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Wilkes
County Biographies
Joel Abbott
(1776—1826)
ABBOTT, Joel, a Representative from Georgia; born in Ridgefield, Conn., March 17, 1776; physician; member of the
Washington, Ga., city council; member of the Georgia state house of representatives, 1799, 1802-1804, 1808, and
1811; elected as a Republican to the Fifteenth and reelected to the two succeeding Congresses and elected as a
Crawford Republican to the Eighteenth (March 4, 1817-March 3, 1825); died on November 19, 1826, in Lexington, Ga.;
interment in Rest Haven Cemetery, Washington, Ga.
Source: Biographical Directory
of the United States Congress, 1771-Present - Contributed by A. Newell
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Samuel D. Fanning
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Hon. Samuel D. Fanning.
It requires discrimination in a community to choose wisely of its fellow citizens to exalt to offices of responsibility.
The associations of every day life, however, test men, proving their strength of character, their resolute courage
and their poise and good judgment in times of business stress, personal loss or public danger or calamity. Hence,
a wise community selects a strong man when it has such an office to bestow as that of ordinary, an office which
demands a knowledge of the fundamentals of the law, an innate sense of justice and the industry and integrity that
mark the honest man.
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Attention is hereby called to the good judgment exercised by the people of Wilkes County when they first elected
and subsequently re-elected Samuel D. Fanning to the office of ordinary of the county.
Samuel D. Fanning was born July 4, 1862, in Wilkes County, a son of Welcome and Mary Elizabeth (Heard) Fanning,
natives of Georgia. The father of Judge Fanning taught school for some time after completing his education, and
afterward, for ten years served as judge of the lower court of Wilkes County. His death occurred October 3, 1873,
at the age of seventy- four years. The mother of Judge Fanning was born in 1828 and died May 2, 1864. She was of
distinguished paternity. Her father, Bernard Heard, was a man of prominence in the early history as was his father,
John Heard. Bernard Heard died in 1774. The paternal grandfather, John Fanning, was a Revolutionary patriot and
served 1,074 days in Captain Williamson's company, as recorded in the ordinary's record of 1779. In 1767 it is
recorded that he was granted a vast body of land by the provisional government, located in Jackson County.
Judge Fanning was one of the younger born of a large family and was afforded excellent educational advantages,
attending the local schools and afterward Martin Institute. After his own school days were over he became a teacher
and for nine years devoted his time and attention to educational work, when other activities became of greater
moment and in an entirely different line. For fifteen years the future judge operated a sawmill and also became
interested in farming, these latter yet being of considerable importance to him. He has large farm properties near
Washington, Georgia. In 1910, after serving fifteen years as postmaster, and also as a justice of peace, he was
elected ordinary, and in 1912 he was re-elected for two terms, expiring in December, 1920.
[A Standard History of Georgia and Georgians Volume 5, by Lucian Lamar Knight, 1917 - Submitted by Brenda Wiesner]
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OLIVER H. PRINCE, lawyer, United
States Senator, literary man and industrial promoter, one of the brilliant figures of Georgia in the first half
of the nineteenth century, was born in Connecticut about 1787. On his mother's side he was descended from the Hillhouse
family, long a leading one in Connecticut. His grandfather, William Hillhouse, served fifty years in the General
Assembly of Connecticut, both in the colonial times and after it was a State. He was a judge of the Court of Common
Pleas for forty years, and a delegate from Connecticut to the Continental Congress from 1783 to 1786, and died
in 1816, aged eighty-eight. His uncle, James Hillhouse, son of William, born 1754, was a lawyer and served in the
Second and Third Congresses as a Federalist, succeeded Oliver Ellsworth in the United States Senate, serving from
1796 until 1810, member of the Hartford Convention, commissioner of the school fund from 1810 to 1825, and treasurer
of Yale College from 1782 to 1S32, a period of fifty years. David Hillhouse, a brother of the Senator, made Georgia
his home, and it was through him that O. H. Prince came to the State in his youth. A brilliant young man, he was
ready for admission to the bar before he was of age, and was admitted by special act of the Legislature in 1806.
He gained reputation almost from the start and sustained himself with great ability for thirty years. On the resignation
of Thomas W. Cobb from the United States Senate in 1828 Mr. Prince was elected to fill the vacancy for the unexpired
term. The contest was very close and he won only by one vote. He married a Miss Norman, whose sister became Mrs.
Washington Poe, of Macon. But one child survived him, Mrs. James Mercer Green. His only son, who bore his father's
name and inherited his intellect, was afflicted with ill health and died suddenly after arriving at manhood. He
had his father's strong sense of humor and kindliness. This son left several children. A daughter of O. H. Prince
married James Roswell King. She died comparatively young. James W. King, of Roswell, was her son.
In 1822 Mr. Prince published a Digest of the Laws of Georgia, and in 1827 a second publication of the same. In
1837 his Digest had then been in use for fifteen years, and it was time for a new edition. It had been accepted
by the Legislature, and Mr. Prince went north with his wife to supervise the publication. He took the steamship
"Home" from New York to Charleston, the first passenger steamer on that route, and this being its second
trip. The "Home" was wrecked, October 9, 1837, in a storm near Ocracoke Bar, N. C. Of ninety passengers
on board only twenty were saved, and among the lost were Mr. Prince and his wife. Fortunately, the publication
of the Digest was already assured, and it served the legal profession up to 1851, when it was superseded by the
Digest of Thomas R. R. Cobb.
In addition to being both a brilliant and strong lawyer, Mr. Prince was a man of fine literary taste, the author
of many humorous sketches, one of which, an account of a militia drill in Georgia, having been translated in several
languages, and later reproduced in Judge Longstreet's famous book entitled "Georgia Scenes." Mr. Prince
presided at the first Convention called in the State of Georgia for the purpose of promoting railroad building,
and took an active interest in that movement, which in the fifteen years succeeding his death resulted in securing
three great railway lines for Georgia.
His sense of humor is said by his contemporaries to have been coupled with great kindness of heart, which made
him not only a delightful companion, but a most popular man. His character was most exemplary and his untimely
death was greatly mourned by his contemporaries.
Source: "Men of Mark in Georgia: a complete and elaborate history...",
Volume 2 By William J. Northen - transcribed by Barb Ziegenmeyer
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