Description:Waist–length seated portrait of Howell Edmunds Jackson as a mature man with white goatee and wearing a black suit and white shirt under a black judicial robe.
History:Signed and dated in red at lower right. The frame is giltwood and gesso molding with brass plaque “Howell Edmunds Jackson/ Associate Justice of Supreme Court of United States / 1832-1895.”
Notes:Justice Howell Jackson was born on April 8th 1832, the son of Dr. Alexander and Mary Hurt Jackson. He attended West Tennessee College and the University of Virginia, finally graduating from Cumberland Law School in 1856. In 1858 He began practicing law in Memphis. He first married Sophie Malloy, and together they had five children before her untimely death in 1873. Shortly after Jackson met the youngest of William Giles Harding’s children, his daughter Mary Elizabeth Harding. Howell and Mary were married in 1874 and Mary would go on to have three more children for Howell Jackson. In 1881, Howell was elected to the United States Senate and he, Mary, and their family moved to Washington D.C. During this time, Howell and Mary would also set up a home in Nashville as well, a mile down the road from Belle Meade, a property they would call West Meade. In 1886, President Cleveland appointed Senator Jackson to the Sixth Circuit Federal Court. In 1893, Benjamin Harrison named Judge Jackson to the Supreme Court. Unfortunately, Jackson was only able to hold the position for two short years, succumbing to tuberculosis at age 63 on August 8th 1895. Location: Taft Bedroom
