Prominent Residents

GENERAL ALFRED E. JACKSON.

Having been at one time the oldest resident of Jonesboro, Tennessee, which is the oldest town in the state and is situated in Washington county, the oldest county in Tennessee, and, moreover, by reason of the fact that he had a most interesting family, military and business history, it is certainly imperative that mention of General Alfred E. Jackson be given prominent place among the leading citizens whose records constitute the history of this great commonwealth. General Jackson was born in Davidson county, Tennessee, on the 11th of January, 1807, and until late in life was engaged in those activities required in attending to large farming and business interests. His grandfather, Philip Jackson, came with his wife, Eliza, from Ireland and settled in Edenton, North Carolina, where both passed away. The father of General Jackson was Samuel D. Jackson, who was born in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, September 16, 1755, and died on the farm of his son on the “Chucky” river in Washington county on the 7th of May, 1836. He had served as a lieutenant in Colonel Stark's regiment of Virginia troops during the Revolutionary war. Before removing to Tennessee in 1801 he had engaged in wholesale merchandising in Philadelphia and was a man of very considerable wealth, but by endorsing papers for Robert Morris, the celebrated financier, he was obliged to make sacrifice of his property, selling out at a loss of one hundred and nineteen thousand dollars and in addition paying thirty thousand dollars in money for Morris. With his removal to Tennessee he settled in Jonesboro and purchased a farm of six hundred and forty acres on the “Chucky” river from Governor John Sevier and David Ross, which property is intact in the possession of his descendants today. He had previously purchased fifty thousand acres of land from Governor William Blount and it was this that occasioned his removal from Philadelphia to Tennessee. About the year 1804 he removed from Jonesboro to Jefferson county, settling at a place known as Panther Springs, in the center of his extensive holdings of East Tennessee lands, which in turn were in the very midst of the Indian hunting grounds. Samuel D. Jackson devoted his life to merchandising when in Jonesboro and to the improvement of his lands, and subsequently he took up his abode in Davidson county upon a farm which he purchased from General Andrew Jackson. He and General Andrew Jackson traced their kinship so closely that he lived for three months during 1805 in General Jackson's home. Some time afterward the latter won ten thousand acres of Samuel Jackson's Harpeth lands from him and this resulted in a street quarrel in which the latter was run through the body by General Jackson's long cane spear. It was many years after this personal encounter between the kinsmen that their friendship was renewed, but finally they met in the Cumberland mountains in company with General Coffee and other members of General Jackson's military staff. At that time they again became friendly and General Jackson afterward gave to Henry Jackson, a son of Samuel Jackson, an office in the treasury department at Washington, which position he filled until Millard Fillmore became president of the United States.

Samuel D. Jackson was a man of very decided convictions, excitable and high tempered, in which respect he was much like the old hero of the battle of New Orleans. In addition he was a very successful business man. To the same family belonged General “Stonewall” Jackson of Virginia, all being descended from old Irish stock. The men of the family were tall, General Alfred E. Jackson, who was six feet three inches in height, being a normal representative of this family. The latter was more or less intimately associated with many of the distinguished men of Tennessee, including Bailie Peyton, Ephraim Foster, A. O. P. Nicholson, William Cullom, Robert I. Chester, Chief Justice Deaderick, whom he nursed when a little boy, Neill S. Brown, Aaron V. Brown, Gustavus A. Henry, John Bell, Paul F. Eve, Sr., Thomas Menees, Davy Crockett, Meredith P. Gentry, T. Nixon Van Dyke, Robert Hatton and Daniel S. Donelson.

The mother of General Alfred E. Jackson was in her maidenhood Miss Eliza Catharine Woodrow, member of a New Jersey Quaker family but a native of Philadelphia. She was a lady of liberal education and culture and long occupied a prominent position in the social circles of her native city. She always attended the levees held by Presidents Washington and Adams when Philadelphia was the national capital and she was also bridesmaid to the lady who first became Mrs. Todd and afterward the wife of President James Madison. She belonged to the Presbyterian church at Jonesboro, Tennessee, of which the Rev. Charles Coffin, founder of the Greeneville College, was pastor, and she also belonged to the church at Salem under Dr. Samuel Doak, founder of Washington College. Of her sisters, Susan Woodrow, became the wife of Dr. Binney of Philadelphia, the father of Horace Binney, a distinguished lawyer, member of congress and a director of the old United States Bank, of which he also served as attorney under Nicholas Biddle, famous financier of that period. Another sister, Julia Woodrow, became the wife of James Duncan of Gettysburg and still another sister married Dr. Spring of Boston. The mother of these daughters was Mrs. Susan Woodrow nee Firman, a woman of great business capacity, for whom Benjamin Franklin and William Duncan of Philadelphia acted as business advisers. She possessed splendid judgment and knowledge of economic values and she accumulated a large property. Her daughter, Mrs. Samuel D. Jackson, was like the mother a woman of brilliant intellect and was also remarkable for her beauty, as were her daughters. She was born December 22, 1764, and passed away January 8, 1844, in Jonesboro, at the home later occupied by her son, Alfred E. She left six children: Henry, who died at Lynchburg, Virginia, where he had held office for twenty-four years; Susan W., who later became the wife of Dr. Thomas G. Watkins of Jefferson county, Tennessee; Eliza, who later changed her name to Julia Adelaide and became the wife of David A. Deaderick, her death occurring at Cheek’s Crossroads in Jefferson county, Tennessee, in 1817; Caroline, the wife of John A. Aiken, a brilliant criminal lawyer of Jonesboro, and both of whom died in Rome, Georgia; Harriet, who became the wife of Oliver G. Ross of Baltimore and settled in Jonesboro, Tennessee.

The other member of the family was General Alfred Eugene Jackson, whose name introduces this review. His life was an eventful one. He was educated at Washington and Greeneville Colleges under Rev. Samuel Doak, D. D., who founded the first institution of learning in Tennessee, and under Charles Coffin, president of Greeneville College. In his twentieth year he married and began farming on the “Chucky” river, devoting his attention to agricultural pursuits there until 1830, when he began trading in points in northern Alabama. This business occupied much of his attention for twenty-three years and through the sale of produce he made considerable money. In 1834 he began merchandising in connection with boating to points in the south and used wagons in selling his goods in South Carolina, North Carolina and Georgia. He continued his mercantile business for eighteen years and at the same time owned and operated mills and blacksmith shops.

In 1843 he removed to Jonesboro and still conducted a store upon his farm. In 1846 he made a contract with Elijah Embree to take at a stipulated price all the output of Mr. Embree's rolling mill and nail manufacturing plant. This contract terminated only on the death of Mr. Embree in 1847 and the deal was a source of considerable profit to General Jackson. Previous to 1846 he began merchandising in Taylorsville, Johnson county, where he carried on business for fourteen years, and in the meantime he conducted two stores in North Carolina. His sound business judgment was shown when in 1847 he bought up all the corn in eastern Tennessee with the view of supplying the demand in Ireland, which was experiencing a famine. He took the corn to New Orleans on flatboats and there sold to an English purchaser for the Dublin markets, clearing fifteen hundred dollars on this venture. The trip consumed six months and sixteen days, during which time he was constantly on duty, often working all night on the river, steering his boats, which were lashed together. About 1850 he contracted with Bishop Ives of North Carolina to erect a chapel, seminary and boarding house and also a storehouse at Valle Crucis, in Watauga county, North Carolina. He continued his mercantile enterprise at Taylorsville, Watauga and Burnsville until 1861 and at the same time conducted a tannery, a shoe shop and a saddlery shop at Taylorsville. His life was thus one of intense industry and enterprise and contributed in large measure to the upbuilding and development of the communities in which he labored.

At times his work was of a most arduous nature and involved him in many hardships and much exposure. He rode all over eastern Tennessee and over large portions of Alabama and South Carolina, making many of these trips at night in order to further his business. On one occasion he rode from Greenville, South Carolina, to his home—a distance of one hundred and twenty miles—without stopping for rest or sleep and twice only to feed his horse. Often he rode night after night for the benefit of his business interests and once went three hundred miles in a canoe from Battle Creek to Decatur, Alabama, poling and paddling night and day, sleeping as the canoe floated down the river, rather than be balked in the sale of some western Tennessee lands. He then rode at night a distance of forty-six miles from Decatur to Tuscumbia to catch the stage and reach his destination in time to prevent the loss of his lien.

In 1861 General Jackson entered the Confederate service as a quartermaster on the staff of General Felix K. Zollicoffer. As brigade quartermaster he continued to serve until the death of General Zollicoffer on the 20th of January, 1862. He afterward became paymaster at Knoxville and disbursed about ten million dollars of Confederate money, remaining in the pay department until February 9, 1863, when he was commissioned a brigadier general and took the field. He was assigned to duty with General Daniel S. Donelson, then in command of the Department of East Tennessee. He served in Virginia and Tennessee and participated in the battle of Millwood in September, 1863, and of Blue Springs in October of that year. He captured the One Hundredth Regiment of Ohio Infantry, which won him the Yankee sobriquet of “Mudwall” Jackson. He also was in command at the battle of the Watauga, a running fight, on the retreat from Blue Springs with General Foster's brigade from Henderson to Rheatown. He participated in three fights at Carter's Depot and two battles at the Salt Works in Virginia, in one of which with a force of eighteen hundred men he repulsed Burbridge at the head of six thousand federal troops and drove him back with a loss of four hundred. This was on the 2d of December, 1863. In the last fight in which General Jackson took part he engaged with three hundred men, badly equipped, against Stoneman with six thousand men and held his position without loss. This was on the 1st of December, 1864. He continued in the service until after the surrender of Lee.

The war over, General Jackson remained in Washington county, Virginia [?], for a time and early in 1869 went to Knoxville, Tennessee, where he conducted a commission business for two years, after which he returned to Jonesboro, looking after his interests there. Under the able and skillful management of Judge Deaderick, following the war, General Jackson's estate remained intact. For kindness shown to his wife and family during the war President Andrew Jackson issued to General Jackson a special pardon, and through Governor William B. Campbell and other members of congress, General Fisk gave an order for the restoration of his property which had been confiscated. The character of General Jackson is shown by the fact that after the war. When his fortune seemed lost, he rented land and did not hesitate at manual labor on his own part but hoed and plowed the land with a mule and horse. He raised fifteen hundred bushels of corn in 1866, the sale of this bringing him his first money after the war. His wife, too, was equally industrious and economical and assisted him to retrieve their lost possessions. At one time he lost twenty negroes and five thousand bushels of corn, besides cattle, hogs, horses and tobacco in large amount, and his cribs and granaries were frequently raided by the contending armies. He never gave a mortgage or deed of trust in his life. He enjoyed the reputation of being a man of strong will power and of working force who always lived the life of a hospitable southern gentleman, extending the cheer and kindliness of his home to all.

It was on the 8th of June, 1826, that General Jackson was married in Carter county, Tennessee, to Miss Seraphina C. Taylor, who was born June 23, 1808, the youngest daughter of General Nathaniel Taylor, a brigadier general of the War of 1812, and a sister of James P. Taylor, a distinguished lawyer and for a time attorney general of the eastern judicial district of Tennessee. She was also a sister of Alfred W. Taylor, father of H. H. Taylor of Knoxville and of Colonel N. M. Taylor of Bristol. Mrs. Jackson, a lady of most modest and retiring manner, living a consistent Christian life as a member of the Presbyterian church, passed away October 27, 1882.

She was the mother of fourteen children. Samuel Dorsey, the eldest, now a farmer of Taylorsville, Tennessee, married Alzinia Wagner and they had eight children: Mary, Olive, Sallie, Charles B., Ida, Matthias, Mattie and Lillie. Nathaniel Taylor, the second of the family, married Lizzie, the only child of Major John F. Henry of Blount county, Tennessee. Nathaniel T. Jackson, serving as a major under General Zollicoffer in the Confederate army, fell in battle, leaving one child, Alfred N., who is a lawyer of Knoxville. Eliza Catherine, the third of the family, became the wife of James E. Murphy, a lawyer of North Carolina, and has one child, Eugenia. Mary Caroline Jackson, born September 26, 1832, is the wife of General James T. Carter, son of General William B. Carter of Carter county, and they had five children: Bettie; Alice; Seraphina, the wife of Dr. Burdett of Nashville; Adelaide, the wife of Edward Koykendall of Knoxville; and James T. Carter. Henry Woodrow, the fifth of the family, died at an early age. Susan Evalina, the next younger, married Judge William V. Deaderick, a nephew of Chief Justice Deaderick, and she died leaving eight children: Alfred Eugene; Cora; John Franklin; Laura, who was the wife of John I. Cox and died in 1885, leaving a son; Henry C.; Claude Taylor; Edward; and Charley Fuller. James Patton Taylor Jackson, the seventh child of General and Mrs. Alfred E. Jackson and named for his uncle, James P. Taylor, a gallant soldier of the Confederate army, was wounded at the battle of Shiloh and died in Mississippi in 1881. William Woodrow Jackson died in infancy. Julia Adelaide became the wife of Charles L. Fuller of Nashville and had four children: Lillie, William, Nellie and Alfred Eugene Fuller. Alfred Eugene Jackson, the tenth of the family, died at Millborough, Tennessee. He was an adjutant of the Twenty-ninth Tennessee Regiment and passed away soon after the battle of Mill Springs or Fishing Creek. Seraphina Cordelia died at the age of thirteen years. Henry Clay became a farmer of Washington county, Tennessee. Lorena Olivene died at the age of four years. Olivia Lillie Jackson, the youngest of the family, became the wife of the Rev. James W. Rogan, pastor of the First Presbyterian church of Savannah, Georgia.

The death of General Jackson occurred in the year 1888. He was then an octogenarian. His life had been one of great activity and usefulness and had exerted a broad and beneficent influence over the development, growth and progress of the communities in which he lived. He was a man of marked personal courage, chivalrous, urbane in manner, and one whose record reflected credit upon a family name that has been honored throughout the annals of America.