Biographies - Augustus Jerome Georgia

Augustus Jerome "A. J. " Georgia was born 23 Aug. 1835 in Newfield, NY to Elijah Burr Georgia III and Sally Jane Ogden His father was a farmer and always looking for the ‘perfect’ farm land, moved the family several times before A. J. moved his family and mother to southeast Kansas. The first family move was to Tioga Co., NY in 1846 and then to Bradford Co., PA in 1850. In the autumn of 1854, the family moved to Kalamazoo, MI where Augustus attended the Ceresco Institute for two terms. After graduation, he began teaching with his first school being in Kalamazoo. On 4 April 1860 in Colon, Michigan he married Edith L. Bennett. Edith, born in 1843 in Branch, Michigan, was the daughter of William S. Bennett and Lucena Wilder. Not long after their marriage, in the summer of 1860, the couple moved to Iowa City, IA where their daughter Edith May Georgia, was born on 24 Nov. 1861. A. J. and Edith would have a total of four children but Edith May would be the only one to survive with the others dying in infancy. The following year, on 14 Aug. 1862 at the age of 27, he enlisted in the Union Army as a Corporal 3rd Class in Co. E., 28th Infantry Regiment Iowa. He was wounded at the Battle Chickasaw Bayou in December 1862 north of Vicksburg, Mississippi. He was discharged on disability 7 April 1863 at Helena, AR. After returning home to Iowa, and finding out that his father had died on 1 Feb. 1863 while he was away, Augustus Georgia along with his mother and siblings moved his family to southeast Kansas in 1866 and settled on a farm near the present site of Pittsburg in Crawford Co., KS. In April 1867, he was elected Justice of the Peace and remained in that position for 6 years. On Jan. 4, 1877, he was elected Superintendent of Schools for Crawford County. While in this role he created a two-mile square school district that included the new town of Pittsburg. Soon after he became the first schoolteacher in Pittsburg, teaching in a one-room frame schoolhouse built at 5th and Walnut. His teaching career in Pittsburg lasted only a few months though, when he was appointed as postmaster of Pittsburg in January 1877. At that time, the post office was located on the northwest corner of 3rd and Broadway. He remained in this post until 1884 when he resigned to devote fulltime to his real estate, loan and insurance business, Georgia & Wood, which he opened with his son-in-law, Neal Wood in a building he built at 301 W. Broadway. This building was torn down in 1975 for the construction of the National Bank of Pittsburg’s new bank building. According to the 1890 Pittsburg City Directory, Georgia was living at 109 N. Walnut and was in the real estate and insurance business. Not long after his wife died in 1894, he built a new house at 503 W. 4th Street. A. J. was also very instrumental in bringing the Missouri-Pacific Railroad to Pittsburg in 1886 by helping raise the needed capital for the railroad right-of-way. Also in 1886, Georgia along with Franklin Playter and T. P. Waskey organized the Pittsburg Board of Trade whose goal was to raise capital to bring industry to Pittsburg. While in Pittsburg, Georgia was active in the Mason’s and the Methodist Episcopal Church of which he was a member. He also was a member of the city council and board of education. On 17 Feb. 1894, his wife Edith died in Pittsburg and was buried in the Mt. Olive Cemetery. He remarried in 1896 to Mrs. Elizabeth Bell after her death he married for a third time to Mrs. Columbia Shipp. She died and he married for the fourth time to Mrs. Ray, who survived him. In 1912 A. J. and his fourth wife left Pittsburg and moved to Sawtell, California, west of Los Angeles, to live near his brother, Sylvester Georgia. Augustus Jerome Georgia died at the Veteran’s Hospital in Los Angeles, CA on 22 Nov. 1917 and is buried in sect 33 of the Los Angeles National Cemetery.

Contributor: Georgia Family History - Edward L. Woodyard, Armonk, NY