Benjamin Taliaferro

Benjamin Taliaferro (1750 – September 3, 1821) was a United States Representative from Georgia.

Biography

He was born in present-day Amherst County, Virginia^[1] in 1750 to an English-Italian family, the Taliaferros, who settled in Virginia in the early 17th century. He completed preparatory studies and served in the American Revolutionary War as a lieutenant in the rifle corps commanded by General Daniel Morgan. He was promoted to captain, participated in the Battle of Princeton, volunteered to serve in Lee's Legion, and was then captured by the British at Charleston in 1780.^[2]

Taliaferro settled in Wilkes County, Georgia in 1784 and was appointed a judge of superior court.^[3] The governor appointed him major general of the Georgia Militia 3rd Division in 1795.^[4] He was a member of the Georgia Senate and its president. He was a delegate to the Georgia State Constitutional Convention in 1798. He was elected as a Federalist to the 6th United States Congress and then reelected as a Republican to the 7th Congress and served from March 4, 1799, until his resignation in 1802. He was later judge of the Georgia Superior Court and a trustee for the University of Georgia. He died in Wilkes County, Georgia on September 3, 1821.

Honors

Taliaferro County, Georgia was named in his honor.^[5]

Footnotes

References

• Benjamin Taliaferro at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress Retrieved on March 4, 2009
• Carol Ebel, First Men: Changing Patterns of Leadership on the Virginia and Georgia Frontiers, 1642-181 (PhD diss., University of Georgia, 1996).
• George R. Gilmer, Sketches of Some of the First Settlers of Upper Georgia, of the Cherokees, and the Author(1855; reprint, Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing, 1965).
• Lee A. Wallace Jr., The Orderly Book of Captain Benjamin Taliaferro, 2d Virginia Detachment Charleston, South Carolina, 1780 (Richmond: Virginia State Library, 1980).
• Smith, Gordon Burns, History of the Georgia Militia, 1783-1861, Volume One, Campaigns and Generals, Milledgeville: Boyd Publishing, 2000. ASIN:B003L1PRKI.