Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 06.djvu/46

 JACKSON

JACKSON

cotton manufacture in America. They built, in 181B, at Waltliam, Mass., a cotton factory, which is said to have been the first in the United States that combined under one roof all the pro- cesses used in converting raw cotton into the finished cloth. At this factory was used, in 1814, the power-loom built by Paul Moody, a skilful machinist, from models constructed by Mr. Low- ell. In 1821 Mr. Jackson bought land on the Merrimac river near the Pawtucket canal, and the Merrimac Manufacturing company, organ- ized by him, built cotton mills there, thus form- ing the nucleus of the city of Lowell. He afterward formed a second company for cotton manufacture at Lowell. In 1830 he obtained a charter for a railroad between Boston and Lowell, wliich was finished under his direction in 1835. In 1887 he met with heavy reverses, after which he became superintendent of the Locks and Canal company of Lowell, and afterward of the Great Falls Manufacturing comjiany, at Somersworth, N.H. He died at Beverly, Mass., Sept. 12, 1847.

JACKSON, Rachel (Donelson) Robards, wife of President Andrew Jackson, was born in North Carolina in 17G7 ; daughter of Col. John Donel- son, a Virginia surveyor. In 1780, with her par- ents and a company of pioneers, she made the voyage of over 2000 miles in a flatboat, in four montlis, from Watauga settlement, N.C., down the Holston river to the Tennessee, down the Tennessee to the Ohio, up tiie Ohio to the Cum- berland, and up the Cumberland to the Big Salt Licks (Nashville), then the outpost de- cided upon as the site of the New "Wat- auga settlement by Gen. James Eobert- son, who had pre- ceded the party in 1779. Here her fath- er prospered greatly and became the most important man of the settlement. During a season of short crops that visited the colony he mercifully removed with his family, slaves and stock to Kentucky to en- able the less fortunate to have all the corn raised that year, and while in Kentucky Rachel was married to Lewis Robards, and the father returned to the Cumberland without his daugh- ter. After the violent death of her father, who had been waylaid and murdered by the savages, she returned to her mother's home with her hus- band. There she met Andrew Jackson, and a mutual attachment sprang up between the law-

^jpO'i^^'cO^ii OA

le^u/'

yer from North Carolina and the attractive young woman, which aroused the jealousy of her husband. Tiiis was in 1789, and in the winter of 1790-91 Captain Robards, who had returned to Kentucky, then a j^art of Virginia, applied to the legislature of Virginia for a divorce from his wife. Both Mrs. Robards and Mr. Jackson understood that it had been granted, and they were married in Natchez, Miss., in the fall of 1791, and soon after settled in Nashville. On Sept. 27. 1793, Capt. Lewis Robards appeared by counsel before the court of fiercer county, Ky.. claiming tiiat his wife, Rachel Robards, had deserted him and was living with another man, and asked for a jury to decree a divorce, which was granted and the di- vorce obtained. Then, for the first time, the per- sons most interested learned that the Virginia di- vorce of 1790-91 was incomplete. On return- ing to Nashville from his circuit in January, 1794, Mr. Jackson obtained a license, and they were re-married. Although many exaggerated reports were then and subsequently circulated, her social standing in Nashville was not affected by the incident. They lived at Hunter's Hill, where her husband conducted a store, and in 1804 they removed to the estate afterward known as the Hermitage, living in a log house with three rooms. A new house was built in 1819, where she entertained the great men of the nation, and many visitors from Europe received the hospital- ity of the Hermitage. She accompanied her husband to New Orleans, after the battle, when he made that city the headquarters of the South- ei'n army, and .subsequently went with him to Pensacola, Fla., and to Washington. She caused a chapel to be built on the Hermitage plan- tation after 1816, when she became a church member, and when at home her husband regularly attended public worship with her, but did not himself make a public profession of his faith till after her death. Having no childi-en of her own, she took into her household two children of her sisters, one of whom received the name of An- drew Jackson, and was legally adopted, and the other, Andrew Jackson Donelson, became the private secretary of President Jackson and was a candidate for the vice-presidency in 1856. Stories of the unfortunate incident connected with her second marriage, tliat were circulated by Gen- eral Jackson's iwlitical enemies, embittered Mrs. Jackson's life and undermined her healtii. She died at the Hermitage, Dec. 22, 1828.

JACKSON, Richard, representative, was born in Providence, R. I., July 3, 1764 ; son of Richard and Susan (Waterman) Jackson, and a descend- ant of Stephen Jackson, who came to Rhode Island from county Kilkenny, Ireland. His edu- cation was acquired in the schools of Providence and Pomfret, Conn., and he early entered mer-