My Genealogy Hound

GEORGE C. NORTON, merchant, was born in Lawrenceville, Ga., September 15, 1836, and is a son of Reuben and Ruth M. (Smith) Norton, of English extraction, and natives of Vermont and Massachusetts. The former immigrated to Georgia about the year 1825, and located in Lawrenceville, where he followed merchandizing, removing to Rome, Ga., in 1847, where he still lives. The subject received an academic education at Rome, Ga., an after leaving school entered his father’s store. When the civil war broke out in 1861 he enlisted in the Eighth Georgia Infantry, commanded by Col. Francis S. Bartow, who was killed at Bull Run. He served on the staff (with rank of captain) of Generals Anderson, Hood and Longstreet, and was in the field until the closing scene at Appomattox. He came to Louisville in September, 1865, and as a salesman entered the dry goods house of J. M. Robinson & Co., now one of the largest in the South. In 1870 he became a partner in the house, which does business annually amounting to two million dollars, all through the South. .Mr. Norton is a director in the Board of Trade, and a trustee of Bellewood Female Seminary at Anchorage. He was married in 1863 to Miss Mary a Billups, of Rome, Ga. They had one child, Charles B., who died in 1873. In 1879 Mr. Norton was married to Miss Jessie Swope, a daughter of B. L. Swope, of Louisville. They have five children.