GEORGIA

Image: The National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

I. EARLY LIFE

Baldwin was born in Guilford, CT, in 1754, the second son of a blacksmith who fathered 12 children by two wives. Baldwin's sister Ruth married the poet and diplomat Joel Barlow, and his half-brother Henry attained the position of justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Their ambitious father went heavily into debt to educate his children.

After attending a local village school, Abraham matriculated at Yale, in nearby New Haven. He graduated in 1772. Three years later, he became a minister and tutor at the college. He held that position until 1779, when he served as a chaplain in the Continental Army. Two years later, he declined an offer from his alma mater of a professorship of divinity. He turned to the study of law and in 1783 gained admittance to the bar at Fairfield, CT.

Within a year, Baldwin moved to Georgia, won legislative approval to practice his profession, and obtained a grant of land in Wilkes County. His father died in 1787, and Baldwin undertook to pay off his debts and educate, out of his own pocket, his half-brothers and half-sisters.

II. CONTINENTAL CONGRESS & CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION

Baldwin sat in the Continental Congress (1785, 1787-89).

In 1787, Baldwin attended the Constitutional Convention. Although usually inconspicuous, he sat on the Committee on Postponed Matters and helped resolve the large-small state representation crisis. At first, he favored representation in the Senate based upon property holdings. However, possibly because of his close relationship with the Connecticut delegation, he came to fear alienating the small states and came to support representation by state.

III. GOVERNMENT OFFICES

Baldwin was elected to the U.S. Congress, where he served for 18 years (House of Representatives, 1789-99; Senate, 1799-1807). During these years, he became a bitter opponent of Hamiltonian policies and, unlike most other native New Englanders, an ally of Madison and Jefferson and the Democratic-Republicans. In the Senate, he presided for a while as president pro tem.

By 1790 Baldwin had taken up residence in Augusta. Appointed with six others in 1784 to oversee the founding of a state college, he saw his dream come true in 1798 when Franklin College was founded. Modeled after Yale, it became the nucleus of the University of Georgia.

Baldwin, who never married, died after a short illness during his 53d year in 1807. Still serving in the Senate at the time, he was buried in Washington's Rock Creek Cemetery.

Image: National Archives, Records of Exposition, Anniversary, and Memorial Commissions
(148-CP-157)

I. EARLY LIFE

Few was born in 1748 on a farm near Baltimore, MD. He encountered much hardship and received minimal schooling. When he was ten years of age, his father, seeking better opportunity, moved his family to North Carolina.

In 1771, Few, his father, and a brother associated themselves with the "Regulators," a group of frontiersmen who opposed the royal governor. As a result, the brother was hanged, the Few family farm was destroyed, and the father was forced to move once again, this time to Georgia. William remained behind, helping to settle his father's affairs. He joined his family in 1776. About this time, he won admittance to the bar, based on earlier informal study, and set up practice in Augusta.

When the War for Independence began, Few enthusiastically aligned himself with the Whig cause. He soon proved his capacity for leadership and won a lieutenant-colonelcy in the dragoons. He was elected to the Georgia provincial congress of 1776 and during the war twice served in the assembly, in 1777 and 1779. During the same period, he also sat on the state executive council and held the positions of surveyor-general and Indian commissioner.

II. CONTINENTAL CONGRESS & CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION

Few served in the Continental Congress (1780-88). He was also appointed as one of six state delegates to the Constitutional Convention. (Two never attended and two did not stay for the duration.) Few was absent during all of July and part of August because of congressional service, and he never made a speech. Nonetheless, he contributed nationalist votes at critical times. Furthermore, as a delegate to the last sessions of the Continental Congress, he helped steer the Constitution past its first obstacle: approval by Congress. He also attended the state ratifying convention.

III. GOVERNMENT OFFICES/LEADERSHIP POSITIONS

Few became one of his state's first U.S. Senators (1789-93). When his term ended, he headed back home and served again in the assembly. In 1796 he received an appointment as a federal judge for the Georgia circuit. For reasons unknown, he resigned his judgeship in 1799 at the age of 52 and moved to New York City.

Few's career continued to blossom. He served four years in the legislature (1802-5) and then as inspector of prisons (1802-10), alderman (1813-14), and U.S. commissioner of loans (1804). From 1804 to 1814 he held a directorship at the Manhattan Bank and later the presidency of City Bank. A devout Methodist, he also donated generously to philanthropic causes.

When Few died in 1828 at the age of 80, he was survived by his wife (born Catherine Nicholson) and three daughters. Originally buried in the yard of the local Reformed Dutch Church, his body was later reinterred at St. Paul's Church, Augusta, GA.

Image: The Georgia Historical Society

I. EARLY LIFE

Born in Savannah in 1755, William Houstoun was the son of Sir Patrick Houstoun, a member of the council under the royal government of Georgia. Houstoun received a liberal education, which included legal training at Inner Temple in London. The War for Independence cut short his training, and Houstoun returned home to Georgia. He was chosen as one of Georgia's agents to settle a boundary dispute with South Carolina in 1785 and was one of the original trustees of the University of Georgia at Athens.

II. CONTINENTAL CONGRESS & CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION

With the onset of war, many of Houstoun's family members remained loyal to the Crown, but William, a zealous advocate of colonists' rights, was among the first to counsel resistance to British aggression. Houstoun represented Georgia in the Continental Congress from 1783 through 1786. When the Constitutional Convention convened in 1787, Houstoun presented his credentials as one of Georgia's delegates. He stayed for only a short time, from June 1 until about July 23, but he was present during the debate on the question of representation. Houstoun split Georgia's vote on equal representation in the Senate, voting "nay" against Abraham Baldwin's "aye."

Houstoun died in Savannah on March 17, 1813, and was interred in St. Paul's Chapel, New York City.

I. EARLY LIFE

Pierce was probably born in Georgia in 1740, but he grew up in Virginia. During the Revolutionary War, Pierce acted as an aide-de-camp to Gen. Nathanael Greene and eventually attained the rank of brevet major. For his conduct at the battle of Eutaw Springs, Congress presented him with a ceremonial sword.

The year Pierce left the army, 1783, he married Charlotte Fenwick of South Carolina. They had two sons, one of whom died as a child. Pierce made his home in Savannah, where he engaged in business. He first organized an import-export company, Pierce, White, and Call, in 1783, but it dissolved less than a year later. He made a new start with his wife's dowry and formed William Pierce & Company. In 1786 he was a member of the Georgia House of Representatives and was also elected to the Continental Congress.

II. CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION

Pierce did not play a large role at the Constitutional Convention, but he exerted some influence and participated in debates. He argued for the election of one house of the federal legislature by the people and one house by the states; he favored a three-year term instead of a seven-year term in the second house. Because he agreed that the Articles of Confederation had been insufficient, he recommended strengthening the federal government at the expense of state privileges as long as state distinctions were not altogether destroyed. Pierce approved of the resulting Constitution, but he found it necessary to leave in the middle of the proceedings.

Pierce's notes on the proceedings of the convention were published in the Savannah Georgian in 1828. Pierce wrote incisive character sketches that are especially valuable for the information they provide about the lesser-known delegates.

A decline in the European rice market adversely affected Pierce's business. He went bankrupt, having "neither the skill of an experienced merchant nor any reserve capital." On December 10, 1789, Pierce died in Savannah at age 49, leaving tremendous debts.