John Donelson (1718–1785) was an American frontiersman, ironmaster, politician, city planner, and explorer. After founding and operating what became Washington Iron Furnace in Franklin County, Virginia for several years, he moved with his family to Middle Tennessee which was on the developing frontier. There, together with James Robertson, Donelson co-founded the frontier settlement of Fort Nashborough. This later developed as the city of Nashville, Tennessee.
Charles Dickinson was an American attorney and slave trader who was killed by Andrew Jackson in a duel. An expert marksman, Dickinson was shot in the chest by the future president due to a protracted disagreement which originated in an incident involving a horse which Jackson owned. Jackson himself was also wounded in the duel, but was able to recover.
Diomed (1777–1808) was an English Thoroughbred race horse who won the inaugural running of the Epsom Derby in 1780. Sold and imported to Virginia, he was subsequently a successful sire in the United States after the American Revolutionary War.
Curlin is an American Thoroughbred racehorse who was the American Horse of the Year in both 2007 and 2008. He retired in 2008 as the highest North American money earner with over US$10.5 million accumulated. His major racing wins included the 2007 Preakness Stakes, 2007 Breeders' Cup Classic, and 2008 Dubai World Cup. In August 2008, Timeform assigned a 134 rating for Curlin, calling him the best horse in the world on dirt. Curlin was elected to the National Museum of Racing's Hall of Fame in 2014, his first year of eligibility.
Preston Morris Burch was an American Hall of Fame Thoroughbred racehorse trainer, breeder, and owner.
Tom Fool was a champion American Thoroughbred racehorse who was the 1953 American Horse of the Year and was inducted into the Racing Hall of Fame. He sired the champion racehorses Buckpasser and Tim Tam.
Lyncoya Jackson, also known as Lincoyer or Lincoya, was an Indigenous American from a family that was a part of the Upper Creek tribal-geographical grouping and more than likely affiliated with Red Stick political party. The family lived in the Muscogee tribal town at Tallasseehatchee Creek in present-day eastern Alabama. Lyncoya's parents were killed on November 3, 1813, by troops led by John Coffee at the Battle of Tallusahatchee, an engagement of the Creek War and the larger War of 1812. Lyncoya survived the massacre and the burning of the settlement and was found lying on the ground next to the body of his dead mother. He was one of two Creek children from the village who were taken in by militiamen from Nashville, Tennessee. Lyncoya was the third of three Native American war orphans who were transported to Andrew Jackson's Hermitage in 1813–14. The other two, Theodore and Charley, died or disappeared shortly after their arrivals in Tennessee, but Lyncoya survived and was raised in the household of former slave trader and ex-U.S. Senator Andrew Jackson.
The horse industry in Tennessee is the 6th largest in the United States, and over 3 million acres of Tennessee farmland are used for horse-related activities. The Tennessee Walking Horse became an official state symbol in 2000.
Andrew Jackson, the seventh U.S. president, was a slave owner and slave trader who demonstrated a lifelong passion for the legal ownership and exploitation of enslaved black Americans. Unlike Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, Jackson "never questioned the morality of slavery." Existing records show that Jackson and his immediate heirs owned 325 enslaved people between 1788 and 1865. Jackson personally owned 95 people when he was first sworn in as U.S. president and 150 at the time of his death in 1845. Only 0.1% of white southern families owned 100 or more slaves at the time of the American Civil War.
The circumstances of the end of Rachel Donelson's relationship with Lewis Robards and transition to Andrew Jackson resurfaced as a campaign issue in the 1828 U.S. presidential election. As Frances Clifton put it in her study of Jackson's long friendship with John Overton, "Jackson's irregular marriage proved good propaganda for the friends of Adams and Clay. The political enemies of Jackson 'saw in his wife a weak spot in his armor through which his vitals might be reached; and they did not hesitate to make the most of it.'"
Joseph Coleman was an early settler of Tennessee, United States. He became the first mayor of Nashville, and also served as a trustee of the college that later became the University of Nashville.
Joseph Erwin was an American racehorse owner, owner of cotton and sugar plantations, and a slave trader. He is best known for the enmity between him and future U.S. president Andrew Jackson. Their conflict over their competing thoroughbred racehorses, Erwin's Ploughboy and Jackson's Truxton, led to the fatal 1806 duel between Jackson and Erwin's son-in-law Charles Dickinson. Erwin moved to Louisiana where he owned as many as seven plantations and hundreds of slaves. He ended up heavily in debt. Erwin died by suicide in 1829.
Dr. Boyd McNairy was a physician and an influential early settler of Nashville, Tennessee, United States. A member of local medical organizations, McNairy also served as director of the Nashville Lunatic Asylum. He was influential in local politics; although never a candidate himself, he worked to oppose the election of Andrew Jackson to the Presidency and later to promote the nascent Whig Party. The Marquis de Lafayette stayed at McNairy's house when he visited Nashville in 1825. Federal judge John McNairy and lawyer N. A. McNairy were Boyd McNairy's older brothers.
Andrew Erwin was an American innkeeper, merchant, North Carolina state legislator, freelance imperialist, and a business and political antagonist of seventh U.S. president Andrew Jackson.
Andrew Jackson Jr. was the son of seventh U.S. president Andrew Jackson. Andrew Jackson Jr., a biological child of Rachel Jackson's brother Severn Donelson and Elizabeth Rucker, was the one child among their more than three dozen wards that they considered to be their own child. As presented in an 1878 newspaper feature on the surviving Jackson descendants still resident at the Hermitage, "In after years Gen. Jackson had other nephews, to whom he gave a hearty welcome into his home, but to none other did he ever give his name or make heir to his fortune. One of these nephews was the distinguished Andrew Jackson Donelson, who ran for Vice President on the Fillmore ticket, and who was always associated with the General, but who was not the bona fide adopted son, as many suppose." According to historian Robert V. Remini, Andrew Jackson Jr. was "irresponsible and ambitionless, a considerable disappointment to his father." When former president Jackson died, Junior inherited real and enslaved human property valued at roughly $150,000; within a decade he had turned his fortune into roughly $100,000 in debt.
Robert Hays was a pioneer settler of Tennessee, United States. He served as a lieutenant in the American Revolutionary War and was an original member of the Society of the Cincinnati from North Carolina. He co-led the Coldwater Expedition against the Cherokee and the Creeks in 1787. He established the now-extinct settlement of Haysborough. In 1786 he married Jane Donelson, a daughter of John Donelson. Through this marriage he was a brother-in-law of his neighbor, future president Andrew Jackson. There were five children from the marriage: Stockley Donelson Hays who married Lydia Butler: Martha (Patsy) Hays who married Dr. William E. Butler; Samuel Jackson Hays, who married Frances Middleton; Rachel Hays, who married Robert Butler; Narcissa Hays, who never married; and Elizabeth Hays, who married Col. Robert I. Chester.
Jesse Benton Jr. was an American settler of Tennessee and Texas who worked as a lawyer and who was closely tied to the interpersonal conflict behind Tennessee and American politics in the Jacksonian era. His brother was U.S. Senator Thomas Hart Benton, and the writer Jessie Benton Frémont was his niece. He and his brother were involved in a tavern brawl with Andrew Jackson in Nashville in 1813, and Jesse Benton shot Jackson in the arm. In 1824, Benton, a supporter of presidential candidate William H. Crawford, published an anti-Jackson pamphlet accusing him of nepotism, corruption, and grossly abusive behavior to subordinates. Benton was an early pioneer of the Republic of Texas; he left the Alamo to recruit reinforcements for the fort just days before the storied battle with the Mexican army. Benton died in Louisiana in 1843.
William Terrell Lewis was an American Revolutionary War veteran, land surveyor, land speculator, tavern keeper, and North Carolina state legislator.
Barbara Phipps Janney was an American socialite, sportsperson, and thoroughbred racehorse owner and breeder. A member of the Phipps family, she and her husband Stuart Symington Janney Jr. were best known for being the owners of the ill-fated Ruffian.
