Button Gwinnett

Button Gwinnett (* 1735 in Down Heatherly, Gloucestershire, England; near † May 19, 1777 Savannah, Georgia) was a signer of the Declaration of Independence and the third Governor of Georgia.

Life

Button was born in England, the son of the Reverend Samuel Gwinnett and his wife Anne. Of his birth, there are no reliable data. The only certainty is that he was baptized on 10 April 1735 in the St. Catherine Church in Gloucester. After his school, he was Merchant in Bristol. 1755 he moved to Wolverhampton, where two years later he married Ann Bourne. 1762 the couple moved then to America. At first they settled in Charleston, South Carolina, down, then moved to Savannah in 1765. Button sold his trading business and bought a piece of land on St. Catherine Island and built a plantation. Even four years later, he was a prominent plantation owners and was elected to the provincial government.

His military career he finished as commander of Georgia's continental militia, when he was elected as governor in the Continental Congress. After the signing of the Declaration of Independence, he returned to Georgia and helped with the construction of the state and was, until his death provisional president of Georgia. His successor as governor was John Treutlen.

On May 16 In 1777 he was in a duel with General Lachlan McIntosh, a political leader during the American Revolution and the early Republic, wounded and died three days later. To him, the Gwinnett County was named in honor of Georgia.