Cummins Jackson
American counterfeiter (1802-1849)
Cummins Edward Jackson (July 25, 1802 – December 4, 1849) was a paternal half-uncle of Confederate General Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson (1824–1863) and a half-brother of David Edward Jackson. He owned and operated a grist mill at Jackson's Mill, Virginia (now West Virginia).
Jackson was born at Jackson's Mill, the eldest son of Edward Jackson (1759–1828) and his second wife. He was 26 when his father died and he inherited the mill. Some of the family members claim he seized control and refused to share any of the estate; they sued to get their fair shares, but the case was never settled. Stonewall Jackson biographer James Robertson described Cummins as "unscrupulous and vindictive ... absurdly litigious", having a strong fondness for gambling, horse racing, and drinking, and he quotes an acquaintance calling Cummins a "rascal". In 1835 Cummins arbitrarily constructed a 6-foot (1.8 m) high dam stretching 150 feet (46 m) across the West Fork River, needing additional power, but he disregarded the needs of his neighbors downstream. They also sued him, but that apparently was unsuccessful because the dam still stands.
Into this environment, 6 year-old Thomas Jackson and his younger sister Laura Ann went to live with Cummins Jackson in 1830, following the death of their father in 1826.
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This entry incorporates text from “Cummins Jackson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.