Jonathan Jackson

The name “Jonathan Jackson” appears in hundreds of War Department letters, especially documents from the accountant’s office. Who was he?

Jackson was born in Boston in 1743, attended Harvard, and later became a merchant in Newburyport, Massachusetts. As supporter of the American Revolution, he had some of his merchant ships converted to privateers, served as a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1777 and was a delegate to the Continental Congress. A solid Federalist with Revolutionary credentials, Jackson became the Federal Supervisor of Revenue for the District of Massachusetts from 1782 to 1800. He later became treasurer of Harvard University and president of the Boston Bank.

A lifelong public servant, Jackson complained that high rates of turnover in Congress and state legislatures undermined the effectiveness of government. Arguing against term limitations as a “capital defect,” he believed that government should be run by a few who made politics their lifelong profession.

Jackson’s daughter Hannah married Francis Cabot Lowell, who played a prominent role in the industrial revolution in America, and for whom the city of Lowell Massachusetts is named. Son Charles Jackson served on the Massachusetts Supreme Court, and one of Jackson’s great grandsons was Oliver Wendell Holmes, who was thrice wounded during the Civil War, (including Antietam and Fredericksburg) and who later became an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.