y they had been
proscribed and persecuted; and in the War of Independence the
fiercest enemies of King George were the descendants of the same
Scotch-Irish who had held the north of Ireland for King William.

In Washington's campaigns more than one of the Jacksons won rank and
reputation; and when peace was established they married into
influential families. Nor was the next generation less successful.
Judges, senators, and soldiers upheld the honour of the name, and
proved the worth of the ancestral stock. They were marked, it is
said, by strong and characteristic features, by a warm feeling of
clanship, a capacity for hard work, and a decided love of roving.
Some became hunters, others explorers, and the race is now scattered
from Virginia to Oregon. A passion for litigation was a general
failing, and none of them could resist the fascination of machinery.
Every Jackson owned a mill or factory of some sort--many of them more
than one--and their ventures were not always profitable. Jackson's
father, among others, found it easier to make money than to keep it.
Generous and incautious, he became deeply involved by becoming
security for others; high play increased his embarrassments; and when
he died in 1827 every vestige of his property was swept away. His
young widow, left with three small children, two sons and a daughter,
became dependent on the assistance of her kinsfolk for a livelihood,
and on the charity of the Freemasons for a roof. When Thomas, her
second son, was six years old, she married a Captain Woodson; but her
second matrimonial venture was not more fortunate than her first. Her
husband's means were small, and necessity soon compelled her to
commit her two boys to the care of their father's relatives.

1831.

Within a year the children stood round her dying bed, and at a very
early age our little Virginian found himself a penniless orphan. But,
as he never regretted his poverty, so he never forgot his mother. To
the latest hour of his life he loved to recall her memory, and years
after she had passed away her influence still remained. Her beauty,
her counsels, their last parting, and her happy death, for she was a
woman of deep religious feeling, made a profound impression on him.
To his childhood's fancy she was the embodiment of every grace; and
so strong had been the sympathy between them, that even in the midst
of his campaigns she was seldom absent from his thoughts. After her
death the children