1939-12-07 — Page 15

THE CHINA MAIL, DECEMBER 7, 1939

TO-DAY'S STRANGE STORY OF REAL PEOPLE

THE MYSTERY OF

ANDREW JACKSON

By VICENT TOWNE

a

When the Cherokee Indians threa- tened a bloody uprising, in 1756, body of British troops was sent to the imperiled region, about the bound- ary between North and South Caro- lina. With them went Hugh Jackson, in love an Irish soldier, who fell

with the country. Returning to his on the home, near Carrickfergus,

he

north coast of the Emerald Isle, persuaded his brother, Andrew, Andrew's wife and her sisters

to migrate to that garden spot which he admired in the New World.

The immigrants were very poor folk of the tenant class. But An- drew and his young wife, Elizabeth, were of the best raw material for the making of a future

had race. He toiled in field and forest His sinews were like steel and he feared no foe. Elizabeth, a weaver by trade, could do a man's work and was not afraid of the perils of motherhood. They were of the class of immigrants that little were needed then. Their two sons, Hugh and Robert, came along with them on the slow-sailing ship. Some have said that they brought along a third son, who later had rea- sons for keeping secret the place of his birth.

These modest folk landed at Char-

by leston and pushed up,

wagon train, through the pine forest fast- Waxhaw settlement, nesses to 'the

South in North Carolina, near the

line. Carolina

Andrew Jackson. squatted on a tract along Twelve Mile Creek. For two years, he toiled as a of drawer hewer of wood and water, built for his family a log cabin and cleared some fields for the plow- shares. But before he had raised his second crop he ruptured a blood ves- sel while lifting the trunk of a forest giant, which thus avenged itself after

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THE WARNING

THE WARNING is a film that should be seen by every citizen, and citize- ness, of Hongkong who would learn of the adequacy of air raid defence in England. To those who feel anxiety as to the safety of families and friends at home, this picture brings comfort- ing reassurance and revelation.

Few of us here can realise the com- prehensiveness of the vast A.R.P. or- ganisation in England so ably directed by Sir John Anderson, the Minister for Civil Defence. In this productoin, sponsored by the Government, every air raid activity is sphere of anti shown in scenes of vivid realism. This is no milk-and-water production. We buildings, hear the crash of falling the crescendo whine of falling bombs, the staccato clatter of machine guns, the clanging of ambulances, the wail- the ing sirèns of the Fire Brigade,

of anti-aircraft deafening reports guns and we see the tense and order- ed efficiency of the system that meets the menace of succeeding waves of attack and the disciplined measures of organised security provided by the

A.R.P. service.

the

The producers commendably have shown restraint in the presentation of anything that might offend squeamish. There is nothing grue- some in this picture. There is some thing that its grim and everything that is enthralling. Wherever this picture has been shown it has resulted in considerable accession to the numbers of the A.R.P. organisation.

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"SOUTH"

CARO

CAROLINA

To Which State Did He Belong?

It was that Elizabeth Jackson, from Waxhaw falling a victim to his axe. the first foe that had ever conquered Cemetery, started for the Crawford him. The nearest doctor was too far cabin, in South Carolina, but on the to come in time. So neighbours plac- way had to take the nearer way to the McKemy cabin, in North Carolina, ed Andrew's corpse in a rude farm wagon and carried it to Waxham where she remained until after the He was but 28 when birth of her child, when she proceed- churchyard.

ed on the Crawford's, there to make he gave up his ill-spared soul,'

From the graveyard his weeping | her home. back widow refused to go

the When asked by Francis P. Blair if he ever visited his birthplace, Gen. little cabin which her husband had

the wilderness. Jackson once replied: "No, I couldn't cut for her out of

lay eyes bear to! It would suggest nothing but She could not endure to

suffer- upon it again. After seeing the earth the bereavement, grief and heaped upon her good man's corpse ing of these dearest to me. I couldn't she took her little boys by the handstand it! It would break me down!" and struck out into the forest-no one knows whither.

to

child a

There were very serious reasons why she should reach some friendly shelter very 3000. Wherever she went she gave birth to a few days after her husband's funeral. this It is generally supposed that baby was named for his father and who was that one of her children

President of the United became States.

whom

Elizabeth had two sisters, we will hereafter call young Andrew Jackson's Aunt Crawford and Aunt McKemy. Aunt Crawford dwelt on Waxhaw Creek, in South Carolina. seven miles form the Jackson cabin, while Aunt McKemy lived two and a half miles beyond, a little way over the line, in South Carolina. It is sup- posed that the heart-broken widow set out for one or the other of these cabins built by her brothers-in-law, say that before she reached either she stopped by the wayside, at a stranger's house, and there gave to the world the child destined to make her one of the world's celebrated mothers.

About

Some

revolved,

the mystery has for generations, the vortex of a bitter controversy between the two Caro- linas-each commonwealth claiming credit for having given "Old Hickory" to the nation. Some authorities be- lieve that this honour belongs neither.

i

to

"I was born in South Carolina, as have been told, at a plantation whereon James Crawford lived, about one, mile from the Carolina road and on the Waxhaw Creek."

President Jackson is quoted as hav- ing said this. This James Crawford was his Aunt Crawford's husband. On a map prepared by J. Boykin, who surveyed the Waxhaw settlement in 1820, the General's birthplace is very definitely located in South Carolina, upon a hump of "Twelve Mile Creek" that barely escaped the North Carolina line. But another of the President's aunts, Mrs. Sarah Leslie, and her daughter, Mrs. Sarah Lathan, always insisted that their world-famed king- man was born at his Aunt McKemy's house, in North Carolina that they remembered well because they

had both been summoned there in the night I hope it will have that effect here. to assist Mrs. Jackson, and because We need many more Wardens before they had actually witnessed the birth. be fully manned in emergency with Until her old age, Mrs. Lathan we can be satisfied that our posts will peatedly related how she and adequate reserves, There are some mother had hurried that night to Mc- vacancies in the higher offices of ad- Kémy's, by "the near way through the ministration in the districts of Hong-fields." Three other neighbours kong. Here is a good opportunity for known to have testified that they our foreign friends who are ineligible also were present at McKemy's when for service in our armed forces but Andrew was born there. And a pat- who will volunteer for organising | riarch of that region, one Jaipes duty in this good cause of civil de Faulkner, used to declare that once, fence. If any such will write to me I shall be very glad to tell them of our needs.

Yours faithfully,

G. CHAMPKIN, Chief Air Raid Warden.

re- her

are

while they were sleeping together “at McKemy's house, Andrew Jackson had told him that it was his birthplace.. In 1864, Col S. H. Walkup, of Union County, N. C., secured from 14 wit- nesses affidavits whose substance was

'In 1858, one Davenport, in a print- ed document presented alleged proof that Andrew Jackson was a native of Virginia. Others maintained that he was born in Ireland that he had the fact concealed when he first began to ambitions. Wherever have political it was, his birthplace remains a mys- tery that defies solution.

African

talks,

COL.

REITZ

FLYING HOME

London, To-day.

Colonel Reitz, the South representative to the Empire

has left London and is flying home.

Before he left, he said he had been very impressed by the

effort and by all he had seen and heard.

He praised the co-operation tween the Dominions and the ther Country.--Reuter.

Allied war

bc-

Mo-

11

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