Page 83 - Pilgrims in Georgia

R Lyman Hall

To be Governor was a consuming job as after the war Georgia was in a desolate state and there were few governmental
structures in place to carry out needed renewal. Seeing moral renewal as being central to the recovery of the people he
gave strong support to faith and education. On July 8, 1783, he called upon the Legislature in Augusta to “enact wholesome

laws restraining vice and to encourage the introduction of religion and learned clergy to perform divine worship in honor of
God, and to cultivate the principles of religion and virtue among our citizens”. Also, he was instrumental in obtaining the
land grant which led to the establishment of the beginning of what is now the University of Georgia. In 1784 the General
Assembly set aside 40,000 acres of land to endow a college or seminary of learning. Hall then recruited a fellow Yale
Alumnus Abraham Baldwin, also a licensed as a Congregationalist minister, who wrote the University's Charter and became
its first President. In Savannah “While meeting in the house owned by Thomas Stone, the House of Assembly of Georgia
enacted on January 28, 1785 an act for the “establishment of a public seat of learning in this state”- the preamble reciting
that:
“When the minds of the people in general are viciously disposed and unprincipled and their conduct disorderly a free
government will be attended with greater confusions and evils more horrid than the wild uncultivated state of nature. It
can only be happy where the public principles and opinions are properly directed, and their manners regulated. This is an

influence beyond the reach of laws and punishments and can be claimed only by religion and education. It should therefore
be among the first objects of those who wish well to the national prosperity to encourage and support the principles of
religion and morality and early to place the youth under the forming hand of society that by instruction they may be
molded to the love of virtue and good order.” Further, in article 9 of the charter it required that, “All officers appointed to
the instruction, and government of the University, shall be of the Christian religion,…”however concerning students, in
article 11 it forbade, “The trustees shall not exclude any person of any religious denomination,
whatsoever, from free, and equal Liberty, and advantages of education, … or being of different
religious profession. “This act for a “public seat of learning” resulted in the charter being granted
to the Board of Trustees of the University and was the first charter issued for a state university in
the United States.
At the completion of his service, he continued his medical and

retiring from public life and died in his home October 19, 1790. In
1818 Hall County Georgia was named in Honor of him and after his
initial burial his body was re-interred to “The Signers Monument”
honoring the three Signers from Georgia of the Declaration of
Independence in Augusta, Georgia.
The University Charter Signers Monument