Brave Elizabeth is a biography of Elizabeth Jackson, the mother of President Andrew Jackson.
I believe that environment and heredity influence a person, and it was fascinating to me to research the mother of one of our Presidents. Here is a snippet of her life.
Andrew and Elizabeth Jackson were living in Boneybefore, Ireland, in 1764. They were tenant farmers and not making enough money from their crops and sheep to make ends meet. Taxes continued to go up, and the weather continued to cast blights on their harvests. The Scots-Irish couple worked hard, but life under the British rule was a hard-scrabble existence. Disrespect and prejudice for their Presbyterian religion was also challenging.
A new life in a new land captured their thoughts.
In April 1765, Andrew and Elizabeth Jackson crossed the Atlantic Ocean to the colonies with their two children. Hugh was two, and Robert only a babe. The eight week voyage from Larne, Ireland, was uneventful.
They bought land close to Elizabeth’s family and erected a small one-room cabin. They planted crops and started over. Happily for two years, the Jacksons worked hard and struggled to eke out a living in this red clay, but in March 1767, while chopping wood on a cold, spring day, Andrew Jackson had an accident and died shortly thereafter. Elizabeth, nine months pregnant with their third son, was a widow at thirty with all the responsibilities of a single mother in eighteenth-century America.
Though small in stature, Elizabeth was strong and resilient in spirit. She adapted to life’s changes and disappointments and put others’ needs before herself. Working hard and pushing forward through challenges was the model she set for her sons.
After Andrew’s death, her sister and brother-in-law, Jane and James Crawford, asked Elizabeth to move in with their family. Jane had been sick for several years and needed help with the housekeeping. Their eight children needed more supervision than she could give, so the Jacksons joined the Crawford household.
Busy with the daily chores of planning and preparing meals for fourteen individuals in a fireplace, tending to the needs of eleven children and her ailing sister, mending, spinning, managing a garden, churning, etc., Elizabeth continued to weave cloth for the community. She earned money from the neighbors by selling the cloth and was known for the quality and expertise of her work.
Elizabeth wanted her sons to have a formal education. All three boys attended the church and community schools, but Hugh and Robert had more aptitude for outdoor activities, and they wanted to farm. Andy learned to read at an early age, and his mother thought he might become a minister. His personality was not for a scholar’s life though, and the Revolutionary War interrupted his education.
Elizabeth’s faith in God and His Providence was a major ingredient in her character. She had a small Bible that she carried in her pocket, and she prayed often. She taught her sons the importance of obedience to the Bible’s teachings and encouraged them in their loyalty to each other and the rest of their family. Elizabeth urged deeds and words honoring God, family, and country.
The Waxhaws settlement was connected to Charleston via the Catawba Path, also known as the Camden Salisbury Road, with many travelers. Merchants and Indian traders carried their wares to markets. Farmers drove their cattle to sale. New settlers in the Conestoga wagons or on foot were daily visitors. All of these travelers kept trade, culture, and news flowing into the upcountry where the Jackson family lived. Because of the proximity of the Crawford home, visitors kept them in the know with information and intelligence.
On 20 June 1779, sixteen-year-old Hugh died after the Battle of Stono Ferry near Charlestown. The two-hour battle was not a win for the Patriots, but the militia fought bravely. Hugh was not wounded but died of heat exhaustion.
Elizabeth nursed the dying and wounded after the horrific Battle of Waxhaws. She didn’t shy away from either the pain or wounds of the soldiers that were slaughtered by the British at this battle. Later, she hid with her family from the British, who stole and burned the patriots’ farms.
Robert and Andy were under the command of the experienced Major William Richardson Davie. Because of his youth, only thirteen, Andy served as a messenger. Guerrilla warfare and destruction was the aim of both sides, and enemy neighbors paid back old insults.
Then in the spring of 1781 both Robert and Andy were captured by the British, along with others in the Waxhaws militia. They were taken to the Camden Jail. Smallpox was in every cell, and before long both boys were afflicted. Elizabeth Jackson was determined to rescue her sons from this hellhole. She audaciously went to see Lord Rawdon and asked for him to add her sons’ names to a prisoner exchange that was in the works. He was not unhappy to release two sick prisoners.
Their mother nursed them for several weeks, but Robert was too weak and died. She never left Andy’s side until he could walk by himself.
Horrific tales about how the Patriots were being treated on the British prison ships in the harbor of Charlestown began to circulate. Elizabeth found out that several of her nephews were on those ships suffering with cholera. Knowing their chances to survive were small without some kind of nursing, Elizabeth and a couple of women from the Waxhaws community decided they needed to go help the young men. In the fall of 1781, three women left home on a mission of mercy.
Elizabeth’s nephews survived, but she did not. She caught cholera and was buried in an unmarked grave in Charleston.
Elizabeth taught her sons the difference between right and wrong, and freedom and oppression; the importance of helping family and friends; reverence for truth, justice, and freedom; and a deep patriotic devotion to country.
Elizabeth Hutchinson Jackson was a Patriot, a South Carolina Revolutionary War Heroine, and the mother of President Andrew Jackson. Her story is worth remembering.
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Sheila Ingle 