Geneva County AlArchives Biographies.....Milligan, Fitz J. October 10 1861 - living in 1893 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/al/alfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Ann Anderson alabammygrammy@aol.com May 26, 2004, 12:26 am Author: Brant & Fuller (1893) FITZ J. MILLIGAN, mayor of the city of Geneva, Ala., is by profession an attorney-at-law, and stands among the foremost members of the bar of Geneva county. He was born on October 10, 1861, in Dale county, Ala., received his early education in the schools of Ozark, and at the age of nineteen, entered the university of Greensboro, Ala., in which he passed two years of diligent study. Returning to Dale county, he taught school for three years, and in the spring of 1885, entered upon the study of the law, making a progress so rapid that he was admitted to the bar in the fall of the same year, and opened a law office in Geneva. In. 1886, he was licensed to practice in the supreme court of the state, and is to-day regarded as one of the most successful practitioners of his years in his section, his clientage extending into Georgia, and as far south as the coast. He is an enthusiastic democrat in politics, and early became famous as an orator in campaigns; he was also most active in stumping the state for Gov. Jones, in 1892, and the same year was elected to the office of mayor of Geneva without opposition, so very popular had he become with his party. He is one of the projectors and incorporators of the Geneva, Florida & Pensacola railroad company, and is its attorney. He has also been identified with every movement intended for the upbuilding of Geneva, and is public spirited in. every sense of the phrase. He is the owner of several good plantations, and also of a number of tenement houses in Geneva. In religion, Mr. Milligan is a Methodist, having belonged to that denomination since early manhood. The parents of Mr. Milligan were Augustus L. and Louisa Victoria (McEntyre) Milligan, the former of whom was born in Georgia, in 1828. At the age of sixteen, he came to Alabama with his parents, who settled in Pike county, and there he earned the means to educate himself. In 1849, he moved to Coffee county, where, when but twenty-one years of age, he was elected judge of probate. While filling this office, he established, at Elba, the first newspaper ever published in southeastern Alabama, and christened it the States' Rights Democrat. He began the study of law in his twentieth year, and was admitted to the bar in 1854, in his twenty-first year. After filling the office of probate judge for a term of six years, he was elected to represent the third Alabama district in the state legislature, and while a member of that body, was elected to the convention that put in nomination James Buchanan for the presidency of the United States. In 1859, he removed to, and settled in, Ozark, Dale county, of which he became an influential and prominent citizen. For nearly ten years before his death, he served as chairman of every democratic convention held in Dale county. In 1882, he was elected mayor of Ozark, and served three consecutive terms. He was eminent as a Mason, and at the time of his death, July 25, 1889, was junior grand warden, having been made a Mason in 1854. He was a man of sterling worth, was an active politician, a fluent and easy speaker and a thorough lawyer. Mrs. Louisa Victoria Milligan was a native of Georgia, born in 1836. She was highly educated and accomplished, came to Alabama with her parents in 1855, and was here married in her twenty-fifth year. She became the mother of two children-Fitz J. and Marcellus-and died in 1864, a devout member of the Methodist church. Josephine McIntyre, sister of Louisa Victoria, subsequently became the wife of Mr. Milligan, and still survives. Additional Comments: from "Memorial Record of Alabama", Vol. I, p. 1038-1040 Published by Brant & Fuller (1893) Madison, WI This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/alfiles/ File size: 4.2 Kb