{{short description|American politician}} {{Use American English|date=November 2025}} {{Use mdy dates|date=May 2025}} {{Infobox officeholder |honorific_prefix = Governor |name = John Wereat |image = John Wereat.jpg |order = Governor of Georgia |term_start = August 6, 1779 |term_end = January 4, 1780 |predecessor = Seth John Cuthbert |successor = George Walton |birth_name = John Wereat |birth_date = {{circa|1733}} |birth_place = Rode, Somerset, England |death_date = {{death date and given age|1799|1|25|65–66}} |death_place = Bryan County, Georgia, U.S. |party = |spouse = |alma_mater = |signature = }} '''John Wereat''' ({{circa|1733}}{{spaced ndash}}January 25, 1799) was an American politician and the governor of Georgia.
==Personal life== Wereat was born in Road (now Rode, Somerset) England, around 1733 and migrated to the colonies in 1759. He married Hannah Wilkinson, who was previously married. They arrived in Savannah in 1759, where Wereat partnered with William Handley, Hannah's relative.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Lamplugh|first1=George R.|title="To Check and Discourage the Wicked and Designing": John Wereat and the Revolution in Georgia|journal=Georgia Historical Quarterly|date=1977|volume=61|issue=4|pages=295–307|jstor=40580411}}</ref>
==Political life== John Wereat was appointed to the Council of Georgia on April 14, 1766.<ref>{{cite book|title=Journal of the Commissioners for Trade and Plantations From January 1764 to December 1767|date=1936|publisher=His Majesty's Stationery Office|location=London|page=269|url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=e000xna&AN=353010&site=eds-live&scope=site&ebv=EB&ppid=pp_269|access-date=23 May 2016}}</ref> In the early years of the American Revolution, Wereat was a member of the Provincial Congress and the Council of Safety. From 1776 through the end of the war, he served as Georgia's Continental agent, representing the state in dealings with Congress. Wereat was a delegate for Georgia in the Continental Congress<ref>{{cite book|last1=White|first1=George|title=Historical collections of Georgia|date=1996|publisher=Genealogical Pub. Co.|location=Baltimore, MD|isbn=080630376X|page=210|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_HhtqLCDy60C&q=john%20wereat&pg=PA210|access-date=23 May 2016}}</ref> and Governor of Georgia in 1779. During his term as governor, he fought against the Yazoo land fraud, organizing the Georgia Union Company in an attempt to buy western lands and prevent them from inclusion in the Yazoo sales.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Lamplugh|first1=George R.|title=John Wereat and Yazoo, 1794-1799|journal=Georgia Historical Quarterly|date=1988|volume=72|issue=3|pages=502–517|jstor=40581861}}</ref> The Yazoo land fraud left a stain on Georgia politics for years, finally being resolved under the governorship of James Jackson.
Wereat spent a year as a prisoner of the British in Charleston, South Carolina after initially being taken captive in Augusta in 1780.
After his gubernatorial term, Wereat served as state auditor from 1782 until 1793.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Wereat|first1=John|title=[Letter], 1787 May 23 [to] George Mathews, Governor of Georgia, Augusta / John Wereat|url=http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/zlna/id:tcc172|website=Southeastern Native American Documents, 1730-1842|publisher=Digital Library of Georgia|access-date=31 May 2016}}</ref> In December 1787 he presided over the state convention that unanimously ratified the new Federal Constitution.
John Wereat was in the Whig party along with John Martin and Lyman Hall.
==Death and legacy== John Wereat died at his Bryan County, Georgia plantation on January 25, 1799.
His daughter Ann, married Continental Army Major Benjamin Fishbourn, the Aide-de-camp to General Anthony Wayne. Fishbourn was the first-ever politician rejected by the Senate under the first ever instance of senatorial courtesy.
==See also== * List of United States governors born outside the United States
==References== {{Reflist}} *[http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-700 New Georgia Encyclopedia entry for John Wereat]
{{S-start}} {{s-off}} {{Succession box | before= John Houstoun | title= Governor of Georgia | years= 1779 | after= George Walton}} {{S-end}}
{{Governors of Georgia}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wereat, John}} Category:1799 deaths Category:Governors of Georgia (U.S. state) Category:People from Mendip District Category:18th-century American Episcopalians Category:British emigrants to the Thirteen Colonies Category:Independent state governors of the United States Category:Year of birth unknown Category:Georgia (U.S. state) Whigs Category:Georgia (U.S. state) independents Category:American Revolutionary War prisoners of war held by Great Britain Category:1730s births
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