Background
Houstoun was born in Georgia near the present town of Waynesboro in 1744. He was the son of Sir Patrick Houstoun who emigrated with Oglethorpe and was a member of the council under the royal government of Georgia.
Houstoun was born in Georgia near the present town of Waynesboro in 1744. He was the son of Sir Patrick Houstoun who emigrated with Oglethorpe and was a member of the council under the royal government of Georgia.
He studied law and commenced practice in Savannah.
As the Revolution approached, he became one of a group – the others being Noble Wymberly Jones, Archibald Bulloch, and John Walton – who took it upon themselves to organize the liberty sentiment in the colony. In July 1774 these men called the first revolutionary meeting. Houstoun was a leader in promoting the first provincial congress, held in January 1775, and was by it elected a delegate to the Continental Congress. Since only five of the twelve parishes were represented in the provincial congress – so powerful was the royalist influence – the delegates felt that they could not justly claim to represent the province, and did not attend the Continental Congress. Houstoun, with his associates above mentioned, except that George Walton was now substituted for John Walton, called another meeting for June 1775, which set up a Council of Safety, an informal executive committee of the Revolutionary element. The Council successfully agitated for another provincial congress, which met in July 1775, at which all the parishes were represented. Elected by this body a delegate to the Continental Congress, Houstoun went to Philadelphia, and would have had the honor of signing the Declaration of Independence but for the necessity of returning home to counteract the efforts of his colleague, John J. Zubly, who was bent on defeating the movement for independence.
In January 1778 Houstoun was elected governor of Georgia. His administration was signalized by a military effort against St. Augustine, Fla. , the headquarters of an important force of British and Indians who were ravishing southern Georgia. An agreement was entered into with General Robert Howe, in command of the Southern Department with headquarters in Savannah, to concentrate all forces for a movement against Florida to take place in the summer of 1778. The available forces consisted of the Georgia militia, numbering 350, an undisciplined and poorly equipped group under the personal command of the Governor; certain Continental forces, approximately 550 men, under General Howe; 250 Continental infantry and thirty artillerists with two field pieces, from South Carolina, under the command of C. C. Pinckney; and some South Carolina militia under Colonels Bull and Williamson. None of the commanders would take orders from any other; there was no spirit of cooperation; malaria broke out; stores and transportation were miserably inadequate. The expedition was a fiasco and was abandoned. By the end of the year the British had overrun south Georgia and taken Savannah.
Houstoun was elected governor a second time in 1784. During his second administration an act was passed chartering the University of Georgia and setting apart lands for its endowment; and Houstoun became a member of the first board of trustees of the institution. His other public services were as chief justice of Georgia, 1786; commissioner to settle the boundary dispute with South Carolina, 1787; justice for Chatham County, 1787; mayor of Savannah, 1789 and 1790; and judge of the superior court of the eastern circuit, 1792. He died at "White Bluff, " near Savannah, in his fifty-second year.
Houstoun married a daughter of Jonathan Bryan, one of the largest planters in Georgia. He had no children.