Gerard Chittocque Brandon Letter

Collection

Identifier: M60

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

A letter of January 9, 1829, from Gerard C. Brandon, governor of Mississippi, to John Murphy, governor of Alabama, requesting an answer to a letter of the preceding October. Brandon had written Murphy concerning unsettled accounts between Alabama and Mississippi. Brandon had sent Murphy a proposal on which he wanted Murphy's approval so that Brandon could present it to the Mississippi legislature then in session.

Dates

Creation: January 9, 1829

Creator

Brandon, Gerard Chittocque, Governor, 1788-1850 (Person)

Conditions Governing Access

Noncirculating; available for research.

Conditions Governing Use

This collection may be protected from unauthorized copying by the Copyright Law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code).

Biographical / Historical

Born in 1788 near Natchez, Mississippi, Gerard Chittocque Brandon was the first native-born governor of Mississippi. Educated at Princeton and William and Mary Colleges, he was a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1817, speaker of the House of Representatives in 1822, and lieutenant governor under Governors Walter Leake and David Holmes. He filled the unexpired terms of Leake and Holmes when Leake died in 1825 and Holmes resigned in 1826. Then in 1827 and again in 1829, Brandon was elected to the office of governor. Brandon's main concerns during his two terms in office were the economy of the state and the need for quality education in the state. The most important event of his tenure was the execution of the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, September 27, 1830. Elected to the Constitutional Convention of 1832, he held strong views on the questions of slavery and the election of judges. When the convention adopted the elective instead of the appointment judiciary, Brandon resigned and retired from public life to his plantation near Fort Adams, where he died March 28, 1850.