17 Facts About Edward Telfair

Edward Telfair was a Scottish-born American Founding Father, politician and slave trader who served as the governor of Georgia from 1786 to 1787 and again from 1790 to 1793.

Edward Telfair was a member of the Continental Congress and one of the signers of the Articles of Confederation.

Edward Telfair immigrated to America in 1758 as an agent of a commission house, settling in Virginia.

Edward Telfair subsequently moved to Halifax, North Carolina, and finally to Savannah, Georgia, where he established his own commission house.

Edward Telfair arrived in Georgia in 1766, joining his brother, William, who had emigrated earlier.

Together with Basil Cowper, Edward Telfair built the commission house, and it was an overnight success.

Edward Telfair married 16-year-old Sarah Gibbons in 1774 at her mother's Sharon Plantation just west of Savannah.

Edward Telfair was an enslaver and a consultant on issues related to slavery.

Edward Telfair's mercantile firm dealt in enslaved people, among other things, and contemporary correspondence of his included discussions of such topics as the management of enslaved people, the purchase and sale of enslaved people, runaway slaves, the mortality rate of enslaved people born on plantations, the difficulty of selling closely related enslaved people, and the relations between whites and freedmen.

Edward Telfair was a member of a Committee of Safety and was a delegate to the Georgia Provincial Congress meeting at Savannah in 1776.

Edward Telfair was a member of the Georgia Committee of Intelligence in 1776.

Edward Telfair was elected to the Continental Congress for 1778,1780,1781, and 1782.

Edward Telfair was a signatory to the Articles of Confederation.

Edward Telfair was one of only 12 men who received electoral votes during the first election for President and Vice President of the United States, receiving the vote of one unrecorded elector from his home state of Georgia.

Edward Telfair was a candidate in the 1794 United States Senate election in Georgia, finishing a distant second to incumbent James Gunn.

Edward Telfair died in Savannah in 1807, interred initially in the family vault at Sharon Plantation.

Three months after Edward Telfair died, Georgia named Edward Telfair County after the former governor.