Signer of the Declaration of Independence and United States Senator, born in Frederick County, VA, and when young was apprenticed to a carpenter. Unaided he acquired a fair education, was admitted to the bar, and commenced the practice of law in Savannah, GA, in 1774. He was one of four persons who signed a call for a public meeting, July 27, 1774, for the consideration of political grievances, and one of a committee appointed on that occasion to correspond with other provinces in North America concerning the arbitrary exercise of power by the British government. He was a delegate to the Continental Congress from 1776 to 1781, and signed the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation. A colonel of militia at the defense of Savannah in 1778, he was dangerously wounded. He was governor of Georgia in 1779; chief justice in 1783; again governor in 1789; United States Senator (1795–96). He died in Augusta, GA, on the 2nd of February 1804.
