PERSPECTIVES: Robards | Jackson
Marriage in Natchez | Divorce Laws

Judge Overton's Narrative
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On our return home from Jonesboro, in January, 1794, to Nashville, a license was obtained, and the marriage ceremony performed.

The slowness and inaccuracy with which information was received in West Tennessee at that time will not be surprising, when we consider its insulated and dangerous situation, surrounded on every side by the wilderness, and by hostile Indians, and that there was no mail established till about 1797, as well as I recollect.

Since the year 1791, General Jackson and myself have never been much apart, except when he was in the army. I have been intimate in his family, and from the mutual and uninterrupted happiness of the General and Mrs. Jackson, which I have at all times witnessed with pleasure, as well as those delicate and polite attentions which have ever been reciprocated between them, I have long been confirmed in the opinion, that never existed any other than what was believed to be the most honorable and virtuous intercourse between them. Before their going to Natchez, I had daily opportunities of been convinced that there was none other; before being married in the Natchez country, after it was understood that a divorce had been granted by the Legislature Virginia, it is believed there was none."

Source:

James Parton, The Life of Andrew Jackson, Volume III (New York: Mason Brothers, 1861).

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