Declaration of Independence Signer. Born in Wallingford, Connecticut, he studied for the ministry at Yale College, and spent the first 32 years of his life in Connecticut. He became a minister, but when he quarreled with his congregation, he was fired. He married Abigail Burr, but she died within a year. He decided to become a doctor, and in keeping with the practice of the time, his medical training consisted of working as an apprentice for an established physician. He married again, to Mary Osborne, and had one child, a son. Deciding that there was more opportunity for a doctor in the south, they moved first to South Carolina, and then to Georgia. Near Savannah, Dr. Hall set up his medical practice and operated a rice plantation. As this area tended to be more anti-English than most other Georgians, Hall became a leader of the area's patriots and would make speeches supporting the patriot cause. With the highest percentage of Loyalists, Georgia was the only colony that sent no delegates to the First Continental Congress and initially to the Second Continental Congress. The local area residents sent Dr. Hall to represent them at the Second Continental Congress, and for a while, Dr Hall was the only Georgian there. Finally, in July 1775, Georgia officially named a delegation of three to represent the colony, with Dr. Hall as one of the delegates. In 1778, the British invaded Georgia, and destroyed Hall's home and rice plantation. Hall and his family escaped back to Connecticut, where they remained safe until the end of the war. Upon the end of the war, he returned to Georgia, and in 1783, he was elected Governor. Governor Hall helped begin the University of Georgia, one of the nation's first state supported schools. In 1790, Dr. Hall invested into a new plantation near Augusta, and died there a few months later, at the age of 66.