Jac-Jan: Jackson through Janney

See below for annotated biographies of American abolitionists and anti-slavery activists. Sources include: Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography and Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography.


JACKSON, Edmund, abolitionist, Chelsea, Massachusetts.  Executive Committee, American Anti-Slavery Society, 1862-1864, Counsellor, 1842-1845, Auditor, 1845-1860.  Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society.


JACKSON, Eliphet, Massachusetts.


JACKSON, Francis, 1789-1861, Boston, Massachusetts, merchant, social reformer, abolitionist.  President of the Anti-Slavery Society.  Supported the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society (BFASS).  Generously supported abolitionists William Lloyd Garrison and Isaac Knapp and their anti-slavery newspaper, the Liberator.  American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS) Member, Executive Committee, 1840-1861, Vice President, 1840-1861, Treasurer, 1844-1861.  President, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, 1840-1860.  Boston Vigilance Committee. 

(The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volume II. New York: James T. White, 1892, p. 318)


JACKSON, James Caleb, 1811-1895, New York, abolitionist leader.  Member, Executive Committee, 1840-1841, Corresponding Secretary, 1840-1842, American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS). Having become interested in the anti-slavery movement, he made the acquaintance of Gerrit Smith [q.v.], who advised him to come to Peterboro, New York. There he settled in 1838 and became an agent of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. In the spring of 1840 he was made the secretary of the American Anti-Slavery Society. He assisted Nathaniel P. Rogers in editing the National Anti-Slavery Standard (founded in June 1840) until Oliver Johnson became editor in June 184r. In the fall of 1840 Jackson lectured in western New York. Gerrit Smith invited him to edit a third-party paper and contributed considerably to its support. With Luther Myrick, he founded the Madison County Abolitionist at Cazenovia, New York, in September 1841.

(Sorin, Gerald. The New York Abolitionists: A Case Study of Political Radicalism. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Corporation, 1971, pp. 95-96, 130-131; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 5, Pt. 1, p. 468; Locke, Mary Stoughton. Anti-Slavery in America from the Introduction of African Slaves to the Prohibition of the Slave Trade (1619-1808). Boston: Ginn & Co., 1901, p. 127American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 11, p. 752)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 5, Pt. 1, p. 468:

JACKSON, JAMES CALEB (March 28, 1811 July 11, 1895), physician, abolitionist, was born in Manlius, Onondaga County, New York, whither his father, James Jackson, a physician, son of Colonel Giles Jackson of Tyringham, Berkshire County, Massachusetts, had moved. The mother of James Caleb was Mary Ann (Elderkin) Jackson, granddaughter of a Connecticut Revolutionary officer, Jedidiah Elderkin. Because of impaired health, the elder James Jackson gave up medicine and retired to a farm when his son was about twelve and at seventeen the latter entered Manlius Academy to prepare for college. The death of his father prevented the completion of his academic work, however, and marrying Lucretia Brewster, September 10, 1830, he definitely abandoned all plans for a college education. Having become interested in the anti-slavery movement, he made the acquaintance of Gerrit Smith [q.v.], who advised him to come to Peterboro, New York. There he settled in 1838 and became an agent of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. In the spring of 1840 he was made the secretary of the American Anti-Slavery Society. He assisted Nathaniel P. Rogers in editing the National Anti-Slavery Standard (founded in June 1840) until Oliver Johnson became editor in June 184r. In the fall of 1840 Jackson lectured in western New York. Gerrit Smith invited him to edit a third-party paper and contributed considerably to its support. With Luther Myrick, he founded the Madison County Abolitionist at Cazenovia, New York, in September 1841. After a year this was sold by the publishers and Jackson moved to Utica where for two years he was editor of the Liberty Press. He then went to Albany and purchase d the Albany Patriot, which he edited until 1846, when poor health caused him to sell the paper to William L. Chaplin. In June 1847, at Macedon Lock, New York, he was one of the sponsors of the Liberty League, a fourth party, which had grown out of the Liberty Party.

During the months of his illness he had been under the care of Dr. S. O. Gleason of Cuba, New York. Long interested in medicine, Jackson soon formed a partnership with Gleason and Theodosia Gilbert. At the head of Skaneateles Lake they opened a hygienic institute known as the "Glen Haven Water Cure." In the winter of 1849-50 Gleason withdrew from the partner ship and in the fall of 1858 Jackson himself left Glen Haven and moved to Dansville, New York. There he opened a water cure that became famous as "Our Home Hygienic Institute." In 1879 he turned over the management of it to his son, Dr. James H. Jackson. Possessing religious convictions concerning the necessity of reform, Jackson was unwearied in his search for conditions that needed remedying. He was an active member of the association for dress reform, and he fought against what he considered the evils of rum and tobacco. He held drug medication to be "the popular delusion of the nineteenth century and the curse of the age"; hydropathy became his favorite reform. For many years he was the assistant editor of The Laws of Life, a periodical devoted to hydropathy and the advertisement of "Our Home." He acquired a reputation among his contemporaries as a popular orator and writer. Of his half-dozen popular books on medicine only one now has a claim to notice: How to Treat the Sick Without Medicine (Dansville, New York, 1868), an exposition of his hydropathic practices, briefly summarized as "'Tis Nature cures the sick." From 1886 to 1895 he lived in North Adams, Massachusetts; his death occurred while he was on a visit to Dansville.

[D. W. Elderkin, Genealogy of the Elderkin Family (copyright 1888); W. P. and F. J. Garrison. William Lloyd Garrison I805-1879 (4 volumes, 1885-89); J. H. Smith, History of Livingston County, New York (1881); I789-Dansville- 1902 (n.d.), ed. by A. O. Bunnell; Buffalo Courier, July 12, 1895; MS. letters in Gerrit Smith Miller Collection at Syracuse University.]

F. M-n.


JACKSON, William Hicks, 1783-1855, Massachusetts, newspaper publisher, abolitionist, temperance activist.  U.S. Congressman, Whig Party.  Vice president, 1833-1836, and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, December 1833.  Founding member, Liberty Party.  President of the American Missionary Society from 1846-1854. His antislavery views had him  support the Free-Soil party after its establishment in 1848.

(Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, p. 286; Abolitionist, Volume I, No. XII, December, 1833; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III; Biographical Dictionary of the United States Congress; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 5, Pt. 1, pp. 561-562)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 5, Pt. 1, pp. 561-562:

JACKSON, WILLIAM HICKS, (September 2, 1783-February 27, 1855), tallow chandler, railway promoter, congressman, the son of Timothy and Sarah (Winchester) Jackson, and said to be a descendant of Edward Jackson, one of the earliest settlers of Cambridge, was born in Newton, Massachusetts. Systematic in his reading and study, he supplemented the elementary education which he received in the town schools. At the age of twenty-one, after three years' experience in a manufactory of soap and candles in Boston, he established himself in th e business, in which, in spite of reverses suffered during the War of 1812, he succeeded in laying the foundations of a modest fortune. He served a term as representative of Boston in the Massachusetts General Court in 1819, retiring at this time from active connection with his tallow chandlery. About 1826 he became greatly interested in railroads. Later as a member of the General Court, 1829-1831, he was an active supporter of railroad projects in Massachusetts, lecturing extensively and writing for many newspapers upon this subject for the next eighteen years. Many of his arguments and predictions which now seem conservative were received with ridicule and abuse at that time when many persons considered canals more advantageous. He participated actively in the construction of several Massachusetts railroads including the Western, the Boston & Worcester, the Boston & Albany, and the New Bedford & Taunton.

Jackson was a member of the Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth congresses (1833-37), being elected by Anti-Masonic and National Republican support. He refused to be a candidate for a third term. In 1840 he took part in the organization of the Liberty party, and as their candidate was defeated for the lieutenant-governorship in 1842, 1843, and 1844. His antislavery views led him to support the Free-Soil party after its establishment in 1848. Long convinced of the evils of intoxication, he was active in temperance reform, abolishing, as an employer, the custom of furnishing rum to his employees, and adding the extra sum to the wages paid. He was a founder and deacon of the Eliot Church of Newton, and president of the American Missionary Association for the first eight years of its existence, 1846-54. His financial concerns late in life were largely confined to the land company which he organized in 1848 for laying out that part of Newton known as Auburndale, and to two banks, the Newton Savings Bank, founded in 1831, of which he was president from 1831 to 1835, and the Newton National Bank, of which he was president from its founding in 1848 to his death. He was married twice: on December 1, 1806, to Hannah Woodward of Newton (d. August II, 1814) by whom he had one son and four daughters, and in 1816 to Mary Bennett of Lunenburg, by whom he had four so ns and seven daughters.

[S. F. Smith, History of Newton, Massachusetts (1880); H. K. Rowe, Tercentenary History of Newton (1930); Biographical Directory American Congress (1928); Boston Transcript, Daily Evening Traveller, February 28, 1855.]

R. E. M.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III:

JACKSON, William, financier, b: in Newton, Massachusetts, 2 September, 1783; died there, 26 February, 1855. He received a common-school education, and was trained to mercantile life. He was a member of the state house of representatives from 1829 till 1832, and in the latter year was elected to congress as a Whig. He was re-elected for the following term, but declined a second re-nomination. He was one of the earliest promoters of railroads in Massachusetts, delivering an address to the legislature in favor of the new method of locomotion, which was derisively received. Subsequently he delivered the address in various cities of New England, awakening an interest in railroads, and when their construction was begun superintended the works on the Boston and Worcester, Boston and Albany, and other lines. He was a pioneer in the temperance movement and an early opponent of slavery, being one of the founders of the Liberty party, which was afterward merged into the Free-soil party. From 1848 till his death he was the president of the Newton bank. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III.


JACOBS, Ann Harriet, 1813-1897, author, former slave.

(Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, pp. 64, 184, 348-349, 372, 684-685)


JACOBS, John S., 1815-1873, African American, fugitive slave, abolitionist, author of slave narrative, “A True Tale of Slavery,” in 1861.

(Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Volume 6, p. 288)


JAMES, Thomas, 1804-1891, African American, former slave, clergyman, abolitionist.  Wrote slave narrative, “Life of Reverend Thomas James, by Himself,” 1886.

(Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Volume 6, p. 320)


JAMES, Thomas Chalkley, Dr., 1766-1835, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, physician.  Vice-President, American Colonization Society (ACS), 1833-1836.  Founder and officer of the Pennsylvania Society of the ACS. 

(Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III, p. 399; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 5, Pt. 1, p. 588; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 125)

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III, p. 399:

JAMES, Thomas Chalkley, physician, born in Philadelphia in 1766; died there, 25 July, 1835. His father, Abel, a Quaker of Welsh origin, was a successful merchant of Philadelphia, and his mother was a daughter of Thomas Chalkley, the Quaker preacher. The son was educated at Robert Prout's school, studied medicine, and was graduated at the University of Pennsylvania in 1787. He then went as surgeon of a ship to the Cape of Good Hope, and studied in London and Edinburgh from 1790 till 1793, when he returned to the United States. In 1803 he established the School of obstetrics in Philadelphia, and for twenty-five years was physician and obstetrician in the Pennsylvania hospital. He was for some years president of the Philadelphia college of physicians, and was professor of midwifery in the University of Pennsylvania from 1811 till 1834. Dr. James was founder of the Pennsylvania historical society, and contributed to the “Port-folio” in 1801, under the signature “P. D.,” translations of the “Idyls” of Gessner. He was associate editor of the “Eclectic Repertory.” Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888.


JANEWAY, Jacob Jones, Reverend, 1774-1858, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, clergyman.  Official of the General Assembly, founding officer of the Philadelphia auxiliary of the American Colonization Society in 1817. 

(Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III, p. 401; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, pp. 39, 72)

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume III, p. 401:

JANEWAY, Jacob Jones, clergyman, born in New York city, 20 November, 1774; died in New Brunswick, New Jersey, 27 June, 1858. His family came from England early in the 17th century, one of whom bore with him the charter of Trinity church, of which he was a vestryman. He died about 1708. Jacob was graduated at Columbia in 1794, and after studying theology with Dr. John H. Livingston was ordained in 1799 a colleague of Dr. Ashbel Green in the 2d Presbyterian church of Philadelphia, where he remained till 1828. After holding for one year the chair of theology in the Western theological seminary, he was pastor of a Dutch Reformed church in New Brunswick, New Jersey, for two years. He was elected a trustee of Rutgers in 1820, and in 1833-'9 was vice-president of that college and professor of literature, the evidences of Christianity, and political economy. He then became a trustee of Princeton, and was engaged till his death in general missionary work and in supervision of theological and collegiate institutions in the Presbyterian church. He was a director of Princeton theological seminary from 1813 till 1830 and again from 1840 till 1858, and president of the board from 1849 till 1858. He joined his friend, Dr. Jonathan Cogswell, of New Brunswick, in the gift of a church to the Presbyterians of that city. His publications include “Commentaries on Romans, Hebrews, and Acts” (3 vols., Philadelphia., 1866); “Internal Evidence of the Holy Bible”; “Communicants’ Manual”; “On Unlawful Marriage” (New York, 1844); “Review of Dr. Schaff on Protestantism”; and essays and letters on religious subjects. See “Memoir of Reverend Jacob J, Janeway,” by his son, Thomas L. Janeway (Philadelphia, 1861). Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888.


JANES, D. P., abolitionist, New London, Connecticut, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1839-40.


JANNEY, Joseph, abolitionist, Washington, DC, American Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1834-38.


JANNEY, Samuel McPherson (January 11, 1801-April 30, 1880), author and Quaker minister. He was among the first to advocate the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, and supported emancipation and colonization societies. With the dual aim of enlightening the white electorate and of furthering anti-slavery sentiment through education, he promoted free public schools for Virginia, His views concerning slavery caused his presentment by a Loudoun County grand jury.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 5, Pt. 1, pp. 611-612:

JANNEY, SAMUEL McPHERSON (January 11, 1801-April 30, 1880), author and Quaker minister, was born in Loudoun County, Virginia, son of Abijah Janney, whose ancestors had been identified with the Society of Friends since its beginnings, and his wife Jane (McPherson), also of Quaker stock. At fourteen he left school to work in the counting-house of an uncle at Alexandria, but continued to seek an education; he attended night schools, organized a local scientific society, and wrote regularly for a literary club, meanwhile reading avidly and devoting himself to private study. On March 9, 1826, he marri ed a third cous in, Elizabeth Janney, and in 1830 he became partner in a cotton factory at Occoquan. This never-flourishing venture was abandoned in 1839 and Janney returned to Loudoun County to open a boarding school for girls. Fifteen years later, having paid the debts accruing from his business failure, he retired, to devote himself to literature and philanthropy.

For almost half a century preceding his death he was an eloquent, liberal, and devout minister in the Hicksite division of his sect, influential in its councils, tirelessly active in evangelical work. At the same time, his humanity knew neither creed nor color. He labored to found Sunday schools and day schools for negro children, was among the first to advocate the abolition of slavery within the District of Columbia, and zealously supported emancipation and colonization societies, on one occasion his opinions concerning slavery causing his presentment by a Loudoun County grand jury. With the dual aim of enlightening the white electorate and of furthering anti-slavery sentiment through education, he was earnest in promoting free public schools for Virginia, although his efforts bore little immediate fruit. During the Civil War he supported the Union, but ministered at his home to the wounded of both armies and aided his afflicted neighbors, regardless of their sympathies. His early interest in the Indians led him to serve, at some sacrifice, as superintendent of Indian affairs in the Northern Superintendency (May 1869-September 1871) until enfeebled health caused him to resign.

He had contributed verses to several periodicals before the appearance of his first volume, The Last of the Lenape, and Other Poems, in 1839, and subsequently published others, but his poetical work was mostly undistinguished: his verses, although decorous, correct, and varied,  lack wings. His reputation as an author deservedly rests on his prose works. His biographies The Life of William Penn (1852) and The Life of George Fox (1853), went through repeated editions, and are still esteemed for their scholarship and their valuable material; in them, as well as in his four-volume History of the Religious Society of Friends, from its Rise to the Year 1828 (1860-67), his simple, direct style, careful study, and abundant quotation from original sources show to advantage. His remaining publications, most of them brief, deal with various doctrinal or sociological subjects, but especial mention should be made of his autobiographical Memoirs (1881), which furnishes a clear picture of the author's gentle, modest, and charitable nature.

[Friends Intelligencer, May 22, 29, 1880; Library of Southern Literature, Volume VI (1909); F. V. N. Painter, Poets of Virginia (1907); R. W. Kelsey, Friends and the Indians,1655-1917 (1917); Evening Star (Washington), May 1, 1880.]

A.C.G.

[1] Jefferson’s Correspondence, Letter CLXXIV.

[2] Dr. Franklin approved of Mr. JAY’S resistance to this proposition, observing, “poor as we are, yet as I know we shall be rich, I would rather agree with them to buy at a great price, the whole of the Mississippi, than sell a drop of its waters. A neighbor might as well ask me to sell my front door.” 

Sources:
Dictionary of American Biography, Volumes I-X, Edited by Dumas Malone, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volumes I-VI, Edited by James Grant Wilson & John Fiske, New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1888-1889.