[John Coffee] Archive of Letters from His Children, with Various Photographs. Over twenty-five letters are included, most wr...

Description

The letters cover a wide variety of topics, most personal to the family. Some content, though, is of broader appeal. For example, in one letter, eighteen-year-old Alex Coffee, writing from Nashville, Tennessee, in 1839, reports to his brother-in-law Andrew Jackson Hutchings (Mary's husband, as well as the namesake and former ward of Andrew Jackson) on the arrival of Sam Houston to see Andrew Jackson, "General Houston arrive here last week he has been up at the Hermitage for the last few days there will be a big dinner given to him this week." (At the time, Houston was between his terms as the first and third presidents of the Republic of Texas. He would next return to Jackson's Hermitage on June 8, 1845, the night President Jackson died.)

Also included are over fifteen images (including several cabinet cards) of scenes of the Coffee plantation; John Coffee's tomb; Coffee family homesites; scenes around Florence, Alabama; and various Coffee family members (including Captain John Donelson's wife, the mother of Rachel Donelson Jackson).  

John Coffee (1772-1833) settled near Nashville, Tennessee, in 1798. He soon met Andrew Jackson, who had arrived in the state ten years earlier. Coffee quickly became Jackson's business partner, military associate, confidant, adviser, and fearless friend. Coffee, Jackson, and John Hutchings (a nephew of Rachel Donelson Jackson) formed a business partnership in 1804, which lasted several years. When the War of 1812 started, Coffee served under Jackson in the Creek War and at the Battle of New Orleans. After the war, Coffee served as surveyor general of public lands in Alabama from 1817 until his death in 1833. In 1819, he purchased land in Lauderdale and Limestone Counties in northern Alabama. He soon moved his family near modern day Florence in Lauderdale County from Tennessee. A tall man (6'2" and near 200 pounds, according to his granddaughter), John Coffee married Rachel Donelson Jackson's niece, Mary Donelson, in 1809. Together, they had ten children:

1.  Mary Coffee (1812-1839)

2.  John Coffee (1815-1837)

3.  Elizabeth Coffee (c. 1817-1838 )

4.  Andrew Jackson Coffee (1819-1891)

5.  Alexander Coffee (1821-1901)

6.  Rachel Jackson Coffee (1823-1892)

7.  Katherine Harriet Coffee (?)

8.  Emily Coffee (?)

9.  William Coffee (1830-1903)

10. Joshua Coffee (?)