Abigail Burr Hall
Wife of Dr. Lyman Hall, Signer of the Declaration of Independence
1729 – 1753 A.D.

Abigail Burr, the beautiful and accomplished daughter of Thaddeus Burr, Esq., of Wallingford, Conn., became the wife of Dr. Lyman Hall in May, 1752, and was borne to an untimely grave in July of the following year.

In 1757 or thereabouts, Dr. Hall, having been married the second time to Mary Osborne, removed to Dorchester, South Carolina, and a few months later to Georgia, where he made his home and established a practice in the town of Sanbury, St. John’s Parish. He also purchased and cultivated a rice plantation a few miles from Midway, on Savannah road. He became one of the leading physicians of the Province and highly prosperous.

Naturally he came to have a great deal of influence in his section of the country and was the leader of the patriotic faction that finally forced Georgia to join her sister Colonies in enacting the Declaration of Independence, and was one of the five representatives sent by the Provincial Assembly to represent Georgia in the Continental Congress. One of these representatives was opposed to the Declaration and did not attend, and another, Archibald Bulloch, though a decided patriot, was unable to leave Georgia at the time, thus leaving only Gwinnet, Hall, and Walton to sign the Declaration.

When the British took possession of Georgia, Mr. Hall, took his family north for safety and left his residence unprotected. His property was confiscated. He was Governor of Georgia in 1782, after which he retired to a home in Burke County, where he died in 1790 in his sixtieth year. His only son had died a few years before, but Mrs. Hall survived him by several years.

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Reference: The Pioneer Mothers of America: A Record of the More Notable Women of the Early Days of the Country, and Particularly of the Colonial and Revolutionary Periods by Harry Clinton Green and Mary Wolcott Green, A.B. Third Volume, Published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons.