George WALTON, Congress, GA (17491750-1804)

WALTON, 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