55 of 56 · Georgia
HALL
A Georgia Doctor
28 lessons. 4 chapters. In his own words.
He brought a New England conscience into Georgia and voted before his colony was ready. Sometimes you represent the future of the room.
Lyman Hall · 1724–1790 · Physician · congregationalist · governor
01
Bring New England South
1 of 4
Pack the conscience. Leave the climate.
“A native of Connecticut, and strongly impressed with the principles and habits of republicanism which then prevailed in that State. He was a man of considerable learning, with an excellent judgment and very amiable manners.”
Benjamin Rush, Characters of the Signers · ca. 1800
Wallingford. Yale 1747. Congregationalist, ordained, then a physician. The Midway settlers were Dorchester Puritans who had already moved once. Hall moved with them. A New England mind in a rice swamp is not a mistake. It is a transplant that took.
Trade the pulpit for the saddlebag.
“A man of considerable learning, with an excellent judgment and very amiable manners.”
Benjamin Rush, Characters of the Signers · ca. 1800
He left the ministry after trouble in a Connecticut parish and read medicine. Georgia needed a doctor more than another argument about the meeting-house. Useful beats ordained. The swamp will explain why.
Malaria is a practice. So is politics.
“A native of Connecticut, and strongly impressed with the principles and habits of republicanism which then prevailed in that State.”
Benjamin Rush, Characters of the Signers · ca. 1800
Midway District: rice, ditches, summer fever, winter pleurisy. He became the parish's physician and then its mouth. Tend the bodies long enough and they will send you to Philadelphia. Medicine is how a stranger becomes inevitable.
Do not wait for Savannah to feel like Boston.
“To exert themselves to the utmost, and to make every sacrifice that men impressed with the strongest sense of their rights and liberties, and warm with the most benevolent feelings for their oppressed brethren, can make to stand firmly or fall gloriously in the common cause.”
Resolves of St. John's Parish · 1775
Georgia was the loyal baby of the empire. Hall's people were the exception. If you wait for the capital to catch your native climate, you will die a well-mannered colonist. Bring the north with you and put it on the record.
A New England mind in a rice swamp is not a mistake. It is a transplant that took.
“A native of Connecticut, and strongly impressed with the principles and habits of republicanism which then prevailed in that State. He was a man of considerable learning, with an excellent judgment and very amiable manners.”
Benjamin Rush, Characters of the Signers · ca. 1800
Wallingford. Yale 1747. Congregationalist, ordained, then a physician. The Midway settlers were Dorchester Puritans who had already moved once. Hall moved with them. Pack the conscience. Leave the climate.
Useful beats ordained. The swamp will explain why.
“A man of considerable learning, with an excellent judgment and very amiable manners.”
Benjamin Rush, Characters of the Signers · ca. 1800
He left the ministry after trouble in a Connecticut parish and read medicine. Georgia needed a doctor more than another argument about the meeting-house. Trade the pulpit for the saddlebag. The fever is the congregation.
Tend the bodies long enough and they will send you to Philadelphia.
“A native of Connecticut, and strongly impressed with the principles and habits of republicanism which then prevailed in that State.”
Benjamin Rush, Characters of the Signers · ca. 1800
Midway District: rice, ditches, summer fever, winter pleurisy. He became the parish's physician and then its mouth. Medicine is how a stranger becomes inevitable. Malaria is a practice. So is politics.
02
St. John's Parish
2 of 4
A parish can be a country in miniature.
“To exert themselves to the utmost, and to make every sacrifice that men impressed with the strongest sense of their rights and liberties… can make to stand firmly or fall gloriously in the common cause.”
Resolves of St. John's Parish · 1775
Sunbury, Midway Meeting House, St. John's. When Georgia stalled, the parish did not. A small place with a hard vote outruns a large place with a soft one. Be the parish. Let the province catch up.
Write to Charleston as if you were already a colony.
“Our being a parish of a non-associated province cannot, we presume, prevent our joining the other provinces… we must be considered as comprehended within the spirit and equitable meaning of the Continental Association, and we are assured you will not condemn the innocent with the guilty, especially when a due separation is made between them.”
Lyman Hall, as chairman, to the Charlestown Committee of Correspondence · 1775
A lawyerly dodge in a good cause: we have detached ourselves, therefore treat us as a member. If the map will not admit you, argue from the spirit. Then live as if the argument had already won.
Elect yourself when the province will not.
“A native of Connecticut, and strongly impressed with the principles and habits of republicanism which then prevailed in that State.”
Benjamin Rush, Characters of the Signers · ca. 1800
March 21, 1775: St. John's elected Hall their own delegate to Congress. Savannah had sent no one. A parish that waits for permission is a spectator. Send the doctor.
Stand firmly or fall gloriously. Those are the two local products.
“Stand firmly or fall gloriously in the common cause.”
Resolves of St. John's Parish · 1775
Not a third option. The parish wrote it down. Hall carried it north. When a small place uses language that large, it is volunteering to pay. Collect later, in burned houses. That is the receipt.
A small place with a hard vote outruns a large place with a soft one.
“To exert themselves to the utmost, and to make every sacrifice that men impressed with the strongest sense of their rights and liberties… can make to stand firmly or fall gloriously in the common cause.”
Resolves of St. John's Parish · 1775
Sunbury, Midway Meeting House, St. John's. When Georgia stalled, the parish did not. Be the parish. Let the province catch up. A country in miniature is still a country.
If the map will not admit you, argue from the spirit. Then live as if you had already won.
“Our being a parish of a non-associated province cannot, we presume, prevent our joining the other provinces… we must be considered as comprehended within the spirit and equitable meaning of the Continental Association, and we are assured you will not condemn the innocent with the guilty, especially when a due separation is made between them.”
Lyman Hall, as chairman, to the Charlestown Committee of Correspondence · 1775
A lawyerly dodge in a good cause: we have detached ourselves, therefore treat us as a member. Write to Charleston as if you were already a colony. Then send the doctor.
A parish that waits for permission is a spectator. Send the doctor.
“A native of Connecticut, and strongly impressed with the principles and habits of republicanism which then prevailed in that State.”
Benjamin Rush, Characters of the Signers · ca. 1800
March 21, 1775: St. John's elected Hall their own delegate to Congress. Savannah had sent no one. Elect yourself when the province will not. The chair will notice a man who arrives with a parish behind him.
03
Vote Ahead of the Colony
3 of 4
Sit before the province is ready. Do not vote its name until it is.
“A native of Connecticut, and strongly impressed with the principles and habits of republicanism which then prevailed in that State.”
Benjamin Rush, Characters of the Signers · ca. 1800
Admitted May 13, 1775, as a man of St. John's, not of Georgia. He refused to cast colony-votes until Gwinnett and Walton arrived. Represent the future. Do not counterfeit the present. The distinction is the whole ethic.
Sometimes you represent the future of the room.
“To exert themselves to the utmost, and to make every sacrifice that men impressed with the strongest sense of their rights and liberties… can make.”
Resolves of St. John's Parish · 1775
The catalog is right. Georgia caught up. Hall had already been there a year. Ahead is lonely. Ahead with a parish at your back is a position. Bring the parish. Do not bring only your mood.
When the other two arrive, sign.
“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”
The Declaration of Independence · 1776
July 2, age fifty-two, with Gwinnett and Walton. The late colony made it onto the parchment because a parish had refused to wait. Three names. One of them had been in the chair, unofficially, the whole time.
Abstinence is also a vote.
“We of this parish are a body detached from the rest by our resolutions and association, and sufficiently distinct by local situation.”
Lyman Hall to the Charlestown Committee · 1775
He would not pretend Georgia had spoken. That refusal is what made his later yes clean. Men who cast other people's votes early have to spend the rest of their lives explaining. Don't. Wait for the second chair. Then use it.
Represent the future. Do not counterfeit the present.
“A native of Connecticut, and strongly impressed with the principles and habits of republicanism which then prevailed in that State.”
Benjamin Rush, Characters of the Signers · ca. 1800
Admitted May 13, 1775, as a man of St. John's, not of Georgia. He refused to cast colony-votes until Gwinnett and Walton arrived. Sit before the province is ready. Do not vote its name until it is. The distinction is the whole ethic.
Ahead is lonely. Ahead with a parish at your back is a position.
“To exert themselves to the utmost, and to make every sacrifice that men impressed with the strongest sense of their rights and liberties… can make.”
Resolves of St. John's Parish · 1775
Georgia caught up. Hall had already been there a year. Bring the parish. Do not bring only your mood. Sometimes you represent the future of the room. That is still a constituency.
Three names. One of them had been in the chair, unofficially, the whole time.
“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”
The Declaration of Independence · 1776
July 2, age fifty-two, with Gwinnett and Walton. The late colony made it onto the parchment because a parish had refused to wait. When the other two arrive, sign. The unofficial year was the work. The ink was the receipt.
04
Rebuild After
4 of 4
Flee to Connecticut. Then come back.
“The early and decided part which I took in the cause of America originated from a full conviction of the justice and rectitude of the cause we engaged in, has uniformly continued as the principle of my heart, and I trust will to the last moments of my life.”
Lyman Hall, inaugural address as Governor of Georgia · 1783
British troops overran Sunbury. Hall took wife and son to Connecticut on Washington's advice and lost the plantation. Two years. Then home, medicine, and the chair. Exile is a tactic. It is not a new nationality.
Ask for clergy and a university in the same breath.
“In addition, therefore, to wholesome laws restraining vice, every encouragement ought to be given to introduce religion, and learned clergy to perform divine worship in honor of God, and to cultivate principles of religion and virtue among our citizens. For this purpose it will be your wisdom to lay an early foundation for endowing seminaries of learning.”
Lyman Hall, message to the Georgia legislature, Augusta · 1783
This is how a Congregationalist rebuilds a ruined colony: statute, pulpit, college. Franklin College followed — the University of Georgia. A doctor who has seen the swamp knows that fever is not the only contagion. Ignorance is.
Grant the land now. The revenue comes later.
“Nor can you, I conceive, lay a better than by a grant of a sufficient tract of land, that may, as in other governments, hereafter, by lease or otherwise, raise a revenue sufficient to support such valuable institutions.”
Lyman Hall, message to the Georgia legislature · 1783
Forty thousand acres for a college in a state that had just been burned. Endowment is delayed courage. If you wait until the treasury is fat, the boys will already be untaught. Plant the land. Let time collect the rent.
Unsolicited appointment is the only kind worth taking.
“I esteem your unsolicited appointment of me to the office of Chief Magistrate of this State as the greatest honor, and I am affected with sentiments of the warmest gratitude on this occasion.”
Lyman Hall, inaugural address as Governor of Georgia · 1783
He had been practicing quietly in Savannah. They came and got him. After a war, the man who does not campaign for the chair is often the man who should sit it. Be findable. Be unwilling enough to be trusted.
Exile is a tactic. It is not a new nationality.
“The early and decided part which I took in the cause of America originated from a full conviction of the justice and rectitude of the cause we engaged in, has uniformly continued as the principle of my heart, and I trust will to the last moments of my life.”
Lyman Hall, inaugural address as Governor of Georgia · 1783
British troops overran Sunbury. Hall took wife and son to Connecticut on Washington's advice and lost the plantation. Two years. Then home, medicine, and the chair. Flee. Then come back. The swamp is still yours.
A doctor who has seen the swamp knows that fever is not the only contagion. Ignorance is.
“In addition, therefore, to wholesome laws restraining vice, every encouragement ought to be given to introduce religion, and learned clergy to perform divine worship in honor of God, and to cultivate principles of religion and virtue among our citizens. For this purpose it will be your wisdom to lay an early foundation for endowing seminaries of learning.”
Lyman Hall, message to the Georgia legislature, Augusta · 1783
This is how a Congregationalist rebuilds a ruined colony: statute, pulpit, college. Franklin College followed — the University of Georgia. Ask for clergy and a university in the same breath. Rebuild the mind with the houses.
If you wait until the treasury is fat, the boys will already be untaught.
“Nor can you, I conceive, lay a better than by a grant of a sufficient tract of land, that may, as in other governments, hereafter, by lease or otherwise, raise a revenue sufficient to support such valuable institutions.”
Lyman Hall, message to the Georgia legislature · 1783
Forty thousand acres for a college in a state that had just been burned. Endowment is delayed courage. Plant the land. Let time collect the rent. Grant the land now. The revenue comes later.