Profile written and provided courtesy Nowell Briscoe ( [email protected] )

GOVERNOR OF GEORGIA

HENRY DICKERSON McDANIEL

SEPTEMBER 4, 1836 – JULY 25, 1926

        Cemeteries have long been the repositories for people of note and prominence. Rest Haven has a long list of citizens who have been instrumental in helping shape not only the town but the state as well. Monroe has the rare privilege of having not man serve as governor of our state but two. Former governor Clifford M. Walker now resides in the Walker Family Cemetery, better known as the Old Baptist Cemetery on Alcova Street, the same cemetery where former Mercer University President Dr. Pickney Daniel Pollock’s remains now rest.  And here in Rest Haven, the first man from Monroe to sit in the governor of Georgia’s seat was Henry Dickerson McDaniel.

        One of the most respected and prominent names in Monroe history is the McDaniel family. Henry Dickerson McDaniel was born in Monroe on September 4, 1836, the son of Rebecca Walker and Ira Oliver McDaniel.  At age 11, Henry and his parents moved to Atlanta where he finished high school and then entered Mercer University where he graduated in 1856 with an A.B. degree and holding the highest honors of the class.  His father, Ira, had once been one of Mercer Institute’s earliest professors.  After graduation from Mercer, he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1857.  Henry’s uncle, Dickerson H. Walker, suggested he move to Monroe after obtaining his law degree and enter into partnership with him, which he did for three years.  Henry demonstrated such ability and maturity in the field of law that he was chosen in January 1861 as one of Walton County’s three delegates to the Secession Convention at Milledgeville. He enlisted in the Eleventh Regiment of the Georgia Infantry, rising to the rank of major in the Confederate army.  He served in 1863 with the Army of Northern Virginia at Gettysburg.  On retreat from Gettysburg, he was seriously wounded by a shot in the abdomen and captured by Union forces shortly thereafter. Major McDaniel spent the remainder of the Civil War hospitalized and imprisoned in Ohio.

After the war, McDaniel returned to his law practice in Monroe and married Hester Caroline Felker on December 20, 1865. During the war, Henry had written to his fiancée a vivid accounting of the war depicted in Anita Sam’s book, With Unabated Trust: Major Henry McDaniel’s Love Letters from Confederate Battlefields as Treasured in Hester McDaniel’s Bonnet Box. Because Hester’s father did not approve of the courtship between his daughter and the young major, his letters to her were routed through Hester’s sister and brother in law, Elizabeth and Calvin G. Nowell.

Henry McDaniel did not enter public life until his election to the Georgia General Assembly in 1872.  Two years later he entered the state senate and served for three consecutive terms.  When he was elected governor in 1884 his accomplishments included the construction of the state capitol and the establishment of the Georgia College of Technology, later renamed Georgia Institute of Technology. Having been born with a bad stutter did not handicap his time in office.  He improved the state’s finances and greatly reduced Georgia’s bonded debt.  He also pushed other internal improvements for the deaf, blind and the insane.

After leaving the governor’s seat, he returned to Monroe and continued practicing law and managing his business interests.  He died in Monroe on July 25, 1926 after a brief illness. His home, the McDaniel-Tichenor House, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

(Click HERE for a view of the McDaniel-Technor House taken in 1889)