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PARTIAL SELECTED LIST
ofINDIVIDUALS ASSOCIATED WITH THE OLD CAPITOL BUILDING,
the Capital, Milledgeville, Georgia, and Georgia Military College,FROM 1803 TO THE PRESENT.
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Following are but a few of the many people important in the history of this place.
J. L. SIBLEY JENNINGS, A.I.A., N.C.A.R.B.
JENNINGS & MURRAY ARCHITECTS......15 SEPTEMBER 1999
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Compiled and edited from the original research, interviews and documents of the editor, J. L. Sibley Jennings, Jr. and, the research, publications and documents of, and with the assistance and cooperation of: Louis H. and Alice Andrews; Loren and Paul Campbell, chairman, Old Capital Historical Society, Milledgeville; Brice McAdoo Clagett, Esq., Washington, D.C.; Robert Scott Davis, Jr., Alabama; Floride Moore Gardner; J. L. Sibley Jennings, Sr.; Aubrey Alling Jones, VP for Development, GMC; Ray Olivier, chairman, Historic Preservation Commission, Milledgeville; Jane D. Simpson, Librarian, GMC; David M. Sherman, Washington, D.C.; Gordon B. Smith, Esq., Savannah; and from Great Georgians, Zell Miller, Advocate Press, 1983; Dictionary of Georgia Biography, UGa. Press, 1983; Milledgeville, Georgia's Antebellum Capital, J. C. Bonner, Uga. Press, 1978; History Stories of Milledgeville and Baldwin County, Leola Selman Beeson, J. W. Burke Co., 1943; Historic Memory Hill Cemetery, Milledgeville, Georgia, 1804-1997, edited by Susan J. Harrington, Hugh T. Harrington & Floride Moore Gardner, Boyd Publishing Co. Inc., Milledgeville, 1998; Biographical Directory of the United States Congress 1774-1989, (U.S.) Senate Document No. 100-34, USGPO, 1989; The Children of Pride, Robert Manson Myers, Yale University Press, 1972; The Autobiography of Joseph LeConte, edited by Wm. D. Armes, Appleton & Co., 1903; Lee's Maverick General, Daniel Harvey Hill, Hal Bridges, McGraw-Hill Co., 1961; Georgia's Bi-Centennial Memoirs and Memories, Lucian Lamar Knight, 1932; Georgia's Landmarks, Memorials and Legends, Lucian Lamar Knight, Bird Printing Co., Atlanta, 1914; This is your Georgia, Bernice McCullar & Sibley Jennings (Sr.), Viewpoint Publ., Montgomery, 1977.; The History of Georgia, Charles C. Jones, Jr., Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1883; Thomas Spalding of Sapelo, E. Merton Coulter, Louisiana State University Press, 1940; The John Couper Family at Cannon’s Point, T. Reed Ferguson, Mercer University Press, Macon, Ga., 1994; History of the Gignilliat Family of Switzerland and South Carolina, Robert Gignilliat Kenan, Southern Historical Press, 1977; Our Children's Ancestry, Sarah Cantey Whitaker Allen, 1935; With Kindly Voices, A Nineteenth-Century Georgia Family, Virginia King Nirenstein, Tullous Books, Macon, Ga., 1984; The History of Augusta, Georgia, Charles C. Jones, Jr.
DR. THOMPSON BIRD:
b. ; d. ; early settler of Milledgeville; ap-point-ed by the State as one of the five commissioners to sell lots in Milledgeville to raise funds to construct the capitol build-ing; purchased original lots: Lot 4, Square 17, 4 March 1806, $525; Lot 4, Square 19, 3 March 1806, $332; Lot 2, Square 19, 3 March 1808, $101; postmaster of the first post office in Milledgeville (1 Oct. 1806), which was in his residence; one of the first five commissioners appointed by the state to direct and manage the capital city ; one of five commissioners appointed by the state to sell and lay out lots for an academy and churches in Milledgeville, 1807; married Susan Williamson, daughter of Micajah Williamson of Wilkes Co., Ga.; apparently was in business with his wife's uncle, Dr. Charles Williamson, until 1809 [see Dr. Ch. Williamson, below]; brother-in-law of Gov. John Clark(e) [see below] and U.S. Senator Charles Tait [see below]; on 3 June 1812 he occupied the "improvements" (house) on ¼ of Lot 4, Square 29, then belonging to William Rowe; his daughter, Sarah Williamson Bird of Milledgeville, married Judge Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar [see below], they were the parents of Senator / U.S. Justice L.Q.C. Lamar, of Milledgeville [see below].
CONGRESSMAN ABSALOM HARRIS CHAPPELL:
b. Mount Zion, Hancock Co., Ga., 18 Dec. 1801, d. Columbus, Ga., 11 Dec. 1878; cousin of L.Q.C. Lamar; married Loretta Lamar of Milledgeville, sister of Judge Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar, and Texas President Mirabeau Lamar; University of Georgia, 1821; Georgia Senate 1832-1833; Georgia House of Representatives 1834-1839; delegate to the Knoxville convention, 1836; promoter of the Monroe Railroad; board of commissioners to establish a Georgia finance system, 1839; U.S. House of Representatives 1843-1845; Georgia Senate 1845, president of the senate; delegate, Georgia constitutional convention 1865, 1867; father of Joseph Harris Chappell, first president of Georgia Normal and Industrial College, 1891-1905, now Georgia College and State University, Milledgeville.
JOSEPH HARRIS CHAPPELL:
b. Bibb Co., Ga., 18 Oct. 1849; d. Columbus, Ga., 6 April 1906, interred Memory Hill Cemetery, Milledgeville; son of Congressman Absalom Harris Chappell and Loretta Lamar C. of Milledgeville; married Henrietta Kincaid, an organizing Regent of the Daughter of the American Revolution; first president of Georgia Normal and Industrial College, now Georgia College and State University.
CONGRESSMAN HOWELL COBB:
b. Granville Co., N.C., 3 August 1772, d. near Louisville, Ga., 26 May 1818; uncle of Governor & U.S. Senator Howell Cobb; officer, United States Army (artillery & engineers) 1793-1806; commissioner of Milledgeville until 1807; U.S. House of Representatives 1807-1812. Purchased original lots in Milledgeville: Lot 1, Square 78, $247, 5 March 1806; and, Lot 3, Square 80, $151, 17 June 1806.
GOV. HOWELL COBB:
b. "Cherry Hill", Jefferson Co. Ga., 7 Sept. 1815, d. New York City, 9 Oct. 1868; Univ. of Ga. 1834; married Mary Ann Lamar, 1835, daughter of Milledgeville's Col. Zachariah Lamar, and sister to Congressman John Basil Lamar; solicitor general western judicial circuit of Georgia 1837-1841; U.S. House of Representatives 1843-1851, 1855-1857; Speaker of the House of Representatives, 31st Congress; Governor of Georgia 1851-1853; U.S. Secretary of the Treasury 1857-1860; chairman of the Confederate Convention Montgomery, Alabama, 1861; brigadier general C.S.A. 1862; major general C.S.A. 1863; his Milledgeville / Baldwin Co. plantation was razed by Sherman as retribution for his part in secession.
CONGRESSMAN HENRY GRAYBILL LAMAR:
b. Clinton, Jones Co., Ga., 10 July 1798, d. Macon, Ga., 10 Sept. 1861; judge of the State superior court; Georgia House of Representatives; U.S. House of Representatives 1829-1833; unsuccessful candidate for Governor of Georgia, 1857; associate justice of the Georgia supreme court.
CONGRESSMAN JOHN BASIL LAMAR:
b. Milledgeville, Ga., 5 Nov. 1812, d. of wounds received at the battle of Cramptons Gap, Md., 15 Sept. 1862; son of Col. Zachariah Lamar of Milledgeville; brother-in-law of Gov. Howell Cobb; University of Georgia 1827; farmer; Georgia House of Representatives 1837-1838; U.S. House of Representatives 1843; trustee of the University of Georgia 1855-1858; delegate, Georgia Secession Convention 1861; aide to his brother-in-law General (Gov.) Howell Cobb, Confederate States Army.
JUDGE LUCIUS QUINTUS CINCINNATUS LAMAR:
b. 15 July 1797, d. Milledgeville, Ga., 4 July 1834; son of John Lamar and his cousin Rebecca Lamar, the sister of wealthy Milledgeville merchant Zachariah Lamar; brother of Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar, second President of the Republic of Texas; brother of Loretta Lamar who married Congressman Absalom H. Chappell; in 1819 married Sarah Williamson Bird, daughter of Dr. Thompson Bird of Milledgeville; father of U.S. Senator and Supreme Court Justice Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar (Jr.); studied law in Milledgeville under Congressman Joel Crawford; compiled Georgia Reports 1810-20 under order of the Legislature; judge, Ocmulgee circuit, 1830. The youngest member of the Georgia judiciary, he was famed for his integrity and honesty. Judge Lamar presided over the murder trial of a local Methodist preacher who was charged with death of his wife's fifteen year old sister. Proclaiming his innocence, the minister was sentenced to hang. Several years later, in Mississippi, another condemned murderer confessed to the crime, and Judge Lamar, despondent that he had executed an innocent man, took his own life in his Milledgeville garden.
SENATOR / JUSTICE L. Q. C. LAMAR:
b. at his grandfather's place near Eatonton, Ga., 17 Sept. 1825, d. Vineville, Ga., 23 January 1893; son of Judge L.Q.C. Lamar [see above], nephew of Texas President Mirabeau Lamar [see below] and Congressman Absalon H. Chappell [see above]; educated in Milledgeville and Newton County; Emory College, Oxford, Ga., 1845, where he was a student of the renowned Judge Augustus B. Longstreet [see above]; L.Q.C. Lamar, Jr., married Longstreet's daughter, Virginia; followed A. B. Longstreet to Mississippi in 1849 when Longstreet assumed the presidency of the University of Mississippi; there, Lamar taught mathematics. L.Q.C. Lamar, Jr., moved to Covington, Ga., in 1852; Georgia House of Representatives, 1853; returned to Mississippi, 1855; U.S. House of Representatives 1857-1860; a member of the Mississippi Secession Convention, he drafted the Mississippi secession ordinance; Lt. Col., C.S.A., until 1862; Confederate diplomatic service from 1862, on special missions to England, France and Russia; member of the Mississippi constitutional conventions 1865, 1868, 1875, 1877 & 1881; professor of metaphysics, social science and law at the University of Mississippi; U.S. House of Representatives 1873-1877, where he was chairman of the Committee on Pacific Railroads; U.S. Senate 1876-1885, where he was chairman of the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, and the Committee on Railroads; U.S. Secretary of the Interior (President Grover Cleveland) 1885-1888; Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court 1888-1893.
PRESIDENT MIRABEAU BUONAPARTE LAMAR
(Republic of Texas) : b. Louisville, Ga., 16 Aug. 1798, d. Richmond, Tex-as, 19 Dec. 1859; poet, educator, journalist, military officer and statesman; awarded a gold medal for fencing, in Milledgeville, Ga., 1820 (medal now exhibited in The Alamo); private secretary to Georgia Governor George M. Troup, 1823; editor, Columbus, Ga., Enquirer 1826- ; moved to Texas 1836; commander, Texas Cavalry at Battle of San Jacinto; Texas Republic's attorney general, then secretary of war, in President Burnet's provisional cabinet, 1836; vice-president Republic of Texas, 1836; President, Republic of Texas 1838-1841; founder of the city of Austin, Texas, 1840; fought in the Mexican War, participated in the Battle of Monterey, 1846; U.S. minister (ambassador) to Argentina 1855-1856; father of Texas education, the Lamar State College is named for him.
COL. ZACHARIAH LAMAR:
d. Milledgeville, 1832; Merchant, planter, banker; Georgia House of Representatives, 1804; Georgia Senate 1816; an original settler of the new capital city, Milledgeville, he purchased Lot 2, Square 43, for $655 on 4 March 1806 -- one of the highest sales prices recorded; estab-lished mercantile houses, a tavern and "places of entertainment; at his death he listed 220 slaves and more than 15,000 acres in Baldwin and four adjacent counties; he forced the founding of the Bank of the State of Georgia, in 1815 by seeing to the success of a subscription of $150,000 by Milledgeville leaders, in less than two weeks, for the creation of the first upcountry bank in the state; Col. Zachariah Lamar has frequently been confused with his uncle of the same name who was reputedly self-taught but yet he was an extraordinary man of letters and is given responsibility for the historic names of his cousins, nieces and nephews; Col. Zachariah Lamar of Milledgeville was the father of Congressman John Basil Lamar, and, Mary Ann Lamar who became Mrs. Gov. (and Major General) Howell Cobb.