Joseph Habersham of Savannah (1751-1815) was a Georgia patriot, Revolutionary War hero, and political leader who was educated at Princeton and returned to Georgia to help organize the Liberty Boys as the Revolution approached. With other patriots, he organized the Council of Safety at Tondee’s Tavern on June 22, 1775. On January 17, 1776, leading a small group, he captured and placed under guard Sir James Wright, the British Colonial Governor. A Colonel in the Continental Army, he also commanded, with Captain Bowen, the first commissioned vessel of the Revolution. Habersham was a member of the Continental Congress and of the Georgia Convention that ratified the Constitution in 1788. Twice speaker of the General Assembly in Georgia’s first legislative body, he signed in 1785 the first charter granted to a state university in America, that of the University of Georgia. He later served as Postmaster General under Presidents Washington, Adams, and Jefferson, and from 1802 until his death was president of the Georgia branch of the Bank of the United States. Habersham County, created December 19, 1818, was named for him.