Finding Aid to the George Alexander Martin Papers

JONES MEMORIAL LIBRARY
2311 MEMORIAL AVENUE
LYNCHBURG, VIRGINIA 24501
(434) 846-0501
GEORGE ALEXANDER MARTIN (1833-1915) PAPERS
The microfilmed collection includes the records and writings of Col. George
Alexander MARTIN, including accounts with clients 1863-1909. Also included are
scrapbooks of clippings and articles on Confederate and postwar activities, articles by
MARTIN on the birth and demise of the Confederacy, and nine letters (1871-1889)
concerning business and state politics.
GEORGE ALEXANDER MARTIN (1833-1915)
George Alexander MARTIN, son of James Green MARTIN and Maacah FOREMAN,
was born 3 September 1833, in Norfolk, Virginia. He attended the University of Virginia
where he received his law degree. He married 3 September 1857 Georgia Alice
WICKENS, daughter of J. Edward WICKENS and Alice WHITE, of Princess Anne
County, Virginia.
George A. MARTIN was a captain in Company B, 20th Battalion, Virginia Heavy
Artillery, in 1863. On 2 December 1864, he was made a Lieutenant-colonel of the 38th
Virginia Infantry. He was assigned to General COLSON in the defense of Lynchburg,
Virginia.
After the war, MARTIN was a lawyer in New York City. He returned to his native
Norfolk where he resumed his law practice. He served as a Senator from Norfolk City
and Princess Anne County in the Virginia legislature in 1881-1882. He was appointed to
the State Railroad Commission in 1883. In 1885, he was elected to the Virginia House of
Delegates from Norfolk County and served until 1889. During his term, he was
instrumental in the establishment of a state hospital in Petersburg. He retired from active
practice in 1913 and died in Norfolk on 15 January 1915.
[Robert K. Krick, Lee's Colonels (Dayton, OH: Morningside Bookshop, 1979), pp. 244-245; Lyon Gardiner
Tyler, Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography, Vol. 4 (New York: Lewis Historical Publ., 1915), pp. 237-238;
Letter, Peggy Haile, Sergeant Room, Norfolk Public Library, 28 November 1995.]

MS2079