# James Jackson (Alabama politician)

James Jackson (1782–1840) was an Irish immigrant who had a long business relationship with U.S. president Andrew Jackson. To the best knowledge of historians, there is no family tie between James and Andrew Jackson. Andrew Jackson and James Jackson engaged in land speculations.
When he lived in Nashville, James together with his brother Washington Jackson had a "large dry-goods store on the square." In a list of expenses accrued by Aaron Burr in account with Andrew Jackson at the time of the Burr expedition, one of the line items was $44 paid to "W. & J. Jackson bill do."
In 1809, Washington Jackson had a store in Natchez, where he had an extensive inventory, including a "first rate new keel boat, 25 tons burden, with poles and oars" advertised for sale in September, and where he sold a slave woman prone to "fits" to a "free French" woman of color on behalf of Andrew Jackson in December. In 1811, Washington Jackson & Co. accepted a $1,000 note from planter James McCaleb on behalf of Andrew Jackson for the purchase of two young slaves, Lucinda and Candis.
According to The Papers of Andrew Jackson (1984), James Jackson served as a "private banker for Andrew, extending large sums of money on promissory notes. They were later partners in numerous land ventures, including the Chickasaw Purchase speculation."
James Jackson left Nashville for Florence, Alabama where he "bought a stock-farm. According to the American Guide for Alabama published by the New Deal Federal Writers' Project, the farm was located off of Alabama State Highway 34. Construction on Forks of Cypress began in 1820, and the main house was "encircled by a peristyle of20 large Ionic columns of brick covered with plaster made from sand and molasses. This unorthodox treatment was apparently effective, for the columns are well-preserved. The house is a solidly built frame structure with a rear cross-hall intersecting the wide, full-length central hall...Thoroughbred horses were raised on the 3,000-acre estate. Of the several horses which were sent into competition for rich stakes in the East, Glencoe and Peyton, were the best known."
In 1822 Jackson was elected to the Alabama legislature. In 1824, Jesse Benton alleged that Andrew Jackson, John Eaton, and James Jackson had been investors in a criminal land speculation in 1818, buying up lots in Pensacola just before General Jackson invaded, which is called the First Seminole War, and which pushed the Spanish to sell Florida to the United States under the terms of the Adams–Onís Treaty. In 1828, William Berkeley Lewis wrote John Coffee to ask if he thought "Jimmy" Jackson had been involved in reports to the newspapers about possibly corrupt actions on the part of Andrew Jackson in the Colbert Reservations of the 1818 Chickasaw treaty.
Jackson served as president of the Alabama State Senate in 1831–1832. Jackson owned the Forks of Cypress plantation and was a famous racehorse breeder in later life. Along with Andrew Jackson, George Elliott, the Barrys, Eli Odom, the Kirkmans, the Polks, Dr. John Shelby, Dr. Sappington, Mr. Robert Smith, General Desha, Newton Cannon, the McGavocks, William G. Harding, and Balie Peyton, James Jackson was an associate of legendary turfman "Uncle" Green Berry Williams.
In 1850 his widow Sarah Jackson owned 65 slaves. In 1860 his widow Sarah Jackson owned 80 slaves.