cN9_C _ S _ 1J _~J.. L3_ _____ i_qJ lo SKETCH JACKSON FAMILY • AMERICA t ~e~rr~'\.1:> c ... c\-~ -i:IO'rw: 1765-1916 :.\_D U:' 5\ a... 'I\, a..) ~o.~ ~ lt.. Cou..""t::r '1,~ ·-' l f'r\YI.:t; J tl~t~.7 ..' .. .. : ... ..... .( .. • • • • c .... ::: :•e. •:• •:: G•••. •::: . .. ·:·:·:···. o . • • . : : .0: :: : ·.. : : :. .· .. : ~. ~ . "' ( . ULYSSES L. JACKSON DEDICATION. TO THE MEMORY OF CHRISTOPI-IER JACKSON, The pioneer who left his home in Kentucky, in com- ' pany with his wife, Catherine Jackson, and four daugh­ ters, in 1824, for a home on the sun-set side of the Mis­ sissippi; and who became the progenitor of one of the largest and most influential family groups to be found in the United States. Special mention is made of his great grand son, Ulys­ ses L. Jackson, of Muskogee, Oklahoma, without whose aid and encouragement this little volume would perhaps never have appeared. HISTORY OF THE JACKSON FAMILY IN AMERICA. CHAPTER FIRST. Brant, of St. Louis, the writer's friend, in passing through Ireland The Origin of This Family. from South to North, has this to say: ''The contrast between the Southern and Central parts of Ireland with that The authentic history of the Jack­ of Ulster district on the North was son Family locates them in the North made vivid and lasting by traveling of Ireland in 1650, in the Ulster dis­ through it. Ireland is a beautiful trict, which includes the northeast island, 'the Emerald Isle,' with its quarter of the island, with Belfast as lakes and its rivers, its sloping hills its chief city. It was from this dis­ and its fertile valleys. But the people trict that the ancestors of such men are lacking in energy; the farms are as Robert Fulton, John Stark, Sam poorly tilled; their chimneys are tumb­ Houston, Davy Crocket, Hugh White, ling. down; and a lack of thrift is John C. Calhoun, James K. Polk, everywhere apparent in the South and Horace Greeley, Robert Bonner, A. T. Central portions. Stewart and Andrew Jackson came, and the Watsons and the Carrolls of "Families are huddled together in Pike county, as well. one or two rooms, while the chickens, pigs, goats, and perhaps a horse oc­ The chief characteristics of these cupy the adjoining room. There is people were energy, enterprise and no money here for factories or big perseverance. They were noted for business enterprises. But when we ''doing ordinary things in an extraor­ reached the Ulster district, or North dinary way." part of Ireland, presto, we were in A recent tourist of Europe, John L. the midst of a very different people. -2- The fences and roads are in good re­ generations lived the forefathers of pair. 'f.he houses are painted or the family of whom I write-The whitewashed; they have barns for their Jackson Family. This is the earliest domestic animals; and the little farms authentic history of that family. bloom like so many roses. The peo­ ple are not standing about idle as in HUGH JACKSON. the South, but are all employed, and Hugh Jackson, the grandfather of at good wages. Wherever we stop­ Christopher Jackson, the Pike county ped to use our kodaks in the South pioneer, was a linen draper here in and Central parts of the island, we 1660, just two hundred years prior to were surrounded by a group of look­ our Civil war. ers-on. But here, not a man stops to He was the father of four sons, all see what we are doing·. He glances of whom were farmers and lived in at us and passes briskly on, as if he that neighborhood. Their names in had been sent for. Every man seems the order of their birth were: John, to be busy with his own business. Hug·h, Samuel and Andrew. Andrew, Here are huge mills and numerous the youngest, became the father of school houses. General Andrew Jackson: and Samuel ''Belfast within the last fifty years became the father of Christopher has increased from 85 thousand to Jackson, the Pike county pioneer. 450 thousand. These people are This Andrew Jackson was a mar­ known as 'The Scotch-Irish race.' ried man in 1765, with two boys, And a great people they are. At one Hugh and Robert, at that time. These time they were the most intelligent few facts were obtained from the people in all Europe. The Scotch- · mother of General Jackson in conver­ Irish people have given many great sation with her son. As Andrew men to the world; among them I men­ Jackson, the farmer, tilled his few tion Edmund Burke, the great orator rented acres, his wife both before and and statesman, the Duke of Welling­ after marriage was a w-eaver of linen. ton, the great general; John Curran, At this time, 1765, the people still the great lawyer; Dean Swift, the clung to their belief in witches, fairies, great satyrist; and Ge.orge Berkeley, brownies, charms, and waming spir­ the great bishop and metaphysician.'' its. They had just ceased trying peo­ ple for witchcraft, and the ducki ng­ CARRICK-FERGUS. pool for scolding wives was still in On the north coast of Ireland, nine existence. They still nailed horse miles from Belfast, the port of entry shoes to the bottom of their churns, and exit, is an old town called Car­ had faith in a seventh son, trembled rick-Fergus. In this town and its vi­ when a mirror was broke, or a dog cinity for an unknown number of howled, undertook no enterprise on - 3 - Friday, and would not change their name of the mother of the fu­ residence on Saturday on any account, ture General Jackson was Miss and many other curious customs pre­ Elizabeth Hutchinson. Her lot and vailed amongst them. that of her four sisters in Ireland had been a hard one. They were all It is a fact that among the descend­ weavers of linen. The grand child­ ants of these Scotch-Irish people, wherever found in America, whether ren of these Hutchinson sisters rem em­ in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, bered hearing their mothers often the Carolinas, or in Missouri, traces say that in Ireland they were compel­ led to labor half the night, and some­ of these customs and beliefs are still times all night in order to produce the observable. General Jackson, him­ required quantity of linen, due to a self, to the day of his death refused sudden advance in price. Linen weav­ to begin anything of importance on ing was their employment both before Friday. and after marriage. While the men The Ancestors Leave Ireland tilled the small rented farms, the wo­ For America. men toiled at the looms. The members of this Jackson­ Hutchinson circle were not all equal­ In 1765, King George the third, of ly poor. Some of them brought to England, had been on the throne for America money enough to enable five years. A treaty of peace be­ them to buy lands where they settled, tween France and England had been and some of them had money enough signed in 1763, by which the war to purchase slave help with which to known in our history as the "Old till the farms. Samuel Jackson, the French and Indian War'' was ended. next older brother of Andrew, the It was the war in which Braddock farmer, was among that number. He was defeated, and Canada won. By came to America in the year 1765, that treaty the ocean, the World's landing at Philadelphia, and located great highway, had been restored; a for some time in Pennsylvania, where new impulse given to enterprise, and he was recognized as a worthy citizen. traffic from the old world to the new Hugh Jackson, the next oldest was again established, free from dan­ brother, landed at New York about ger. the same time, and settled in the state From the North of Ireland large of New York, where living descend­ numbers sailed away to the land of ants were reported in 1859, (see Ken­ promise, beyond the sea. dall's Life of Jackson.) John Jack­ Five sisters of Mrs. Andrew Jack­ son, the oldest sori, remained in Ire­ son, the farmer, had already gone or land. were preparing to go. The maiden Andrew Jackson, the farmer, and - 4 - the youngest of the four brothers, son, who had moved from Pennsylva­ with a party of emigrants landed at nia to Rowan county, North Carolina, Charleston, S. C., in 1765, and pro­ and settled near the Virginia line. ceeded at once to the vVaxhaw settle­ This child gTew to young manhood in ment, 160 miles to the Northwest of North Carolina, went west and located Charleston, in l'vlecklenberg county, in Ohio co unty, Kentucky, where in North Carolina. This had been the 1790 he married Miss Catherine seat of the Waxhaw tribe of Indians. Rhodes, a native of the state of Penn­ The region was watered by the Ca­ sylvania, and a daughter of Doctor tawba river and lay partly in North Rhodes. and partly in South Carolina. It was By way of parallelism, following here that the Catawba grape originat­ these cousins, it is a well known fact ed. This party consisted of Andrew that General Andrew Jackson at the Jackson, the farmer, and three young age of 21, came west from North Car­ men by the name of Crawford, viz: olina and located at Nashville, Ten­ James, Robert and Joseph. nessee, as a lawyer; that he married James Crawford had married a Miss Mrs. RoBards and reared an adopted Hutchinson and was therefore broth­ son, the child of one of Mrs.