Nathan Crawford Barnett

Barnett was born in Columbia County, Georgia in 1801 to William Barnett and Ann Crawford Barnett. His father died while Barnett was still quite young, and his widowed mother moved the family to Lexington in Oglethorpe County where he received his education at the Lexington Academy. Barnett married Margaret J. Morton of Clarke County and the couple established a home in Watkinsville, which was the county seat at that time. Barnett engaged in planting and merchandising, and in 1832 he was elected Surveyor, and assisted in surveying the Cherokee Purchase in the area of present day Roswell, Georgia in preparation for the sixth state administrated land lottery. It was during this time that he was also elected to the position of major in the Georgia Militia. He was subsequently promoted to the rank of colonel, and in that capacity assisted in the Cherokee Removal from Georgia. Col. Barnett's first wife died in 1840, and he remarried shortly thereafter to Mary Ann Cooper. ==Political career==

Georgia House of Representatives In 1836 Col. Barnett was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives. Of the legislative initiatives which he sponsored or supported, during this period, the most notable was one which authorized construction of the Western and Atlantic Railroad. but was removed by the Military Governor at the onset of the Reconstruction era. It is said that Barnett twice saved the Great Seal of the State of Georgia. After Sherman's troops marched on, Barnett returned the seal and the documents to the state. The period of the Reconstruction government in Georgia is thus referred to as the "Period of the False Seal". The Great Seal and documents were buried on Barnett's farm, and remained hidden there until 1868, when a new state constitution was enacted and a new government installed. After democrats regained control of state government, Barnett was again elected Secretary of State in 1873. Upon his return to office, both houses of the Legislature voted to present him with a replica of the Executive Seal, which replica is now in Savannah, Georgia, the property of the Georgia Historical Society. After an 1880 amendment to the state constitution, he became the first Secretary of State to be directly elected. Toward the end of his more than 30 years of service as secretary of state under numerous administrations and into his late 80s, he was said to wear a row of three pairs of glasses. A portrait of Barnett hangs in the office of the Georgia Secretary of State to this day. ==Death and legacy==

Nathan Crawford Barnett, who was reported to be tall and thin in his youth, at 6'6" in height, died at the age of 89. The Georgia Capitol (relocated to Atlanta in 1868) was closed February 4, 1890, the day of Colonel Barnett's funeral, held at Milledgeville. ''The Central Railroad tendered free use of its cars for Colonel Barnett's family and members of the funeral party.'' ==References==