George S. Gaines was a younger brother of General Edmund Pendleton Gaines of the United States army. He was born in Virginia. In 1794 he came to Tennessee and located to Alabama where he resided until 1804, when he went to Alabama, having been appointed assistant factor for the Choctaw Indians at St. Stephens, then the capital of the Territory of Alabama. In 1807 he was made principal factor. It was from letters from Mr. Gaines that General Jackson and Governor Willie Blount first received the information of the massacre at Fort Mims in the autumn of 1813. When Aaron Burr was arrested and sent up to St. Stephens by Captain (afterwards General Gaines), Mr. Gaines was sick. Burr prescribed for him and was otherwise exceeding kind to the invalid, and the two became very much attached to each other. He continued to hold the position of Indian agent for many years, but later in life made his home in Mobile. He was a man of high intelligence, good education, sterling honesty, and was without fear. He was honored and respected by all who knew him. It was at Mr. Gaines' suggestion that the colony of distinguished French refugees, officers and soldiers under Napoleon selected the site at White Bluff for the location of their colony and the town of Demopolis.