Walton, George, 1749 or 1750-1804

George Walton, a Virginia native, came to Savannah in 1769. As a representative of Georgia to the Continental Congress, Walton signed the Declaration of Independence. He later served as governor of Georgia.

Declaration of Independence signer from Georgia.

Lawyer; delegate to the Continental Congress, 1776-1781; governor of Georgia, 1779 and 1789; chief justice of the Georgia Supreme Court, 1783-1786 and 1793; and U.S. senator, 1795-1796; from Augusta (Richmond Co.), Ga.

Walton was a Signer of the Declaration of Independence and governor of Georgia.

Walton was a Signer of the Declaration of Independence, governor of Georgia, and Continental Congressman.

George Walton was a lawyer, secretary of the Provincial Congress of Georgia, colonel in the Georgia Militia, delegate to the Continental Congress, signer of the Declaration of Independence, twice governor of Georgia, commissioner of Augusta, commissioner of a Native American treaty, chief justice of Georgia, superior court judge, founder and trustee of Richmond Academy, and trustee of the University of Georgia.

At this time, George Walton represented Georgia in the national legislature.

George Walton was one of three Georgians to sign the Declaration of Independence. He served in numerous capacities for the state of Georgia after the American Revolution. The exact year of Walton's birth is unknown; it is believed that he was born in 1749 in Virginia. In 1769 he moved to Savannah, where he pursued a legal career. By the eve of the American Revolution he was one of the most successful lawyers in Georgia. Active in Georgia's Revolutionary government, he was elected to the Provincial Congress and then became president of the Council of Safety in 1775. In 1776 he served as a delegate to the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia, where on July 4 he signed the Declaration (along with Button Gwinnett and Lyman Hall of Georgia). After the Revolution Walton served as chief justice of Georgia, as a delegate to the state constitutional convention in 1788 that ratified the new federal constitution, as a presidential elector in 1789, as governor that same year, as U.S. senator (appointed by the legislature when James Jackson stepped down to fight the Yazoo Land Act), and as a justice of the state superior court. He eventually retired in the 1780s to his Augusta home, where he died on February 2, 1804. Walton is buried in Augusta. Walton County is named for him. George Walton (ca. 1749-1804) - New Georgia Encyclopedia http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org (Retrieved March 4, 2009)

Called the "Morning Star of Liberty," Noble W. Jones was prominent among Georgia's Whig leaders before and during the American Revolution (1775-83) serving in both the provicial and state legislatures and in the Continental Congress. During the early national period he turned away from politics and made a laudable record as a progressive physician and Savannah civic leader. Born in England in the early 1720s, Noble Wimberly Jones came to Savannah in 1733 with his parents, Sarah Hack Jones and Noble Jones, and his sister, Mary, all members of the first group of Georgia colonists. He was trained for a medical career by his father, who also set him an example of government service, though the younger Jones would become as ardent a Whig as the elder proved a confirmed Tory. Like his father, Noble W. Jones accumulated thousands of acres of land, including his estate at Wormsloe, in the yound colony. His planting interests, particularly in rice lands along the Ogeechee River, contributed considerably to his income. In 1755 Jones wed Sarah Davis. They had fourteen children, and survived all but one. Their son George, however, would provide them with numerous lineal descendants, among them the branch of the family that took the name DeRenne. The year he married, Jones began his political career with election to the Commons House of Assembly, the lower house of Georgia's provincial legislature, where he would serve until 1775. His most conspicuous service began in the mid-1760s, as controversies erupted over such British taxation measures as the Stamp Act and Sir James Wright, the royal governor, frequently dissolved the lower house. In 1768 Jones was first elected Speaker of the Commons House and was instrumental in the appointment of Benjamin Franklin to act as Georgia's colonial agent in London to convey Georgia's protests to Parliament. Governor Wright viewed Jones as a serious threat to royal authority and thereafter dissolved the Commons House whenever it elected Jones Speaker. Consequently, the defiant Commons House elected Jones repeatedly between 1771 and 1773. The Intolerable Acts (1774) having increased resistance to the crown, Jones and other Whigs met in early 1775 to form Georgia's short-lived Provincial Congress. It named Jones and two others as delegates to the Second Continental Congress, but citing insufficient public support, they did not attend. In May 1775 news of the outbreak of fighting in Massachusetts electrified Georgia's Whigs, and Jones and several other revolutionaries (including Joseph Habersham, John Milledge, and Edward Telfair) broke into Savannah's royal magazine. They seized 600 pounds of gunpowder, some of which apparently made its way to the rebels in Boston. The next Provincial Congress met in July 1775 and again elected Jones a delegate to the Continental Congress, but his father's terminal illness kept him in Savannah, where by year's end he was serving on the Revolutionary Council of Safety. With the royal government's collapse in early 1776, Jones and the Whigs took control of Georgia. He was a member of the convention that created the state's Constitution of 1777, and when the Provincial Congress became the House of Assembly, Jones again was elected Speaker. As the British captured Savannah in 1778, Jones escaped to Charleston, South Carolina, where he worked as a physician until he was captured along with the city in 1780. After imprisonment in St. Augustine, Florida, Jones was transferred through a 1781 prisoner exchange to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. There he served as a Georgia delegate to the Continental Congress while practicing medicine as a protégé of Dr. Benjamin Rush. Back in Savannah by 1783, he was soon once more elected the Speaker of the House of Assembly, but the session proved quite disorderly. Having suffered a sword wound while attempting to quell a mob, Jones resigned his office and moved again to Charleston, where he worked as a doctor for five years. Returning to Savannah for good in 1788, Jones was on hand to help supervise the elaborate festivities welcoming President George Washington to Savannah in 1791. In 1795 he presided over the convention that met in Louisville to amend the Georgia Constitution of 1789. This was Jones's last major political act, but he continued his medical practice. In 1804 he helped organize the Georgia Medical Society and became its first president. Though increasingly ill in the early 1800s, Jones practiced medicine until his death. He entered his final illness, in his early eighties, after five consecutive nights of exhausting obstetric cases. In Savannah his death elicited general mourning as well as numerous eulogies, appropriate to both the last survivor of Georgia's original colonists and a principal leader in the colony's struggle for independence. Noble W. Jones (ca. 1723-1805) - New Georgia Encyclopedia http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org (Retrieved Marhc 4. 2009)

George Walton was one of three Georgians to sign the Declaration of Independence. He served in numerous capacities for the state of Georgia after the American Revolution. The exact year of Walton's birth is unknown; it is believed that he was born in 1749 in Virginia. In 1769 he moved to Savannah, where he pursued a legal career. By the eve of the American Revolution he was one of the most successful lawyers in Georgia. Active in Georgia's Revolutionary government, he was elected to the Provincial Congress and then became president of the Council of Safety in 1775. In 1776 he served as a delegate to the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia, where on July 4 he signed the Declaration (along with Button Gwinnett and Lyman Hall of Georgia). Returning to Savannah, Walton was captured during the 1778 British assault on the city, led by Archibald Campbell. After his exchange he returned to Georgia and was elected governor in 1779, having switched allegiances from the conservative to the radical faction. He served for two controversial months before reelection to Congress. After the Revolution Walton served as chief justice of Georgia, as a delegate to the state constitutional convention in 1788 that ratified the new federal constitution, as a presidential elector in1789, as governor that same year, as U.S. senator (appointed by the legislature when James Jackson stepped down to fight the Yazoo Land Act), and as a justice of the state superior court. He eventually retired in the 1780s to his Augusta home, where he died on February 2, 1804. Walton is buried in Augusta. Walton County is named after him. New Georgia Encyclopedia - George Walton (ca. 1749-1804) http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org (Retrieved October 12, 2009)

Richard Howley was a lawyer, born in Liberty county, Georgia, about 1740. He died about 1790. He received a liberal education, was admitted to the bar, and attained eminence in his profession, he represented his native county in the legislature, and was elected governor of Georgia, 4 January, 1780. When the state was overrun by the British, a council was held near Augusta, at which Governor Howley, his secretary of state, and several Continental officers were present. After the consideration of various plans, they determined to retreat to North Carolina, , and narrowly escaped capture on the way. During Governor Howley's brief term of office the value of paper money became so depreciated that he is said to have dealt it out by the quire for a night's lodging, and, if the fare was better than ordinary, the landlord received two quires, the governor gravely signing a draft, upon the treasurer, made out in due form, for their delivery. In 1780-'1 Governor Howley was a delegate from Georgia to the Continental congress. In the latter year, some apprehensions being entertained that it was the design of that body to give up Georgia to Great Britain, the delegation from that state protested against such a step and published their remonstrance (Philadelphia, 1781). Famous Americans - Richard Howley http://www.famousamericans.net/richardhowley/ (Retrieved December 10, 2009)

George Walton was one of three Georgians to sign the Declaration of Independence. He served in numerous capacities for the state of Georgia after the American Revolution. The exact year of Walton's birth is unknown; it is believed that he was born in 1749 in Virginia. In 1769 he moved to Savannah, where he pursued a legal career. By the eve of the American Revolution he was one of the most successful lawyers in Georgia. Active in Georgia's Revolutionary government, he was elected to the Provincial Congress and then became president of the Council of Safety in 1775. In 1776 he served as a delegate to the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia, where on July 4 he signed the Declaration (along with Button Gwinnett and Lyman Hall of Georgia). After the Revolution Walton served as chief justice of Georgia, as a delegate to the state constitutional convention in 1788 that ratified the new federal constitution, as a presidential elector in 1789, as governor that same year, as U.S. senator (appointed by the legislature when James Jackson stepped down to fight the Yazoo Land Act), and as a justice of the state superior court. He eventually retired in the 1780s to his Augusta home, where he died on February 2, 1804. Walton is buried in Augusta. Walton County is named for him. George Walton (ca. 1749-1804) - New Georgia Encyclopedia http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org (Retrieved April 28, 2009)

Thomas Kirton was born in 1764/5. He married Sarah, last name unknown -- believed to be DeWitt by some researchers, by 1784 based on the age of their first child. He lived in the PeeDee community of Horry County. He was murdered by Jeptha Jones on or about 15 Mar 1815. Jeptha Jones was hired by Thomas Kirton to assist with getting produce to market in Georgetown. Thomas was considered old and infirm at the time of his death, having passed his 50th birthday. his estate was administered the following year by his wife, Sarah, and witnessed by Daniel Kirton, his son, among others.