Parton fixes the date of the fire incident at Jonesboro at the time of the Bean incident—after Jackson had been appointed judge. The date is not material, but Parton’s information must have been incorrect, or the date of the fire incident, as recollected and given by aged persons who remembered it and recounted it as late as twenty years ago, was wrong. According to these old citizens, the fire in which Jackson distinguished himself was in 1798, while he was stopping in Jonesboro on his way to Nashville from Philadelphia, after he had resigned the position of United States Senator. Court was in session, however, when the fire occurred, as stated by Parton, and Jackson was there mingling with his friends. He had been there for a few days previous to the fire, and continued his stay in town for a few days afterward. He was not stopping at the tavern, but was the guest of one of the families.

The fire originated, near midnight, in the stable that belonged to and was near the Rawlings tavern. It was soon in a blaze throughout, and there was no thought of an effort to save it, as it was filled with hay, oats, fodder, etc. Attention was turned to the tavern, which stood some two hundred and fifty feet from a creek which runs through the center of the town. The alarm of fire and the call for help brought out the entire population, filling the few streets of the village with men, women and children. When Jackson appeared on the scene, Ben Boyd, an Irish coppersmith, was calling loudly for buckets and yelling to the crowd to form a line to the creek; but nobody was paying any attention to him. Jackson, as was his custom, immediately took command, and began ordering everybody to get into line, actually taking hold of men and women and putting them in position, calling for buckets, and directing the keeper of the tavern to get all of the blankets in the house and spread them all over the roof. In a few minutes Jackson had formed two lines from the house to the creek, the lines facing each other and six or eight feet apart; along one line empty buckets were passed to the creek, and the full buckets back up the other line to the tavern, which was the only house in immediate danger. Jackson would appear, one moment, on the roof, calling down to those in the lines to stand firm and hurry up the water, and the tavern and town would be saved; the next seen of him, he would be passing up and down the lines, urging order and discipline. He was everywhere, and always at the place where his presence seemed most needed. The tavern was saved, and nothing burned but the stable. “Jackson saved the town with his bucket brigade,” was on every lip.

Parton brings Benjamin Boyd to the attention of the nation, in connection with this fire incident, by saying that, “while Gen. Jackson was strengthening that part of his line near the creek, a drunken coppersmith named Boyd, who said that he had seen fires at Baltimore, began to give orders and annoy persons in the line. Jackson shouted at Boyd to fall in line, who continued jabbering. Jackson seized a bucket by the handle, knocked him down, and walked along the line giving orders as coolly as before.” Ben Boyd’s part in and connection with the fire incident, as detailed to me “often and again” by persons who knew all the facts, does not agree with Parton’s account in some particulars. What is believed to be the true narrative is here given.

Benjamin Boyd was an Irishman, as was Andrew Jackson. He was a coppersmith by trade, got drunk occasionally, and was drunk on the night of the fire. He was somewhat chagrined at the idea of Jackson appropriating his suggestion of a bucket-line to the creek; and after Jackson had succeeded in doing what he could not do, and, as Boyd said, was “strutting around giving orders,” the two men met near the creek. Boyd said to Jackson, “I have seen and fought fires in Philadelphia before you were born,” and continued to growl at Jackson, who ordered him to “get in line or get out of the way.” Boyd, who was a fearless man, made some insolent reply, when Jackson, seizing a bucket of water, threw its contents on the irate Irishman, and passed along the line, leaving Boyd swearing, “By the Holy Virgin, I’ll whip you before you leave this town!” John Chester, with whom Boyd lived and died at Jonesboro, made him go to his little house, which stood in the corner of Chester’s yard; and this ended the matter.[Q]

“Jackson’s bucket brigade” has often saved property in the ancient town, within the century, now almost rounded out, that followed its organization and first service.

FOOTNOTES:

[Q] My greatgrandfather, Robert Johnston Chester, brought Benjamin Boyd from Limerick, Ireland, to America. My grandfather, John Chester, brought him from Carlisle, Pennsylvania, to Jonesboro, in December, 1796. Boyd was then an old man. I am the possessor of one of Boyd’s books, an “Arithmetick,” “printed in Belfast, Ireland, by James Magee, at the Bible and Crown, Bridge street,” in 1775.

CHAPTER X.

ANDREW JACKSON, THE MAN.

Andrew Jackson was a more courageous man, as well as a much greater man, than many of his most ardent admirers knew of. At the time of his duel with Avery, if the version which I believe to be true is correct, he was afraid of public opinion—that is, he believed that, if he made an explanation, somebody might think that he feared Avery, and so, rather than run the risk of being suspected of cowardice, he was willing to give Avery a chance to kill him. But later in life he had outgrown this, and had no master except his convictions of duty, his own sense of right and wrong. He did not care what anybody might believe or suspect him of, so long as his course had the approval of his judgment and his conscience.