Revolutionary War Veteran, founder of Fort Valley honored during America’s 250th birthday

FORT VALLEY, Ga. — During America’s semiquincentennial birthday, a dedication ceremony was held at Oak Lawn Cemetery for a Revolutionary War veteran and a founder of the City of Fort Valley.

Veterans from the Fort Valley Masonic Lodge F&AM 110 and the American Legion Post 76 met on Saturday to bring recognition to William Wiggins and his family. 

Wiggins served in the Continental Line of the Revolutionary War. After serving, he was given a land grant for the area that would later become Fort Valley. 

Jimmy Yancey, commander of Post 76 Legion in Fort Valley, said that the Fourth of July is a time to honor those who served, and what better way to serve a Revolutionary War veteran than on America’s 250th birthday.

Sean Marshall, a descendant of Wiggins, said he was proud to be part of the ceremony.

“It makes me proud. It’s a jumpstart on what we have today,” Marshall said. “If that had gone south, we might had not have been here to be doing all of this.”

Marshall, who is originally from Fort Valley, reminisced about a time when he was young and took Wiggins’ original headstone home in a wagon.

“When I was in the seventh-grade, we were playing in that cemetery and saw that headstone—all the rest of everything had been ploughed up—and we put it on the wagon and took it home,” Marshall said. “I had no idea it was somebody related to me. Until I came out here one day and it was back out here. Whoever had gotten it and researched it put it back out here, cause I had no idea. It’s an adventure.”

The grave site was previously not maintained; however, the Fort Valley Masonic Lodge has provided a fence around the graves. Rooks Funeral Home had cleaned up the gravestones and provided headstones for Wiggins’ wife and daughter-in-law, which had previously been unmarked.