Wilson LUMPKIN, Congress, GA (1783-1870)

LUMPKIN, Wilson, (uncle of John Henry Lumpkin and grandfather of Middleton Pope Barrow), a Representative and a Senator from Georgia; born near Dan River, Pittsylvania County, Va., January 14, 1783; moved in 1784 to Oglethorpe (then a part of Wilkes) County, Ga., with his parents, who settled near Point Peter, and subsequently at Lexington, Ga.; attended the common schools; taught school and farmed; studied law; admitted to the bar and commenced practice in Athens, Ga.; member, State house of representatives 1804-1812; elected to the Fourteenth Congress (March 4, 1815-March 3, 1817); unsuccessful for reelection; State Indian Commissioner; elected to the Twentieth, Twenty-first, and Twenty-second Congresses and served from March 4, 1827, until his resignation in 1831 before the convening of the Twenty-second Congress to run for the governorship; commissioner on the Georgia-Florida boundary line commission; Governor of Georgia 1831-1835; appointed commissioner under the Cherokee treaty in 1835; elected to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of John P. King and served from November 22, 1837, to March 3, 1841; chairman, Committee on Manufactures (Twenty-sixth Congress); member of the State board of public works; died in Athens, Ga., December 28, 1870; interment in Oconee Cemetery.

Bibliography

Dictionary of American Biography; McPherson, Robert G. “Wilson Lumpkin.” In Georgians in Profile, edited by Horace Montgomery, pp. 144-67. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1958; Mellichamp, Josephine. ”Wilson Lumpkin.” In Senators From Georgia. pp. 113-18. Huntsville, Ala.: Strode Publishers, 1976.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present