The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1930-12-26

4 tennessee historian. She is de-
scribed as being brunette, with olive
| complexion and high coloring, black
eyes that danced and sparkled; viva
cious, kindly; lips that were true car
nelian; rare wilderness beauty"
Colonel Donelson was killed by the
Indians during the early years of the
settlement and his widow moved to
Kentucky. There she rented house
from another frontier widow, a Mrs.
Robards, whose son, Lewis. wooed and
won Rachel Donelson. But the mar
riage was failure from the begin
ming Robards was moody, tempera-.
mental and intensely Jealous of his
wife. So Rachel eventually left him,
returning to her mother, who had in
the meantime gone back to Nashville
to live. Faced with the necessity Of
making her own living after her hus-
bands death, Mrs. Donelson had taken
few men boarders into her home.
One of them was young lawyer
named John Overton, who brought
about reconciliation between Rachel
and Robards, who then came to live
with his wife and her mother.
Another boarder at the Donelson
home was red-headed young Caro-
linian, named Andrew Jackson. who
had arrived in Nashville in 1888 and
began the practice of law. Again
Robards' jealousy famed out and he
accused Rachel of being in love with
Jackson. The young lawyers protest
to the husband, when he heard the ac-
cusation, only made matters worse
and Robards returned to Kentucky.
Through Overton's intercessiOn Rachel
went there to live with him again, but
finding the situation impossible, soon
returned, resolved never again to live
with Robards.
Robards then applied to the legisla-
ture of Virginia (since Kentucky was
still part of that state) for d.
vorce, and on December 20, 1870, that
body passed an act permitting him to
go into court to seek a divorce from
his wife. Back to Tennessee came the
report that the divorce had been grant
ed in the summer of 1871, while Ra-
chel was visiting in Natchez, Miss.
Jackson, who had fallen in love with
her but had not spoken of his love
while she was still Robards' wife,
sought her out and they were mar
ried. The young couple soon returned
to Tennessee and went to live at the
home, Hunters Hill, which Jackson,
now United States attorney and al
ready marked as man who would be-
come famous, had established in Nash
VILE.
Two years later Jackson and his
wife learned that she was not legally
divorced from Robards when the mar
riage ceremony in Natchez had taken
place. The scandal mongers and Jack
sons political enemies became busy
with the tale. Richards had waited
three years, after filing his first appli-
cation, before finally securing the final
decree Of divorce. Immediately after
wards, on January II, 1894, Jackson
remarked his wife. Then he bought
two dueling pistols and served notice
upon his enemies that he would kill
any man who assailed his wife's name
or the purity of their motives when
they were first married.
For time the tongues of his ene-
mics were silenced. Then, as the re-
suit of dispute over horse race, a
young man named Charles Dickinson,
who seems to have been made the
tool of Jackson's political enemies,
after a session of heavy drinking de-
nounced Jackson as coward and a
poltroon and added the further insult
of declaring that. HE lived two years
with his wife before he was married
to her." The result was the now-fa-
nous Dickinson-J Jackson duel in which
Dickinson was killed. Dickinson fired |
first and seriously wounded jack
son. Later Jackson said to his Sec
ond, IF he had missed me, intended |
to shoot in the air, but when felt |
his ball pillow through my ribs, 1 would |
have killed him If he had shot me
through the heart"
The death of Dickinson silenced |
Jackson's enemies for awhile and he |
and his wife enjoyed a period of hap
piness at Hunters Hill. Then he lost |
the major part of his estate of some
$4,000 aarRs through debt, but on the |
part WI he retained he built
group houses and one frame
the new estate he gave