Ancestors of Rev.Courtland Columbus Jackson
***
(Jackson, Lobdell, Pomeroy)
**

    According to history, Columbus was born in Westerlo, Albany County, New York on July 28, 1825.  His parents were Asa Keyes Jackson and Princess Lobdell.  He married Sarah "Sallie" Preston Rhea on Feb. 12, 1861 at Pleasant Grove Presbyterian Church, 2 miles from Bluff City in Sullivan County, Tennessee.  Sallie (born Feb. 12, 1841 in Sullivan Co.- died July 31,1920 at the age of 81 on Lookout Mountain, Dade Co., Georgia) was the daughter of Robert Preston Rhea, a school teacher from Sullivan County, and Nancy Davidson.

    Columbus was a minister and teacher, graduating from the School of Divinity in Pennsylvania, who taught in Mission work at Marquis, Georgia.  He moved to the Mountain of Lookout before the Civil War and died there, at the age of 87, being one of the oldest residents of Lookout Mountain.  He was also inclined to write poetry. (You will find a link to his poetry below the photo of Covenant College).  According to a brochure I recently obtained from Covenant College on Lookout Mountain, Columbus purchased 400 acres of land in 1856 from Mr. Robert M. Parris for $1.00 per acre.  He settled with his family in a cabin near Frontier Bluff, on the West Bench of the Mountain.  This is called Jackson Gap Trail.  Sallie remembered hearing the cannon and musket fire from the Battle of Chickamaugua, with family members watching the battle from the top of Jackson Hill.  Later, federal troops used the Jackson land as a camp.

          Jackson Hill, the site of the old Lookout Mountain Hotel (now Carter Hall at Covenant College), was a part of the Jackson farm.  The old farm house was situated below the hotel.  (Mr. Walker makes note in his book that C. C. Jackson was not related to Dr. R. M. S. Jackson who was in charge of the government hospital on Lookout Mountain at the close of the Civil War.)

          Under a treaty in 1819, this land lay along the northern boundary of the Cherokee Nation.  After the Indians were forced westward along the "Trail of Tears," the land was seized by the federal government and was ordered auctioned to benefit the widows and orphans of the War of 1812.  Mr. Robert M. Parris took the bid on a large portion of land.

           According to a book written by Robert Sparks Walker entitled  " LOOKOUT:  the story of a MOUNTAIN,"  in 1878 a school was opened up on Lookout Mountain by Miss Mary Strickland, accompanied by her sister, Mrs. Van Antwerp, of Montclair, New Jersey.  Miss Strickland taught the school in the old Lookout Mountain Educational Institutions' buildings in 1878 and 1879, where also a Sunday school was regularly held.  She had 30 pupils enrolled, among them the son of Columbus ....Courtland Stonewall Jackson. The book goes on to say that Columbus was a physician and teacher from Albany County, New York, settling on the Mountain in 1859, being in the employment of the American Sunday School Union of Philadelphia, organizing Sunday Schools and installing libraries.

          The Lookout Mountain Hotel was completed in 1927 as a posh resort at a cost of $1,450,000.  Paul Carter's plans called for 200 guest rooms, the South's largest ballroom, and a tower to stand ten stories tall.  The hotel opened in 1928 offering swimming, tennis, horseback riding, dancing, hiking, golf and elegant meals.  The Great Depression proved to be its downfall, and two more attempts to salvage it as a hotel failed.

          Mr. Hugh Smith of Huntsville, Alabama, learned of the property in the early 1960's, called the "Castle in the Clouds,"  and saw its potential as a college site.  He recommended the idea to the Covenant College trustees, then in St. Louis, Missouri.  As the college had outgrown its facilities there, the decision was made to move to Lookout Mountain, with the dedicatory service held on September 19, 1964. The college was first established in the fall of 1955 at the Pasadena City Church in Pasadena, California, as a Christian liberal arts college, under the Bible Presbyterian Synod.  In 1956 it moved to Creve Coeur in St. Louis, becoming a four-year liberal arts college and a three-year theological seminary, with a number of professors coming from Faith Theological Seminary near Philadelphia.  At this writing, in 1999, it is a 350-acre campus, with sixty-eight percent of the professors holding doctoral degrees, offering bachelor of arts, science, and music degrees and associate of arts degrees, with several pre-professional programs being available.  The enrollment represents 37 states and 35 foreign countries.

          With a college being formed on my great-grandparents' land, I believe this is fitting, in memory of a man whose life work was to better educate our young people and bring them to know Christ.

          Covenant College centers its entire program in Colossians 1:18...

          Columbus and Sallie had nine children, one of whom is my grandmother, Nancy Virginia Jackson, also a teacher, who married my grandfather, Josiah Edward 'Ned' Rhea, son of Dr. John Preston Rhea, Sr. and Matilda Ann Longacre of Tennessee.  Columbus died at home on June 9, 1912 and is buried near his homplace on the Georgia side of the Mountain, with the following inscribed on his gravestone:

Asa Keyes Jackson..........(Son of Jeremiah Jackson and Martha Keyes)
Born June 1, 1793...from Westerlo, Albany, New York
Died ?? in Westerlo, New York

Married March 1818 in Westerlo, Albany, New York:

Princess Lobdell..........(Daughter of Isaac Lobdell and Mirriam Pomeroy)
Born March 15, 1800 in Westerlo, Albany, New York
Died April 15, 1874 in Westerlo, New York
 

Asa and Princess had nine children, all born in Westerlo, Albany Co., New York:

(I)------James Joseph Jackson - (b.  Sept. 6, 1819) m. Mary Elizabeth Stebbins

(II)----Calvin Luther Jackson - (b. June 21, 1824) -  Died young

(III)--**Courtland Columbus Jackson - (July 28, 1825-June 9, 1912) m. Sallie Preston Rhea

(IV)-----Andrew Jackson - (b. July 20, 1827) - Died young

(V)------Princess Palmyra Jackson - (b.  March 10, 1829) m. Baltis Sigsbee

(VI)----Josephine Jackson - (b. April 27, 1830)

(VII)---Elizabeth Jackson - (b. March 27, 1832) - Living 1902 in Westerlo, NY.  Married Aug. 1876 in Brooklyn, NY to Arthur Noble Sherman (b. Oct. 1815, Albany, NY - d. 1882, Brookly, NY), son of Dr. Abel Sherman and Martha/or Cynthia Hammond of Albany.  No children.

(VIII)--Helen Maria Jackson - (b. Sept. 28, 1834) - 1902 was a resident of Brooklyn, NY and unmarried.

(IX)----Mirriam Ann Jackson - (b. Feb. 20, 1837) - m. George Carl Guyer