Recent research indicates, however, that we may be celebrating this anniversary one year early. In fact, this research throws serious doubts on many of the previous assumptions we have held regarding our family's origin in America. An objective study of existing family histories and newly discovered historical documentation suggests that John Jackson and Elizabeth Cummins arrived here not as fortune-seekers in 1748, but rather as a pair of convicts in 1749. In this article, I would like to present the evidence, explain how it came to light, why it should be regarded seriously, and, ultimately, what implications it has for our family and its historians. I would also like to explain why, in the face of this evidence, the Jackson Brigade, Inc. has proceeded with plans for a 1998 commemoration.
For generations of Jackson family historians, John Jackson and Elizabeth Cummins have represented both the beginning and the end of research into their Jackson lineage. The mystique surrounding this couple's origins illustrates both the attraction and the frustration of genealogical research. While the lack of documentation provides us the opportunity to cloak John and Elizabeth's origins in romanticism and myth, it also plagues those Jackson-Cummins descendants who wish to extend their ancestral knowledge to Europe. Many have spent untold hours searching through existing accounts for some overlooked clue to John and Elizabeth's ancestries.1 A useful overview of these accounts appears in Nancy Jackson and Linda Meyers' recent book on Colonel Edward Jackson, but for the purposes of this article a brief summary will suffice.
Our knowledge of John Jackson's early life is very sketchy. Most researchers agree that John was born near Coleraine in Londonderry County, Northern Ireland. Some accounts claim that he was born in 1715,2 others, as late as 1719.3 All agree, however, that his mother died when John was very young and that he later moved, with his father and two brothers, to London. At the age of 10, we are told, John was fortunate enough to be apprenticed into the builder's trade. In 1748, he contracted to build a house for a landowner in Maryland and sailed for America.4
The tales surrounding Elizabeth's immigration are somewhat more complex. Most family histories state that Elizabeth was born in London in 1723. By Elizabeth's own account--as told years later by her grandson, John George Jackson--she was born on January 8, 1729.5 (The 1729 date seems more likely, when considering that Elizabeth's youngest child, Henry, was born in 1774. It would also mean, however, that Elizabeth did not live past the age of 100, as tradition holds.)
According to early biographers, Elizabeth's father owned land in Ireland and was the proprietor of a London public house known as the "Bold Dragoon."6 Here, accounts of Elizabeth's life diverge. Some say that her father died and Elizabeth's mother married her own brother-in-law.7 Others state that Elizabeth's mother died and her father later married a woman that Elizabeth despised.8 Whichever the case, Elizabeth is said to have once lost her temper and thrown a silver tankard at her step-parent before fleeing to America.9 George W. Jackson (a grandson of John and Elizabeth) gave a somewhat more believable account of Elizabeth's emigration from England:
The problem presented by the Jackson-Cummins immigration is not unusual in genealogical research. Family historians are often able to easily trace their lineage for several generations in America, only to face the intimidating expanse of the Atlantic once they find their immigrant ancestor. The researcher discovers that emigrants, upon boarding ship for America, often severed all ties with the Old World. Such was apparently the case with John and Elizabeth.
While searching for clues to our elusive European ties in 1986, I happened upon P. William Filby's Passenger and Immigration Lists Index. In this fairly comprehensive index of colonial period passenger lists were found references to several John Jacksons, but only one who immigrated to America within eight years of 1748. The book lists only one Elizabeth Cummins immigrating to America in the eighteenth century. Both of these emigrants left England in 1749, and according to Peter Wilson Coldham's English Convicts in Colonial America, both sailed as "His Majesty's Seven-Year Passengers," British convicts sentenced to labor in the colonies.
Although the evidence now seems compelling, I soon abandoned this line of research, for no previous genealogist had mentioned it, and the dates of immigration did not exactly dovetail with existing family history. Renewing my search in 1991, however, I re-discovered the information and followed the lead. Coldham's work led me to contact London's Records Office and Guildhall Library, which generously supplied me with information on the Jackson and Cummins cases.
In mid-January, 1749, a man named John Jackson was brought to Old Bailey, the court for the City of London and the County of Middlesex, to stand trial for theft. A contemporary publication carried a brief summary of the case:
Hen. Jackson. On the 30th of Dec. I lost out of a little cupboard 9 different remnants of gold lace, 170 l. in cash ; to the best of my knowledge there were 120 guineas and the rest Portugal gold, one bank note payable to one Lefeavor.
Q. How do you know it was the prisoner at the bar that took those things?
Jackson. He was my near relation and servant; he told me the 30th of Dec. he would stay no longer with me, and went away about half an hour after 8 that morning : my workmen after he was gone told me they had seen him with more money than they thought he could honestly come by, of late : then after missing these things, I got a relation to go to take him, who found him in Cheapside : I was sent for, he confest the fact, I put him in a coach, and he carried me to a Jew who keeps a little bucklestall under the Baptist's Head alehouse, Holborn; there I found all the money within about 12 pounds; the Jew took the money out of a box.
Q. have you any of the money here or the note?
Jackson. No, my lord, the prisoner said he was very sorry for what he had done. Guilty of Feloney except the bank note.11
Spared the gallows, Elizabeth Commins was sentenced to transportation. On 19 April 1749, a transportation bond was signed by Andrew Reid, Alexander MacKenzie and John Johnston, all of London, promising to deliver Elizabeth and 33 other convicts to "some of his Majesty's colonies or Plantations in America."14 In May the Litchfield, laden with convicts and captained by the above-named Johnston, set sail, her destination given only as "America."15
Though he had been convicted in January, John Jackson likely would have also sailed on the Litchfield, for it appears to have been the next ship available for transport after his sentencing. Despite the wide variety of accounts concerning the Jackson-Cummins immigration, there is a consensus that John and Elizabeth met on the ship to America.16 If these two convicts did sail on the Litchfield together (which has yet to be proven), then this is certainly the most compelling of evidence to link the four people.
Our family's historians may welcome this evidence as a new opportunity, for the court records provide us with many further avenues for research. Certainly any research plan would dictate a search of parish records at St. Catherine Coleman and St. Giles-in-the-Fields. We already know that this John Jackson was closely related to Henry Jackson, obviously a man of means. Copies of John Jackson's official court record and transportation bond would also be important elements in identifying the couple as our ancestors. The London record offices also hold other records which bear examination. In short, these two court cases may provide the means for us to finally extend our lineage beyond John and Elizabeth through documented sources. Already this theory has gained some legitimacy through the endorsement of James I. Robertson, who used the information in his recent definitive biography on "Stonewall" Jackson.
No doubt some of us will be offended by the suggestion that our progenitors arrived here as convicts, but we must place this story within the context of the times. The circumstances in which these two people found themselves were by no means unusual in 1749. A leading authority estimates that as many as 50,000--or roughly one-fourth of the total--of the British immigrants to America during the colonial period were transported felons.17 The transportation of convicts to America has been largely overlooked by history until recently, however. Many of those transported were illiterate, leaving no written record of their passing. And once freed from servitude, they rarely saw a need to place the stigma of "ex-convict" on their names. As a contemporary writer observed:
One may wonder why, despite this new view of John and Elizabeth's immigration, we will be celebrating the 250th anniversary of their immigration in 1998 instead of 1999. Though I am personally convinced that the two convicts are indeed our ancestors, it must be remembered that this theory is based solely upon circumstantial evidence--strong evidence, but circumstantial nevertheless. Until such time as the transportation theory is proven beyond any doubt, we should continue to observe 1748--the date history has given us--as the year of John and Elizabeth's voyage to America. The history that has been passed down to us and held as truth for two centuries is a precious thing and should not be discarded so easily in favor of hastily drawn conclusions.
Ancestral pride should be based upon fact, however, not wishful thinking. Whatever happened to John and Elizabeth in England, whatever their reasons for leaving London for the New World, it would be impossible to ignore their role in shaping what was then considered America's western frontier and later participating in the fight for America's independence. The strength that John and Elizabeth instilled in their offspring allowed the clan to become a leading force in the development of a new nation. If the progenitors of our clan were former convicts, then that makes their later contributions and accomplishments so much more admirable. To overcome forced servitude in a strange new land and eventually enjoy the highest status afforded by frontier society would truly be an honorable achievement and a testimony to the resiliency of the human spirit.
1Although a few genealogies claim to have taken the John Jackson line back as far as the early sixteenth century, these lineages have not been corroborated by documented evidence.
2Roy Bird Cook, The Family and Early Life of Stonewall Jackson. Charleston, WV: Education Foundation, Inc., 1963, p.7.
3Jackson Arnold, unpublished manuscript, 1956. (Copy in possession of the author).
4Cook, Family and Early Life, p.7.
5Nancy Ann Jackson and Linda Brake Meyers, Colonel Edward Jackson, 1759-1828, Revolutionary Soldier : History and Genealogy of the son of Immigrants John and Elizabeth Cummins Jackson, His Wives, and Families of Mary Haddan and Elizabeth W. Brake, Grandparents of General Stonewall Jackson. Franklin, NC: Genealogy Publishing Service, 1995, p.4.
7Mary Anna Jackson, Life and Letters of Thomas Jonathan Jackson. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1892.
8Arnold manuscript.
9A variation of this tale is that Elizabeth's wrath, as well as the tankard, was aimed at one of the King's soldiers. (Cook, Family and Early Life, p.8.)
10Quoted in Cook, Family and Early Life, p.8.
11Old Bailey Sessions Papers for Middlesex Gaol Delivery Sessions 14-20 January 1749. Rather than official transcripts, the OBSP were contemporary journalistic accounts of the cases brought to court at Old Bailey.
12A variant spelling of "Cummins."
13Old Bailey Sessions Papers for London Gaol Delivery Sessions 5-8 April 1749
14Transportation Bond, 19 April 1749. Referenced in letter from James R. Sewell (London City Archivist) to the author, 13 May 1992.
15Peter Wilson Coldham, Emigrants in Chains. Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1992, p.10.
16Jackson, Life and Letters.
17Kenneth Morgan, "English and American Attitudes Towards Convict Transportation, 1718-1775," History, 72: 416, 1987.
18William Eddis, Letters from America. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1969, pp. 66-7.