Lyman Hall
LYMAN HALL was born in Connecticut, about the year 1731. After receiving a collegiate education, and acquiring a competent knowledge of medicine, he removed to Georgia, where he established himself in his profession, in Sunbury, in the district of Medway. On the commencement of the struggle with Great Britain, he accepted of a situation in the parish of St. John, which was a frontier settlement, and exposed to incursions of the Creek Indians, and of the royalists of Florida. The parish of St. John, at an early period, entered with spirit into the opposition to the mother country, while the rest of Georgia, generally, maintained different sentiments. So widely opposite were the feelings of this patriotic parish to those of the other inhabitants of the province, that an almost total alienation took place between them. In 1774, the liberal party held a general meeting, at Savannah, where Dr. Hall appeared as a representative of the parish of St. John. The measures adopted, however, fell far short of his wishes, and those of his constituents. At a subsequent meeting, it was agreed to petition the king for a redress of grievances.
The parish of St. John, dissatisfied with the half-way measures of the Savannah Convention, endeavored to negotiate an alliance with the committee of correspondence in Charleston, South Carolina. But this being impracticable, the inhabitants of St. John resolved to cut off all commercial intercourse with Savannah and the surrounding parishes. Having taken this independent stand, they then made an unanimous choice of Dr. Hall as their representative to Congress. In the following May, Dr. Hall appeared in the hall of Congress, and by that body was unanimously admitted to a seat: but as he did not represent the whole of Georgia, it was resolved to reserve the question as to his right to vote for further deliberation. Fortunately, however, on the 15th of July, Georgia acceded to the general confederacy, and proceeded to the appointment of five delegates to Congress, three of whom attended at the adjourned meeting of that body in 1775.
Among these delegates, Dr. Hall was one. He was annually re-elected until 1780, when he retired from the national legislature. On the possession of Georgia by the British, his property was confiscated, and he obliged to leave the State. He returned in 1782, and the following year was elected to the chief magistracy of Georgia. After holding this office for some time, he retired from public life, and died at his residence in Burke county, about the sixtieth year of his age.