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- He was born in either Anson or Edgecomb county, NC. He moved to what is now Wilkes county, GA and joined the patriot militia there in 1774, serving under Andrew Pickens.
On August 18 (or 19), 1780, Cols. Clarke, Isaac Shelby with Overmountain Men from the Watauga Association at Sycamore Shoals near present day Elizabethton, Tennessee, and James Miller from the Ninety-Six District of South Carolina, led 200 mounted Patriots in a surprising victory aganist a larger British Loyalist force numbering 500 men at the Battle of Musgrove Mill near the present day city of Clinton, South Carolina.
In September 1780, Clarke led an army in an unsuccessful attempt to reclaim Augusta, Georgia from the British. He would later succeed in taking the city with Andrew Pickens in a two-month siege beginning on April 1781.
After the war, Clarke served in the Georgia General Assembly from 1781 to 1790. After his service in the state legislature, he involved himself in somewhat dubious enterprises. In 1793, with the encouragement of French ambassabor Edmond-Charles Gen?t, Clarke entered the French army as a major general and participated in designs against the Spanish in Florida. The Spanish, at that time, were allies of the British.
In 1794 he established the Trans-Oconee Republic, which included settlements in Creek territory in present day Greene, Morgan, Putnam and Baldwin counties. From his new settlements, he led a number of campaigns against the Creek Indians. The State of Georgia ordered Clarke to dismantle his settlements, but he refused. Governor George Mathews, disturbed that Clarke was attempting to create an independent government, ordered the settlements broken up. The Georgia militia accomplished this without violence and Clarke surrendered. Clarke was also alleged to have participated in the Yazoo Land Fraud and Governor Mathews was also involved in the scandal. In spite of his somewhat scandalous, post-revolution activities, Clarke continued to be held in high esteem by the public. He died in Augusta in 1799. His interment was located in his Lincolnton state park.
Clarke's son John Clark served as governor of Georgia from 1819 to 1823. Clarke County, Georgia is named in honor of Elijah Clarke.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elijah_Clarke
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He was a noted soldier and is revered for his service to his country. However, he also participated in some schemes which don't reflect well on him or his judgement. Elijah and other North Carolina settlers in Wilkes Georgia took possession of the land between the Oconee and Ocmulgee rivers, disregarding the rights of the Indians who lived there. They established a republic there and made Elijah its ruler. Twelve hundred militiamen under order of Georgia Governor Mathews and regular troops dispatched by president George Washington under Generals Jared Irwin and John Twiggs marched to the Oconee in late September 1794 and forced the settlers to withdraw. This is now referred to as the "Trans-Oconee Republic" to describe the short-lived independent state established by Elijah Clarke west of the Oconee River in 1794. While occupying areas in present-day portions of Greene, Morgan, Putnam, and Baldwin counties, Clarke and his followers erected as many as six fortified settlements, wrote a constitution, and elected their own officials. But after a few months, pressure from the federal government forced the governor to take action, and Clarke's independent state came to an end.
Like most Georgians at the time, Clarke wanted the hunting lands of the Creek Indians beyond the river to be opened for settlement as quickly as possible. The 1790 Treaty of New York, however, limited Georgia's westward expansion indefinitely and returned to the Creeks some land gained by the state in an earlier cession. According to the treaty provisions, the Creeks were responsible for expelling or punishing intruders as they saw fit. Clarke believed that those settlers whom the Indians were unwilling or unable to expel should be able to settle west of the river.
http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-2485
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circa 1733 - 1799 (~ 66 years)
