Centuries before he became our City’s namesake, John Milton was a patriotic soldier, one of Georgia’s earliest leaders, a mayor, even the recipient of two electoral votes to be America’s first president.

“He was regarded in high esteem by his fellow countrymen as long as he lived, and is one of the most heroic figures in Georgia history,” read a late 19th century account of John Milton in the Newnan Herald and Advertiser, which also described him “as courageous as he was loyal, and as true as steel.”

John Milton grew up in colonial America – then ruled by English kings across the Atlantic Ocean – having been born around 1740 in Halifax County, North Carolina.

At some point, he moved south to Georgia. In fact, according to military records and newspaper articles, John Milton was among the first in the colony-and-soon-to-be-state of Georgia to enlist (on January 7, 1776) to fight with those battling the British for America’s independence. He rapidly ascended the ranks, enlisting as an ensign, rising to be 1st Lieutenant, and – after being taken prisoner while stationed at Fort Howe in South Carolina, then released – becoming Captain John Milton. (Milton would later be referred to also as a Major and Colonel in newspaper accounts.) During the Revolutionary War, Milton served as a trusted hand to patriotic military leaders including as aide de camp to U.S. General Benjamin Lincoln and later Col. Francis Marion, also known as The Swamp Fox. 

Georgia Gov. John Houston instructed Milton – then serving as Georgia’s first Secretary of State – to save key state documents in December 1778 as the British threatened Savannah, with Lincoln giving him further guidance to safeguard these records. The documents ended up moving safely first to Purrysburg, South Carolina, then Charleston, North Carolina, Maryland, and finally back to Georgia.

Milton would stay on as Georgia’s Secretary of State through 1799, holding the distinction as the person who served longest in that important position until Ben Fortson in the mid-20th century. (You can see John Milton's signature in the banner at the top of this page.)

And in 1780, his personal life transformed as well with his marriage to South Carolina-born Hannah Spencer. Together, the couple would have seven children -- five boys and two girls – and eventually move south to Georgia. The naming of their sons suggested an affinity for literary drama and history; their names were Home Virgil, Algernon Solomon, Lucius Quintas Cincinnatus, Augustus Caesar Gustavus Adolphus, and Fabius Maximus. Meanwhile, their girls’ names of Mary and Anna were timeless in a different way.

As the new nation emerged, Milton joined other leaders in helping shape it. He participated in numerous conventions that defined the function and form of the new government, including as one of 26 Georgia delegates to the convention that ratified the U.S. Constitution on behalf of Georgia on January 2, 1788. With that, Georgia became the fourth state to do so.

A short time later, Milton earned two votes out of the 138 total cast by electors to be the new United States’ first president. (This tied him for eighth behind victor George Washington; see the results from the Library of Congress). This didn’t necessarily mean he was a major national figure. Still, given the fact those two votes came from fellow Georgia electors, they suggest he was respected and admired among peers.

John Milton did serve – from 1792 to 1794 – as the Mayor of Augusta. He also was a founding member of the Georgia chapter the prestigious Society of Cincinnati (and was its first secretary), and he served for parts of seven years as a governor-appointed Trustee.

While John Milton is known to have passed away on October 17, 1817, his own final resting place – as well as that of his wife, Hannah – is undetermined.

Note: This bio is based on extensive, years-long research by Mark Amick of the Milton Historical Society. If you’d like to get involved with this non-profit to tell the stories of John Milton and others, learn how at Milton Historical Society's website.