Grave of General Wiley Thompson State Historical Marker

Located at the Elbert County Courthouse, Elberton, Ga.

(Text)

 

GRAVE OF

GENERAL WILEY THOMPSON

 

4 bl.. E.

 

General Wiley Thompson, considered the ablest and most

humane of the agents to the Seminole Indians of Florida, was

ambushed and killed near the agency at Fort King, Florida,

December 28, 1835, by Osceola and a band of warriors who

opposed removal to the West. Some months later his body was

brought to Elbert and reburied in the garden of his home,

4 blocks east of here (now Heard Street).

 

Born in Virginia, September 25, 1781, General Thompson was

reared in Elbert County. A militia officer in the war of 1812,

in 1817 he was elected major general of the 4th Division of the

Georgia Militia. A State Senator from 1817 to 1819, General

Thompson resigned and served on the commission to determine

the boundary between Georgia and Florida. After serving six

consecutive terms as a member of Congress where he supported

President Jackson's policy of Indian removal, he was appointed

agent in September 1833.

 

052-14 GEORGIA HISTORICAL COMMISSION 1959

Photo: Ed Jackson

© Carl Vinson Institute of Government, The University of Georgia

Go to Georgia Historic Markers page