|
Escambia County, FL Obituaries
BY JOHN H. CROSS.
Probably few people in Florida are aware of the fact that in old Saint
Michaels cemetery in Pensacola reposes
all that is mortal of Mrs. Dorothy Walton, wife and widow of
Governor George Walton of Georgia and one
of the signers of the Declaration of Independence from that State.
Surrounded by a whitewashed brick wall in the old part of the cemetery
near the South Alcaniz Street gateway
the old grave may be seen. It is covered with a flat slab of marble
and has upon it the following inscription:
“Died in
Pensacola
September 12, 1832
MRS. DOROTHY WALTON
a native of
The State of Georgia
A Matron of the Revolution
Consort and relict of
GEORGE WALTON
A signer of The Declaration of American Independence.”
George Walton
was a native of Prince Edward County, Virginia and his fine character
and mental gifts
soon placed him in the front rank at the bar in Georgia to which State
he moved from Virginia early in life ;
born 1740, he died full of years and honors in 1804 and is buried at
Augusta, Georgia. He was governor-general
of Georgia before the Revolutionary War and was a colonel in the American
army during the Revolution and
received a wound at the siege of Savannah while leading his regiment.
A member of the first congress at.
Philadelphia, he was afterward chosen governor of Georgia on two occasions
and also filled the high offices
of United States Senator and Judge of the SupremeCourt of Georgia. Sometime
before the Revolutionary
War he married Miss Dorothy Camber, who was the daughter of an Englishman
to whom the crown had given
large tracts of land in the Colony of Georgia; and when the war broke
out her father insisted upon her returning
to England, but she positively refused to leave her rebel husband and
with true womanly heroism followed him
through the perilous days which succeeded.
Soon after the siege of Savannah she was taken prisoner by the British
and sent as a prisoner of war to
one of the West India Islands where she remained some time until an
exchange of prisoners was effected. Young,
gifted and beautiful and reared as an English heiress, her devotion
to her adopted country should give her
name a foremost place among the heroines of the Revolution.
In 1804 George Walton died at “Meadow Grove,” his country
seat near Augusta, Georgia, and his body rests
under the monument there on Green street, erected to the signers of
the Declaration of Independence, three of
whom, Walton, Hall and Gwinnett, were originally from the city of Augusta.
Hall’s body is also buried under
this monument, but Gwinnett’s burial place is unknown, as he fought
a duel and his body was buried in the woods
where he fell and there is no trace of his resting place.
During the administration
of Andrew Jackson, seventh president of the United States, a son of
Governor
and Mrs. Walton was Secretary of State for West Florida and at the time
of Mrs. Walton’s death in 1832
she was living in Pensacola with a daughter, Mrs. Le Vert, who was the
wife of a physician.
Dr. and Mrs. Le Vert afterward removed to Mobile, Alabama, in which
city I believe they both died and
where Madame Le Vert, as she-was called, who outlived her husband many
years, entertained in her hospitable
home many of the foremost statesmen and authors and authoresses of the
country.
During the Revolutionary
War our State of Florida was held by England as a colony and as it was
very
sparsely settled, and mostly by people of Spanish extraction,
it did not revolt as did the thirteen colonies to the north of it. In
1783 England gave Florida back to Spain,
who held it until we acquired it by treaty, February 22,1519, although
not finally ratified by Spain until 1821.
Thus it happens that Florida did not come into the Union as a State
until 1845, and has no signers of the Declaration
of Independence but can claim them all and the Florida Society of the
Sons of the American Revolution
whose headquarters are in Pensacola is glad to have the privilege of
keeping Mrs. Walton’s grave in good order
and herself and husband in grateful memory.
Source: Vol II., 1909, No. 2., Florida Historical Society Quarterly
Submitted
by K. Torp
Eligitus Fromentin
Gettysburg Compiler (Gettysburg, Pennsylvania)
November 20 1822 Page 4
By a letter received by a gentleman in the city, we learn the death
of Eligitus Fromentin, Esq., formerly a Senator in Congress from the
State of Louisiana, and not long since a Judge for the western part
of the territory of Florida. A few days ago we announced the death of
his lady, and we understand that Mr. Fromentin departed this wife in
24 hours after her decease. – Washington Gaz.
[Submitted
by Nancy Piper]
James B. Kimball, U.S.N., died, Pensacola Navy Yard, Fla., May
18, 1879, aged 43¾
[Source: 1843
Chicago City Directory, reprinted in 1896 with updated death information.
Submitted by
K. Torp]
At Jacksonville, Fla., Aug
16. Acting Assistant Surgeon John M Whitney, of US steamer Norwich,
son of Marshall Whitney, Esq. of Harvard, formerly of this city, 22.
At Barrancas, Fla, at the
Hospital, of chronic diarrhea, Theodore Sedgwick Sprague, a member of
Co F, 2d Maine Cavalry, and son of Samuel Sprague, formerly of Dedham,
Mass, 18 years 10 months.
Submitted by
K. Torp
|