Submitted by Descendant: Anne Hammond CONNELL
John Martin Geiger, born 1798 in Bulloch County, Georgia, was raised in Wayne County, Georgia, where he married Emily Joyner in 1825. His parents were Felix Geiger, Sr., and Mary Martin. Paternal Grandfather Hans Ulrich Gyger’s parents were Swiss Protestants who fled to South Carolina from Haslach, St. Gallen, Switzerland, in 1737. Maternal grandfather was Reverend John A. Martin of Bulloch County.
Around 1833-1834, Martin, all his siblings and their widowed mother removed to Nassau County, Florida, where Martin was on the 1840 Federal census and voted there in 1845 in the first statewide election.
In 1847, he received a land grant in Bradford County, near Reynolds, when it was part of Alachua County. The 1840 census shows the family in Alachua County. In 1852, he was granted land in Putnam County and in 1853, land on Bradford County, still a part of Alachua County.
During his time as an Alachua County, Commissioner, he helped lead the successful fight to move the Alachua County seat from Newnansville to the proposed town of Gainesville and helped design and build the first courthouse and first county jail. He was a farmer and cattleman and on the school board.
On 1860 census, he was living at Waldo. On 1870 census he was in Lafayette County, where he died four years later.
John Geiger was first established as a Florida Pioneer in 2001