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History and Government—Congressional Biographies—GeorgiaGeorge WALTON
(1749/1750-1804)
Senate Years of Service:
1795-1796Party: FederalistWALTON, George, (brother
of John Walton and cousin of Matthew Walton), a Delegate and a
Senator from Georgia; born in Cumberland County, Va., in either
1749 or 1750; apprenticed as a carpenter; attended the common
schools; moved to Savannah, Ga., in 1769; studied law; admitted to
the bar in 1774 and commenced practice in Savannah, Ga.; secretary
of the Provincial Congress in 1775 and a member of the committee of
intelligence; member, council of safety in 1775 and later president
of that body; member, State house of representatives; member of the
Continental Congress 1776, 1777, 1780, and 1781; a signer of the
Declaration of Independence; served in the Revolutionary War and
was captured at Savannah; colonel in the First Georgia Battalion;
Governor of Georgia 1779; commissioner to treat with the Indians
and to negotiate a treaty with the Cherokees in Tennessee in 1783;
chief justice of Georgia 1783-1789; member of the Augusta Board of
Commissioners 1784-1785; represented Georgia in the settlement of
the boundary line between South Carolina and Georgia in 1786;
elected as a delegate to the convention to frame the Federal
Constitution in 1787, but declined; Governor of Georgia 1789; was
appointed first judge of the superior courts of the eastern
judicial circuit in 1790; appointed to the United States Senate to
fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of James Jackson and
served from November 16, 1795, to February 20, 1796, when a
successor was elected; trustee of Richmond Academy and of the
University of Georgia; moved to Augusta; again appointed judge of
the superior circuit of Georgia and served from 1799 until his
death at his home, “College Hill,” near Augusta,
Richmond County, Ga., February 2, 1804; interment in Rosney
Cemetery; reinterment in 1848 beneath the monument in front of the
courthouse on Greene Street, Augusta, Ga.
Bibliography
Dictionary of American Biography; Bridges, Edwin.
“George Walton: A Political Biography.” Ph.D.
dissertation, University of Chicago, 1981; Lamplugh, George R.
“George Walton, Chief Justice of Georgia, 1783-1785.”
Georgia Historical Quarterly 65 (Summer 1981): 82-91.
Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present
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