From Proud Heritage, Vol. 1 by DCPA, not currently in print
Jerre and Susan Rice Jackson were driven from their West Point, Bates County, Missouri home by early Civil War activity on the Kansas-Missouri border. As documented in Vol. I, page 296 of the Missouri Historical Review, circumstances beyond their control may have been the force that sent them forth to pioneer a growing frontier in Texas. On Thursday, December 30, 1858, their hotel and store were attacked and burned, their horses stolen, and their home fired upon and then burned by marauders. Fortunately, they escaped with no loss of life to begin a trek that would ultimately lead them to Texas by the spring of 1860.
Their eldest daughter, Frances Jane, remained in Bates County with her husband, Edmund Hart, and several children. It is uncertain when their youngest daughter, Susan Adeline (Mrs. W. L. Meek) came to Texas. With Jerre came his other two daughters; Harriet Jackson and Zibbey Ann McHenry; a daughter-in-law, Elizabeth Ann Dryden Jackson, wife of son James William Jackson, and assorted Jackson, Hart, McHenry, and Meeks grandchildren.
Three sons fought with the Confederacy. Thomas Archibald was killed at the Battle of Lone Jack, Missouri. James William died in Dallas, Texas in 1871 from wounds, and is buried in old Oak Cliff Cemetery. Jerre Robert was captured and imprisoned while serving with Lt. Col. John M. Stemmons. After the War, Jerre Robert came to Dallas and married Alzada Mauldin on December 20, 1866. A son-in-law, B. J. McHenry is buried in Missouri. His widow, Zibbey, subsequently married a Mr. Winters in Dallas.
The actual route the family followed, or the date they arrived in Dallas County, is vague. The first deed record date is 1861. They settled in what was called Jim Town, a rural community, on the road south to Cedar Hill, Texas. They appeared on the 1870 and 1880 census in precinct 7, southwest Oak Cliff along with neighbors, inlaws, and outlaws. Neighbors were L. D. and 0. V. Ledbetter, Lee Cockrell, B. L. Haynes, John Horton, Meredith Myers, J. H. Bumpus, two Britain families, J. W. Wright, Physician, and Isaac Camel Hill.
Isaac Hill, in 1874, married Elizabeth, widow of James William Jackson, and they had several children, among whom was Elizabeth’s fourth set of twins, Elbert and Albert Hill, born 1880.
Jerre Jackson, subject pioneer, was born 22 September 1804 to Thomas, Jr. and Janey Smith Jackson in Caswell County, North Carolina. Thomas Jackson, Jr. died in 1808, and his father Thomas, Sr. died in 1809 in Caswell County. In his will, Thomas Sr. refers to “this prevailing sickness” which infers the families were victims of a plague-like disease.
Jerre had a brother James who may have had 13 children. His sister, Sarah, married in North Carolina to William Mathis. Another sister, Delilah, married Drury Mathis, and baby sister, Jincy, is mentioned in their mother’s estate settlement in Caswell in 1827, the same year Jerre and Susan Rice married in Howard County, Missouri.
Susan Rice, pioneer wife of Jerre Jackson, was born 15 March 1805 in Caswell County, North Carolina, to Archibald Rice and his first wife Zibby Bush, daughter of Joseph and Mary Ann Bush. Archibald’s other children were Eunice, Frances, Sarah, William H., Zibbah, Mary Ann, Letitia, Elihu Coffee, and Minerva.
Susan’s grandfather, Nathaniel Rice, born 1757, Hanover County, Virginia, participated in the Battle of Guilford Courthouse, and married Susannah Butler the same year, 1781, in Caswell County, North Carolina.
Susan is mentioned in her father’s will recorded in 1849 in Kansas City, Missouri, in which she inherited property in Bates County, Missouri.
After their 1827 marriage in Howard County, Susan and Jerre appear on Monroe County, Missouri 1830 Census, then in 1838 moved to what became Bates County, and to Texas by 1861.
Susan, first wife and mother of all Jerre’s children, is buried at old Oak Cliff Cemetery in Dallas, Texas. She died 5 August 1871. After her death Jerre married in 1873 to Malinda Wallis, a sister to John Wallis, and they had no children.
Although Susan ‘s earliest marker was destroyed, Jerre and Susan lie surrounded by headstones of their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren: R. I. P. 1985.
Edna Jackson Hart, Dallas
