Georgia and Georgians - the Digital Library of Georgia

3200 GEORGIA AND GEORGIANSJOSEPH RUCKER LAMAB. The late Joseph R. Lamar, at the time of hisdeath associate justice of the United States Supreme Court, was of that famous family which has given so many prominent lawyers, judges and statesmento the South and the country at large. He was born at the home of his maternal grandfather in Elbert County, Georgia, October 14, 1857. He spent hisearly life in Augusta, where his father was pastor of the Church of the Disciples. After pursuing a course in law at Washington and Lee Universityof Virginia, he was admitted to the bar at Augusta in April, 1878. He took'rank at once, served for several years in the General Assembly, was the authorof a number of important legal works, and in 1900 was president of the Georgia Bar Association. He had previously been appointed one of the commissioners to revise the Georgia Code and was the sole reviser of the Civil Code.In January, 1903, Mr. Lamar was appointed by Governor Terrell as associatejustice of the State Supreme Court, and upon taking his seat resigned hisposition as a member of the board of examiners for admission to the bar,which he had held since 1898. At his retirement from the bench in 1905 hewas made chairman of the board named, which he held until he ascended thebench of the United States Supreme Court. Pie was advanced to that honorby President Taft in 1910, and in 1914, while still serving as associate justiceof the Supreme Court was appointed by President Wilson as the principalcommissioner for the United States in the conference at Niagara Falls onMexican affairs, in which Argentina, Brazil and Chile were called into council.It is thought that the added burden of his mental labors hastened his death,which had even been foreshadowed during the summer of 1915 by a partialstroke of paralysis. His death occurred at Washington, on January 2, 1916.JOHN MILLEDGE, who served as governor of Georgia and in both houses ofthe National Congress, was a native of Savannah, born in 1757. His fatherwas a trusted friend of Oglethorpe. He was studying law at the outbreakof the Revolutionary war and at once identified himself with the patriots'cause. When Savannah fell to the British he escaped to South Carolina withCapt. James Jackson, and after several narrow escapes returned to Georgiato take part in the first unsuccessful attempt of the patriots to recover Savannah and Augusta. In 1780 he was made attorney-general of Georgia; servedin the Second Congress from November, 1792, to March, 1793; was electedto the Fourth, Fifth and Seventh congresses, and in 1802 resigned his seat tobecome governor. That position he held until 1806, when he was electedto the United States Senate, resigning his seat therein to retire to private life.In the meantime he had become the prime agent in founding the Universityof Georgia. Many years before, the Legislature had passed an act donatingsome 40,000 acres of land as an endowment for that purpose, but its sale wasuncertain and the collection of the fund slow. Had it not been for Governor Milledge's donation of some $30,000, the founding of the universitywould have been quite problematic. In 1801 the locating committee decidedon a site and in that year the institution went into active operation. It wasthis site, comprising 633 acres, which the governor bought himself and presented to the university, the tract yielding at least $30,000 and establishingthe university on a safe financial basis. The generous donor and able citizendied at his estate near Augusta on February 9, 1818.WILLIAM THOMAS DAVIDSON. Among the attorneys practicing in theOcmulgee Circuit, probably none has greater abilities as an advocate both incivil and criminal cases than William Thomas Davidson of Eatonton. Mr.Davidson has been a member of the bar for twenty years, and gained hisentrance to a learned profession by the hardest kind of work and manysacrifices. Though his education was thus delayed, he gained a practicalexperience and energy which have proved of the highest value and have