First Session Supreme Court of Georgia

Image credit: David Seibert

Year Erected: 1953

Marker Text:  At Talbotton on Jan. 26, 1846, the first meeting of the Supreme Court of Georgia was held in the dining hall of the old Claiborne Hotel which stood one block west of this marker. Judge Hiram Warner and Judge Eugenius A. Nisbet were present. Judge Joseph Henry Lumpkin, the other member of the newly established Court, did not attend because of illness in his family.

At the Court's first session James M. Kelly of Perry was elected Reporter and Robert E. Martin of Milledgeville, Clerk. Martin was sworn in.

Fifteen attorneys were admitted to the Supreme Court during the term held at Talbotton in January 1846. The first lawyers in Georgia to qualify to practice before Georgia’s highest court were: Alfred Iverson, Hines Holt, James Johnson, Marcus Johnston and Adam G. Foster of Columbus; Barnard Hill, Allen F. Owen, Edmund H. Worrill, William F. Brooks, Anthony G. Perryman, Levi B. Smith, Stephen D. Heard, Marion Bethune, and J.L. Stephenson of Talbotton; and Amos W. Hammond of Culloden.

Tips for Finding This Marker: At the intersection of Washington Avenue (Georgia Route 41) and West Madison Street, on the right when traveling south on Washington Avenue in Talbotton.