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Richard A. Blount Collection

Boundary Line Commission

In 1826, Richard A. Blount was appointed by the Governor of Georgia, G. M. Troup, to be part of a commission charged with surveying the boundary line between the states of Georgia and Alabama. He was elected treasurer of the commissioners from the state of Georgia and kept a journal of the conduct and expenses of the surveying expedition.

Colonel Blount, serving as a guide and translator, accompanied Reverend William Capers of South Carolina on an expedition into Indian country in August 1822 to consult with Chief William McIntosh and the leaders of the Creek Indians about the construction of a Methodist mission school among the Indians. Their visit resulted in the building of the short-lived Asbury Mission along the Chattahoochee River - near present day Columbus, Georgia. Asbury Mission was the second mission formed by the Methodists in the United States; the first one being a mission for the Wyandotte Indians in Ohio.

Richard A. Blount was the secretary for the Forth Annual Conference of the Methodist Protestant Church and was responsible for the publication of the "Minutes of the Forth Annual Conference of the Methodist Protestant Church," dated "6 September 1834, Milledgeville, Georgia." He was elected as an elder by the Georgia Annual Conference of Ministers and Delegates of the Methodist Episcopal Church 18 November 1839.

Richard A. Blount died on 24 December, 1849 and was buried in Milledgeville, Baldwin County, Georgia. He is best remembered for his work as a commissioner for the surveying of the Alabama-Georgia boundary line in 1826.

His headstone in the Milledgeville Cemetery has the incorrect date of 1771.