Revolutionary Reader: Reminiscences and Indian Legends

by Sophie Lee Foster

[LYMAN HALL.]

Lyman Hall, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, was born in Wallingford, Conn., April 12, 1724. He was the son of Hon. John Hall and Mary Street. In 1747 Lyman Hall was graduated from Yale College in a class of twenty-eight members. He then studied Theology.

In the twenty-eighth year of his age he moved to Dorchester, S. C., and for many years ministered to the needs of those sturdy people.

Many of these settlers removed to Liberty County, Georgia. Along with the second stream of immigration came Lyman Hall.

When the storm of the Revolution began to lower, Dr. Hall promptly took sides with the patriots and to them he was a tower of strength. Dr. Hall was chairman of the meeting at Midway, February 9th, 1775, which sent delegates to the meeting at Charleston. He was elected to represent the people of St. John's Parish in the Continental Congress, March 21, 1775.

When the Declaration of Independence was signed, Lyman Hall, Button Gwinnett and George Walton, in behalf of the inhabitants of Georgia, affixed their names to the famous document.

When the British troops overran Georgia, the property of those who had espoused the patriot cause was confiscated and destroyed, and Dr. Hall's residence at Sunbury and his plantation near Midway were despoiled. With his family he removed to the North where he resided till 1782, when he returned to Georgia and settled in Savannah.

In 1783 Dr. Hall was elected Governor of Georgia and his administration was one of the most important in the history of the State. After the expiration of his term of office as Governor, he returned to Savannah and again took up the practice of medicine. He removed to Burke County in 1790 and settled upon a fine plantation near Shell Bluff. Here he died, October 19, 1790, at the age of sixty-seven, and was buried in a brick vault on a bold bluff overlooking the river.

In 1848 his remains were removed to Augusta and placed with those of George Walton beneath the monument erected by patriotic citizens in front of the Court House.