Clarke-Burke County GaArchives Biographies.....Thomas, George C. 1850 - living in 1923
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 April 2, 2005, 1:04 pm

Author: H. J. Rowe

GEORGE C. THOMAS

   Judge Thomas is a native Georgian; he was born in Burke County October 20,
1850, a son of Jethro and Jane P. (Blount) Thomas, who were also natives of
Georgia and were married in this state. His father was a farmer and afterwards a
merchant, and died in 1885 at the age of sixty-two. During the war he enlisted
in Company I of the 5th Georgia Regiment of Cavalry as a private, and served
from 1862 until the close of the struggle. He was once wounded in battle in
which he was engaged, and in 1864 he was taken prisoner and was held at the
Point Lookout prison in Maryland until the close of the war. The mother died in
1855 at the age, of twenty-five, having had three children.

   The youngest of these children, Judge Thomas, spent most of his boyhood in
the troubled era of the Civil War, attended school rather irregularly, gained
part of his early education in Burke County, later attended Mercer University
from which he graduated in 1870, and after some further training in the
University of Georgia was admitted to the bar in 1879. Since then he has been
continuously identified with his profession in Athens. Prom 1886 to 1889 he
served as Circuit Judge of the Oconee Circuit, and during that time presided
over some notable trials and gained a reputation for impartial administration of
justice and served to give dignity to his office. He was also a member of the
State Legislature two terms from Clarke County, serving from 1896 to 1898,
during which time he succeeded in having passed by that body a law donating
$100,000.00 for building purposes, to the University of Georgia. Judge Thomas is
well known as a member of the Clarke County Bar Association, is an active
democrat and a member of the Baptist Church. Fraternally he is associated with
the Masonic fraternity, the Knights of Pythias and the Independent Order of Odd
Fellows. In the fall of 1921 he was elected Mayor of Athens for the years 1922
and 1923, in this race being opposed by two strong and prominent business men.

   In 1871 at Athens, in his twenty-first year, he married Miss Margaret Anna
McWhorter, daughter of Moses E. McWhorter, who for many years was a merchant at
Athens. Mrs. Thomas died in the year 1917. Six children were born to their
union: Jethro Thomas, who was born at Rome, Georgia, and is now deceased; George
C. Jr., who was born at Oconee and died there; Mary, who married A. C. Edwards,
of Athens; Anna and Kate, twins, who died in infancy; and William Milton, who
was born at Athens and since graduating from the University of Georgia with the
B.S. degree in 1902 and from the Law Department in 1913, has been associated
with his father in practice.

   Judge Thomas in his early youth had many difficulties to struggle with, and
gained his education and promoted himself to distinction in the bar through his
own efforts.


Additional Comments:
From:

HISTORY OF ATHENS and CLARKE COUNTY
1923

H. J. ROWE, Publisher

THE McGREGOR CO., PRINTERS, ATHENS, GA.




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