Gwinnett, Button

Related Category: U.S. History: Biographies

c.1735–1777, American political figure, signer of the Declaration of Independence, b. Gloucestershire, England. Emigrating to America, he became a Georgia planter and merchant. In 1776–77, he was a Georgia delegate to the Continental Congress. He was briefly president (governor) of Georgia in 1777, but was killed by Lachlan McIntosh in a duel.

See biography by C. F. Jenkins (1926).