George Walton - GA Signer of the Declaration of Independence

This is the last in the series of biographies on the signers of the Declaration of Independence. I hope you have enjoyed learning about them and have been inspired by their stories.

George Walton was born sometime between September 1749 and February 1750[1] to Robert and Mary (Hughes) Walton, in Farmville, Prince Edward County, Virginia. The exact date of his birth is unknown. His family history can be traced to England, where his paternal Grandfather, George Walton, immigrated in 1682.

Walton was orphaned as a young boy, around age seven, and was poor. His father died when he was an infant, and his mother died by the time he was seven. He was taken in by his wealthy uncle, who did not provide Walton with a formal education. Instead, he was apprenticed to a local carpenter named Christopher Ford, around 1765.

            There are two different stories surrounding his apprenticeship with Ford. One story states that Ford was so mean that he opposed Walton’s education pursuits and refused to give him a candle so he could read. Walton then would gather wood chips, set them on fire, and read whatever he could get his hands on by the light of the fire. The other story portrays the carpenter as a kind old man who allowed him to go to school after realizing Walton’s intellectual capabilities and enabled him to end his apprenticeship. Whichever story is true, he ends up well educated and moves to Savannah in 1769 to study law under a local lawyer named Henry Young.

            By 1774, he was admitted to the bar and began to practice law. One of his first clients was Edward Telfair, a wealthy merchant who engaged Walton to provide a legal opinion. As a result of this client, he quickly earned a reputation as an effective lawyer. But practicing law was not his only pursuit this year; he also became a Master Mason at Solomon’s F & AM in Savannah and participated in the summer meeting at Tondee Tavern.

            Depending on the source, the Tondee Tavern meeting occurred sometime between July and August of 1774. The meetings produced a lot of discussion but not much else, and Walton may have helped organize them. The group at Tondee Tavern was also known as the Georgia Liberty Boys. While a lot of debate happened here, including some parishes agreeing to the Non-Importation Agreement, it was a meeting of delegates that the Royal Governor had forbidden.

Then, in January of 1775, the first meeting of the Georgia Provincial Congress was held. Walton was named the secretary of the Congress and, then, President of the Council of Safety. No delegates were named at this time to the Continental Congress. It appears that the members of the Congress were either timid or had not sufficiently heeded the call of the patriot cause, as Georgia was not heavily populated and had not suffered the indignities that other colonies had experienced. At this time, he became acquainted with Dr. Lyman Hall, who was also a member of the Congress, from St. John’s Parish. St. John’s Parish was dissatisfied with the proceedings and would appoint Dr. Hall as their own delegate to the Continental Congress.

The Second Provincial Congress meets in early 1776, and they elect several delegates to join Dr. Hall in Philadelphia. Walton, along with Archibald Bulloch, Button Gwinnett, and John Houston, traveled to Philadelphia and presented his credentials to the Congress in either February or June 1776. [2] Walton was not as radical as Dr. Hall or Button Gwinnett. The Royal Governor threatened military action against the Provincial Congress, but they ignored him and formed a new government. Bulloch was named President of Georgia, which was why he left Philadelphia and returned to the state. Walton was the last of the Georgia representatives to arrive, due to illness and attempting to recruit men for the militia. He voted for independence on July 2 and signed the engrossed document on August 2, 1776. His committee work included serving on the executive committee, the Indian relations committee, and the prisoner of war committee, as well as transacting colonial business while Congress left the city. He would negotiate a treaty with the Iroquois, but Congress did not accept it.

In 1777, he married Dorothy Camber, and they had two children together. Their first child, Thomas, was born in 1776 and passed away in 1803. He did not marry and had no children. Their second child, George Jr., was born in 1786 and passed away in 1861. He married in 1801 and served as Secretary of State under Andrew Jackson, who was Governor of the West Florida Territory. Dorothy would live until 1832, when she passed away in Pensacola, Florida.

During the Siege of Savannah, in 1778, he was a Colonel in the militia and was shot and captured by the British after he fell from his horse. Walton was treated well and granted parole so he could seek medical attention for his thigh wound. Once he was healed, he was put in a prison in Sunbury and held for one year, as the British thought they would be able to trade him for a Brigadier General since he was a colonel and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Unfortunately, they were unable to trade him for a Brigadier General and had to settle for a naval captain. The injury he sustained from this battle would leave him with a lifetime limp.

In October of 1779, he was chosen as Governor of Georgia but resigned the position in January of 1780, when he was re-elected to Congress. He retired from Congress in 1781. He returned to Georgia after leaving Congress and, in 1783, was appointed to be Chief Justice of Georgia. Captain William McIntosh[3] threatens to pull him off the bench if he takes his seat as Chief Justice. Walton refuses, and Captain McIntosh horsewhips him. This came about as Walton was the one who had sent a forged letter to Congress, which started the incident between General McIntosh and Button Gwinnett, which led to Gwinnett’s death in 1779. The Georgia Assembly would censure Walton for his role in the debacle, and the Speaker of the House, William Glascock, who signed the letter, denied he ever signed it. In addition to this incident, Walton was just about to be tried on the forgery charges, which resulted from his switching sides and supporting Gwinnett over General McIntosh in their public quarrels. He would hold the position of Chief Justice until his death.

In 1785, while riding the circuit, his views began to change, and he started to urge a national government to regulate commerce actively. This was the beginning stages of him becoming a Federalist. He was appointed as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in 1787, but declined due to his judicial commitments. He wholeheartedly supported ratification.

Walton was appointed as a presidential elector and served as Governor of Georgia in 1789. During his term, he oversaw the implementation of a new state constitution and supervised the move of the state capital to Augusta. He would also move to Augusta, as well, and was active in the local community, as he campaigned for the construction of a school, jail, and courthouse. Governor Walton helped to reserve 250 acres for a college, now called Augusta College, which still occupies the land, and participated in the laying out of the city, in a checkerboard pattern similar to Philadelphia and the early Savannah designs of Oglethorpe. Augusta would experience tremendous growth after the Revolution.

Meadow Gardens, his Augusta home, was built in 1790, but because of financial problems, it was never listed in his name. Instead, it was listed in the name of his nephew, and then later a trust was established for his son, which included the property. He would live in this home for the rest of his life.

Between 1795 and his death in 1804, he was a remarkably busy man. He was appointed to finish out Senator James Jackson’s term in 1795, and through his work at the national level, it was very apparent he was a Federalist. In 1796, he returned to Augusta to resume his judicial duties and his private practice. He was then appointed, in 1797, to a commission regarding the Indians and declined to participate. He wanted the Indians to be moved away, and the process of the commission, in his determination, was unconstitutional. His final appointment came in 1799 when he was appointed the judge of the 42nd Middle Georgia Circuit.

George Walton passed away on February 2, 1804, and was initially buried in Rosney Cemetery in Augusta, Georgia, before being reinterred under the Signers’ Monument in July of 1848. During the last years of his life, he suffered from gout, which seemed to be a common ailment among the signers. His last living direct descendant, George Walton Reab, died in 1925, having never married or had children. [4]

[1] There is some confusion on his birthdate because Dr. Rush described him “as the youngest member of Congress not being quite three and twenty when he signed the Declaration of Independence.” This would have made him younger than Rutledge, but his father’s will has since corrected the date of his birth, and Rutledge is considered the youngest signer. Additional information comes from www.historicmeadowgardens.com

[2] There are several accounts of when he arrived in Philadelphia. We know that Dr. Hall arrived in February but did not participate until May of 1776. A comparable situation could have happened for Walton.

[3] He is of the McIntosh family, which also scuffled with Button Gwinnett

[4] This was his great-great-grandson