John Milton

John Milton (April 20, 1807 – April 1, 1865) was governor of Florida through most of the American Civil War. A lawyer who served in the Florida Legislature, he supported the secession of Florida from the Union and became governor in October 1861. In that post, he turned the state into a major supplier of food for the Confederacy. In his final message to the state legislature as the war was ending, he declared that death would be preferable to reunion with the North, and killed himself shortly thereafter.

Early and personal life Milton descended from a prominent Southern family and was a relative of the famed English poet of the same name.

He was the son of Homer Virgil Milton, an officer who fought in the War of 1812, and the grandson of Revolutionary War veteran, United States presidential candidate of 1789, and former Georgia Secretary of State, John Milton. Born near Louisville, Georgia, Milton graduated from the University of Georgia and later studied law.

He married Susan Cobb in 1826,

John and Caroline lived in Alabama and New Orleans, before establishing a plantation worked by slave labor in Marianna, Jackson County, Florida in 1845.

Milton's youngest son, Jefferson Davis Milton (1861–1947) moved to Texas, later Arizona. He distinguished himself as a Texas Ranger, police chief of El Paso, and served for over 25 years as America's first border agent. William Hall Milton (1864–1942), grandson of the governor, was a U.S. Senator from Florida from 1908 to 1909.

On April 1, 1865, his son, William Henry Milton, found the governor dead of a gunshot wound to the head. The president of the Florida Senate, Abraham K. Allison, was sworn in as governor of Florida later that day. Governor John Milton is buried at Saint Luke's Episcopal Cemetery in Marianna.