George Plater

George Plater (November 8, 1735 – February 10, 1792) was an American planter, lawyer, and statesman from Saint Mary's County, Maryland. He represented Maryland in the Continental Congress from 1778 to 1780, and briefly served as the sixth Governor of Maryland in 1791 and 1792.

Early life and education

Plater was born on the family plantation of Sotterley, near Leonardtown, Maryland. His father (also George) had married Rebecca Addison Bowles, the widow of the plantation's founder, in 1729. After receiving his early schooling at home, he attended William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, graduating in 1752. He read law and was admitted to the bar.

Political career

Plater was first elected to Maryland's colonial Assembly in 1758, and served as a member for many years. He served on the Governor's Council in 1773 and 1774. As the Revolution neared, he represented St. Mary's County in the Annapolis Convention, which became a revolutionary government. When the ninth convention met in August 1776, Plater was on the committee which drafted Maryland's first Constitution.

George Plater Tayloe

George Plater Tayloe was a Virginia businessman soldier and legislator, who also served as one of the original trustee of Hollins University.

Biography

George Tayloe was born October 15, 1804 at Mount Airy in Richmond County, Virginia, the ninth of fifteen children of Hon. John Tayloe III, to a large aristocratic family of great wealth that had accumulated over three generations. Beginning with John Tayloe I son of the immigrant, one of the richest plantation owners and businessmen in Virginia for his generation. Considered to be the chief architect of the family fortune, he was known as the "Hon. Colonel of the Old House". The Tayloe family of Richmond County, including John Tayloe I, his son, John Tayloe II, and grandson, John Tayloe III, exemplified gentry entrepreneurship.

George Tayloe attended Princeton University. Following his graduation he moved to the western part of the state to manage a source of the family income-two iron furnaces, Catawba II and Cloverdale. These furnaces along with 1132 acres of land around Cloverdale had been purchased by the Tayloes from a Thomas Madison in 1817. George Tayloe married Mary Elizabeth Langhorne in 1830, and in 1833 he traded with his father-in-law, Colonel William Langhorne, a section of the Cloverdale property for the 598 acre Buena Vista tract.