Golson, Hugh Stiles

Elizabeth Eliza Anne Mackay (fl. 1810-1867) was the daughter of Jack (d.1848) and Elizabeth Anne Mackay of Savannah. Her father attended West Point and was close friends with Robert E. Lee. Miss Mackay attended school in New York during the early 1820s. She married William Henry Stiles (1808-1865), a native of Savannah, in 1832. During the Civil War, Stiles was a Colonel in Georgia's 60th Regiment and was stationed in Virginia. In 1863, the Stiles family moved from Savannah, Georgia to Terrell County, Georgia. Joseph Clay, (1741-1804) of Savannah, Georgia was the grandfather of William Henry Stiles. He was a delegate to the Continental Congress and later a federal judge. Charles Coteworth Pinckney (1746-1825) was an early American statesman and constitutional delegate from Charleston, South Carolina.

Hugh Stiles Golson is a native of Savannah, Georgia and is a retired public school teacher who taught history and historic preservation. He is also the former Chairman of the Savannah-Chatham Board of Public Education. He began to focus community attention on Laurel Grove Cemetery in 1987, and in 1992 formally organized the Society for the Preservation of Laurel Grove. Golson also is a lecturer and author and specializes in the history of Chatham County.