Matthew McAllister (1758 - 1823)

Born 4 May 1758 in Hanover, York Co., Pennsylvania

Ancestors

Husband of Hanna (Gibbons) McAllister — married Dec 1787 in Savannah, Chatham, Georgia, United States

Descendants

Died 9 May 1823 at age 65 in Savannah, Chatham, Georgia, United States

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Biography

Preceded by 8th Mayor John Glen 24th Mayor George Jones

Matthew McAllister 9th Mayor of Savannah, Georgia July 9, 1798 - July 8, 1799 25th Mayor September 12, 1814 - September 11, 1815

Succeeded by 10th Mayor Thomas Gibbons 26th Mayor Thomas U.P. Charlton

Matthew McAllister was a Georgia colonist.

"Matthew McAllister was born May 14, 1759. he studied law and was admitted to the bar at York in 1783. later he moved to Savannah, Georgia, and became the first U.S. district attorney in George Washington's administration. He subsequently was judge of the Superior Court."

He served as Mayor of Savannah from July 9th, 1798 to July 8, 1799 and again from September 12, 1814 to September 11, 1815 (although he resigned on April 10th, 1815). ^[1]

He married Hannah Gibbons, sister of William Gibbons. They had two children, Harriet, who died in infancy, and Judge Matthew Hall McAllister.

Matthew McAllister Timeline^[2]

1758: 4 May born at York County, PA;

1779: Graduated from Princeton College.

1779: In December married Hannah, daughter of Jos. Gibbons, Chattam Co.

1784: Removed to Savannah, Georgia;

1786: Member of the Georgia House of Representatives;

1778-9: Attorney General of Georgia;

1788: Delegate to the Georgia Constitutional Convention;

1789: Appointed 6 September George's first U.S. District Attorney by President George Washington;

1780-1: Alderman, Savannah, 8 March 1790 - 9 March 1791;

1797: Resigned as U.S. District Attorney;

1798-9:; Mayor of Savannah 9 July 1798 - 8 July 1799;

1900-3: President of the Union Society;

1801-2: Judge, Superior Court, Eastern Circuit of Georgia, 2 February 1801 0 June 1802;

1812-14: Alderman, City of Savannah 3 June 1812 - 12 September 1814;

1814-15: Mayor of Savannah 12 September 1814 - 10 April 1815 (resigned);

1823: Died 9 May at Savannah, Georgia.

The Yazoo Land Fraud

Yazoo land fraud, in U.S. history, scheme by which Georgia legislators were bribed in 1795 to sell most of the land now making up the state of Mississippi (then a part of Georgia’s western claims) to four land companies for the sum of $500,000, far below its potential market value. ^[3] It was one of the most significant events in the post–Revolutionary War (1775-83) history of Georgia. The bizarre climax to a decade of frenzied speculation in the state's public lands, the Yazoo sale of 1795 did much to shape Georgia politics and to strain relations with the federal government for a generation. ^[4]

McAllister's Involvement:

"For the sum of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars the (Georgia) legislature sold to James Gunn, Matthew McAllister, George Walker and their associates, termed the Georgia Company an immense territory, which now embraces the following modern counties:

In Alabama: Clarke, Marengo, Greene, Perry, Autauga, Bibb, Shelby, Tuscaloosa, Pickens, Fayette, Jefferson, St. Clair, and southern portions of Wilcox, Monroe, Dallas, Sumter and Baldwin.

In Mississippi: The larger portions of Kemper, Neshoba, Leake, Madison, Yazoo and Issaquena, and all of Washington, Holmes, Attala, Winston, Noxubee, Lowndes, Oktibbeha, Choctaw, Carroll, Sunflower, Bolivar, Tallahatchie, Yalobusha, Chickasaw and Monroe."^[5]

Matthew McAllister was the first U.S. District Attorney for Georgia, appointed in 1789, and records show his involvement.

On January 7, 1795, Georgia governor George Mathews signed the Yazoo Act, which transferred 35 million acres in present-day Alabama and Mississippi to four companies for $500,000. To achieve this successful sale, the leader of the Yazooists, Georgia's Federalist U.S. senator James Gunn, had arranged the distribution of money and Yazoo land to legislators, state officials, newspaper editors, and other influential Georgians.

Legacy

"One of his three children, Matthew Hall McAllister, gained distinction as president of the Georgia State Senate for 17 years and served also as U.S. district attorney. He was defeated for governor of Georgia and later declined a seat in the U.S. Senate. He moved to California in 1850 and became judge of the U.S. Circuit Court. Matthew Hal McAllister was the father of Julian McAllister, a West Point graduate, who although a resident of Georgia, stood by the Union in the Civil War and died on the retired list of the U.S. Army in 1887, and of Ward McAllister, New York lawyer and social arbiter."

Links

• Family Search: Person ID L7P4-9N2
• Matthew McAllister's, Atty General, involvement in the Yazoo Land Fraud: The Northern Roots of Savannah's Antebellum Elite, 1780s-1850s
• Letter to Thomas Jefferson from Matthew McAllister: George R. Lamplugh, Politics on the Periphery: Factions and Parties in Georgia, 1783-1806 (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1986).
• Wikipedia: Yazoo Land Fraud

Sources

1. ↑ Savannah.Gov List of Mayors
2. ↑ Mac-Alasdair Clan, McAllisters of Savannah & San Francisco. March 1998.
3. ↑ Britannica: Yazoo Land Fraud
4. ↑ Georgia Encyclopedia: Yazoo Land Fraud
5. ↑ History of Alabama and incidentally of Georgia and Mississippi, page 446.

• "The Descendants of Archibald McAllister," by Mary McAllister, Harrisburg, Penn., 1898, pages 9 - 10 and pages 37 - 39.
• U.S. Sons of the American Revolution Membership Applications, 1889-1970.
• The McAllister Family Papers Index is online and provides some information on Richard and his children, along with an index of the content of the papers.
• The Evening Sun, Hanover, Pennsylvania, published an article concerning the McAllister family, which included a bio of Matthew, quoted verbatim above, Saturday, June 22, 1963.
• Wikipedia: Mayors of Savannah.

See Also:

• Wikipedia: Matthew_McAllister_(1758–1823)
• Wikidata: Item Q104523569, en:Wikipedia