Year Erected: 1959

Courtesy of Pamela Dorminey-Uros

Marker Text: After rendering valuable aid to his State as a justice of the Georgia Supreme Court (1860-1865), Charles Jones Jenkins was elected Governor in 1865. For defying certain reconstruction measures of Congress and military orders, he was replaced by Gen. Thomas H. Ruger, Provisional Governor, December 9, 1867, at the demand of Gen. George G. Meade, Military Commandant.

Before leaving office, Governor Jenkins arranged for secreting the State seal, moneys and executive documents until the Carpetbag Regime ended in 1872. Then, he turned them over to Governor James Milton Smith with a detailed record of his administration. The General Assembly passed a resolution of gratitude, introduced by Joseph R. Cumming, Speaker of the House, and presented Governor Jenkins with a gold facsimile of the seal, inscribed: "Presented to Charles J. Jenkins by the State of Georgia, In Arduis Etdelis".

Born in South Carolina in 1803, educated at Franklin College, Athens, and Union College, Schenectady, N.Y., Governor Jenkins was a lawyer and State legislator, senator, attorney-general. He was president of the Constitutional Convention of 1877 and of the Board of Trustees of the University of Georgia for many years. He died June 4, 1883.