LUMPKIN COUNTY. 397 



in that part of the State then known as Wilkes county, now 

 Oglethorpe county. At this period the means of education 

 were very limited, there not being a good grammar-school 

 within twenty miles of his residence; and being unable to 

 send his children from home to be educated, they received no 

 other instruction than that which is acquired in a common 

 country school. When young Lumpkin was fourteen years 

 old, his father held the office of Clerk of the Superior Court 

 of Oglethorpe county, and knowing that many advantages 

 would be enjoyed by his son in an office of this kind, he em- 

 ployed him in copying, writing, &c. This was of incalculable 

 benefit to his son, compensating in no small degree the want 

 of a regular education, and introducing him to many gentle- 

 men of the legal profession. He imbibed a great fondness for 

 reading, and during the time that he continued in this office 

 he devoted all his leisure moments to reading law. A short 

 time after he was twenty-one years of age, he was elected a 

 member of the Legislature for Oglethorpe county, by almost 

 an unanimous vote, and for several years contmued a mem- 

 ber, discharging his duties with zeal and fidelity. He served for 

 several years both as a member of the House of Representatives 

 and Senate of the United States. When he was solicited to 

 become a candidate for the office of Governor of Georgia, 

 he reluctantly consented, and was elected, and at the close 

 of his executive term was re-elected. Mr. Lumpkin has 

 filled many other responsible offices, but the limits fixed to 

 these sketches will not allow us to enumerate all of them. We 

 cannot however consent, in justice to a faithful public servant, 

 to omit the following. In 1823, Mr. Lumpkin was commis- 

 sioned by President Monroe to ascertain and mark the bound- 

 ary line between Georgia and Florida. Under a commission 

 of General Jackson, he was one of the first Commission- 

 ers appointed under the Cherokee treaty of 1835. The 

 records of the country will bear testimony to the ability and 

 justice with which he discharged that delicate and difficult 

 trust. When the Legislature of Georgia created a Board of 

 Public Works, with a view of commencing a systematic 

 course of Internal Improvement, it provided for a Board to 

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