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452 GBOEGIA AND GEORGIANS
town was laid off: by the following commissioners, to wit: Littleberry
Bostwick, A. M. Devereaux, George M. Troup, John Herbert, and Oliver
Porter. It was an ideal site for a town, thickly wooded with oaks and
hickories, in an area of splendid hills. On the eastern side of the town
ran Fishing Creek, then a stream of transparent crystal, threading the
virgin forest like a skein of silver. The new capital of the state was to
be called Milledgeville, in honor of the distinguished governor who was
then occupying the executive chair. It was a tribute alike to the popu
larity and to the statesmanship of this great man that, while at the helm
of affairs, his name should have been conferred upon the capital of his
native state: an honor to be cherished by his children and by his chil
dren's children to the latest generation.
To Gen. Jett Thomas, a civil engineer, who had built the first struc
ture on the campus at Athens, for Franklin College, was committed the
task of erecting Georgia's new state house—an edifice of Norman design
which remains to this day an imposing memorial of the ante-bellum
period, surpassed by no other existing landmark in its wealth of historic
associations.
But, while the new state house was in process of erection, the Leg
islature continued to meet in Louisville, where its last session was held
in 1806.
Milledgeville was thus given a double distinction. It was to be not
only the county-seat of Baldwin County but the seat of government for
all Georgia; and the state's wealth, refinement, influence, and power
were soon to converge at this new center, destined for more than sixty
years to give laws to a great commonwealth and to retain its honors as
Georgia's capital.
In 1804, while occupying a seat on the bench of the Middle Circuit,
Hon. George Walton, the last surviving member of Georgia's immortal
trio of independence, breathed his last, having been honored with almost
every high and important office within Georgia's gift.
On November 3, 1804, Col. Benjamin Hawkins, the resident Indian
agent, negotiated a treaty with the Creeks, under which a body of land
between the Oconee and the Ocmulgee rivers was acquired.*'
In the presidential contest of 1804, Georgia cast six electoral votes.
She supported in this contest, Thomas Jefferson, of Virginia, and George
Clinton, of New York. Her electors were Edward Telfair and James B.
Maxwell, from the state at large; and David Emanuel, John .Rutherford,
Henry Graybill and David Creswell, from the congressional districts.!
On November 14, 1805, Henry Dearborn, then secretary of war, met
six chiefs of the Creek Nation, in Washington, District of Columbia, with
whom he negotiated a treaty under which the remaining lands between
the Oconee and the Ocmulgee rivers were acquired. 4. Privileges were
granted to establish forts, factories and trading-posts among the In
dians; and a horse-path was to be maintained over which the safety of
travelers was guaranteed.
On March 19, 1806, United States Senator James Jackson died in
* "Indian Affairs," I, p. 691.
t "Lanman's Biographical Annals of the United States Government," pp. 515-516.
t "Clayton's Compilation," p. 336; "Indian Affairs," I, 698.