Samuel Hammond

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Samuel Hammond (September 21, 1757 - September 11, 1842) was a United States Representative from Georgia in the 8th United States Congress.

[edit] Biography

He was born in Farnham Parish, Richmond County, Virginia. He attended the common schools and served as a volunteer under Governor Dunmore against Native Americans. During the American Revolutionary War he served in the Continental Army. He was promoted to Assistant Quartermaster at the siege of Savannah. He served as member of the "council of capitulation" at Charleston and shortly after the war settled in Savannah.

Hammond was a Surveyor General of Georgia in 1796. He served in the Creek War and commanded a corps of Georgia Volunteers in 1793. He was a member of the Georgia House of Representatives 1796-1798 and a member of the Georgia Senate 1799 and 1800. He was elected as a Republican to the Eighth Congress and served from March 4, 1803, until February 2, 1805, when he became Civil and Military Governor of the Upper Louisiana Territory where he served from 1805 to 1824. He was a receiver of public moneys in Missouri and president of the Bank of St. Louis.

Hammond moved to South Carolina in 1824 and became a member of the South Carolina House of Representatives. He then served as Surveyor General of South Carolina in 1825 and Secretary of State of South Carolina 1831-1835. He retired from public life and died at "Varello Farm," on the South Carolina side of the Savannah River, near Augusta, Georgia in 1842. He was buried in Hammond Cemetery, New Richmond, South Carolina.

Samuel Hammond was also a Freemason and member of Solomon's Lodge No. 1, F. & A. M. at Savannah, Georgia. Solomon's Lodge No. 1, F. & A. M. was established by the renowned Freemason and founder of the Colony of Georgia - General James Edward Oglethorpe on February 21, 1734 and is now the "Oldest Continuously Operating English Constituted Lodge of Freemasons in the Western Hemisphere".