Georgia and Georgians - the Digital Library of Georgia

2948 GEORGIA AND GEORGIANSmal. He continued his education in the University of Tennessee at Nashville, where he was graduated A. B. with the class of 1901, arid for three yearshe was engaged in educational work as principal of the high school at Sandersville,Georgia. In 1904 he entered Mercer College in the law department, andwas graduated LL. B. in 1905.Since then for ten years he has been located and has been building up alarge and successful practice at Cordele. He is known as a strong advocate and his success has been such as only a thorough lawyer could haveaccomplished. In the way of public service he served two terms as city attorney, but resigned from that office when elected to the Legislature, in whichhe served with distinction during the years 1910-11-12-13. Mr. Gower's nameis associated over the state with the Gower Act, which became a law in 1912and provided for the creation of a commission to revise the insurance laws ofthe state. He also took an active part in legislation affecting taxation and theTax Act. for which he stood sponsor, became a law only after a tie vote, inwhich Speaker W. II. Burwell cast the deciding ballot. Mr. Gower was alsochairman of judiciary committee No. 2.After his last term in the Legislature he declined further political honorsin order to devote all his time to his legal /work and his farming and businessinterests. He is attorney for and a director of the Exchange Bank of Cordele.He also represents the legal interests of the Armour and Swift Packing companies and other corporations in this section of Georgia. Mr. Gower is amember of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, the Knights ofPythias, the Improved Order of Red Men, and is a steward in the MethodistChurch. His wife is also active in the same church. On November 6, 1907,at Cordele he married Miss Mary Lee Pound, who was born at Cordele, adaughter of Braxton Bragg and Fannie (Winn) Pound, both of whom wereborn in Dodge County, Georgia. Her father was a Confederate soldier, nowdeceased, and her mother resides in MacRae. To their mariiage have beenborn three children: Frances, born September 17, 1908; Mary, born May 31,1911; and Orien Thomas, Jr., born September 8, 1913.JOHN F. HANSON. The late Maj. J. F. Hanson was born in MonroeCounty, Georgia, November 25, 1840, and died in Atlanta, Georgia, on December 15, 1910. After the war, in which he served as a private, he wasa merchant at Barnesville and Macon, and in the latter city developed theBibb cotton factories until 1908^ when he sold his interests in what hadbecome a great industry. In the meantime he had become interested in transportation companies. He became a director of the Central of Georgia in1895 and its president in 1903, which position he held at the time of his death.His connection Avith the Ocean Steamship Company was virtually the same.He was also on the directorate of numerous Southern railroads.JUDGE DANIEL B. SANFORD, of Milledgeville, is one of the veteran lawyersof Middle Georgia. He was born in Greensboro, that state, on April 11, 1839,his father having been a native of Virginia, who came from Loudoun Countyin that state to Greensboro, Georgia, about 1800, and was by occupation amerchant.Judge Sanford was educated in the Greensboro schools, and in 1859 wasappointed a deputy clerk of the Supreme Court, which held its sessions atMilledgeville, then the capital of the state. On the outbreak of the war heresigned his office, returned to Greene County, and assisted in the organizationof the Greene Rifles, and rose from the ranks to a captaincy.Returning from the war in October, 1865, he was made enrolling clerkof the first state convention held in Georgia after the war. He remainedin Milledgeville, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1866. He hasbeen, therefore, in the active practice now forty-four years, and is the dean