Georgia. Governor (1789-1793 : Telfair)

One of Georgia's most prominent citizens, Edward Telfair served three terms as Georgia's governor in the late 1700s. He was the first governor to serve under the Georgia Constitution of 1789. Edward Telfair was one of the many Scotsmen who settled in Georgia during the mid-eighteenth century. He was born in 1735 on his family's ancestral estate in southwestern Scotland near the village of Kirkcudbright. He received only an elementary school education before taking a job with a firm of merchants. In 1758, when he was in his early twenties, he set sail for the English colonies in America with his brother William and a cousin. Telfair first settled in Virginia, where he represented the Scottish firm that employed him, then moved to North Carolina, and finally resettled in Georgia, where he joined William in Savannah in 1766. Telfair married Sarah Gibbons in 1774. Together they had six children-three sons and three daughters. Upon her death, their daughter Mary Telfair bequeathed the Telfair family home on Savannah's St. James Square to the Georgia Historical Society. This gift eventually became the Telfair Museum of Art, the oldest public art museum in the South. Two years after his arrival in Savannah, Telfair entered the political arena of the Georgia colony. In 1768 he was elected to the Commons House of Assembly as a delegate from St. Paul Parish, where he owned land. He became involved in the Revolutionary struggle (1775-83) against England's King George III and joined the Sons of Liberty, a group of artisans and shopkeepers who protested the Stamp Act and other royal declarations. In May 1775, when news of the New England battles of Lexington and Concord reached Savannah, Telfair joined Joseph Habersham, Noble W. Jones, John Milledge, and other Liberty Boys in breaking into the royal magazine and making off with 600 pounds of powder. Telfair was named in June 1775 to the Council of Safety, a body formed to supervise the enforcement of boycotts and to seek solutions to the growing crisis between the colony and the British crown. Telfair died on September 17, 1807, at his Savannah townhouse. His body was taken to Savannah's Colonial Cemetery, where a religious service was held and military honors were performed. He was buried in the family vault at his Sharon plantation near Savannah. In the year of Telfair's death, Telfair County was created and named in his honor. Years later, his remains would be removed to Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah, where in 1860 his surviving daughters erected a memorial to their father's memory. -- "Edward Telfair, 1735-1807." New Georgia Encyclopedia http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org (Retrieved July 4, 2009)

From the description of Wilkes County land grant, 1791 April 12. (University of Georgia). WorldCat record id: 575710523

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