. C, and died February, 1877, in Belize, British Honduras; son of John and Elizabeth Mary McRae, natives respectively, of Sneedsboro and Anson County, N. C., and residents later of Winchester and Pascagoula, Miss., and of Mobile. He received a careful preparatory education at the hands of tutors and later attended the Catholic college, Biloxi, Miss. He was a cotton commission merchant at Mobile; general of militia and member Mississippi legislature in 1838; elected delegate to the provisional congress of the Southern States and upon the termination of this service was commissioned financial agent of the Confederate government and sent to Europe by President Davis in the performance of his difficult duties. After the close of the War of Secession he emigrated to Spanish Honduras, -where, in partnership with the brother of Hon. J. P. Benjamin, he entered the mercantile business. He was a Democrat, and a Presbyterian. Last residence: Belize, British Honduras.
[History of Alabama and dictionary of Alabama biography, Volume 4 by Thomas McAdory Owen and Mrs. Marie (Bankhead) Owen, 1921 – Transcribed by Therman Kellar]