Abraham Jackson, the father of Henry W. Jackson, served as minister in the Baptist Church in Hinsdale, a small town in western Massachusetts, from 1809 until his death in 1848. There are no letters from Abraham in the collection, but there are some from his widow, Polly, whose letters to her children contain little beyond religious exhortation. Abraham's surviving children at the time of his death included Abraham, Haven, Lewis W., Mary (Mrs. Curtis Pomeroy), Henry W., Joshua, and Levi. Birth and death dates for these and other members of the Jackson Family can be found in the back of one of the ledgers. Salah, apparently a son of Abraham Jackson who was living in Wisconsin in 1848, was not mentioned in the documents concerning the probate of Abraham's estate. Both Henry W. and Levi later followed Salah to Wisconsin.
Henry W. Jackson was born in Hinsdale on July 17, 1826. He attended college for an unspecified period of time, and went to California during the gold rush of 1849, returning with what he is said to have regarded as a small fortune. He married Cornelia J. Brown in 1851, and moved to Elkhorn, Wisconsin, during the following year. The couple subsequently lived in Stevens Point, Grand Rapids, and Centralia. Henry taught school for a time in Elkhorn, and eventually became a partner in the mercantile and lumber firm of Jackson, Garrison, and Worthington. Henry also purchased and operated a saw mill in Centralia, and was a postmaster, supervisor, and alderman there. He died in 1875, and his wife died in 1902. They had three children: Fannie (who died in infancy), William Lewis, and Fred Henry.
For further details, see History of Berkshire County, Massachusetts (New York: J. B. Beers & Company, 1885, pp. 80-81; George O. Jones et al., History of Wood County, Wisconsin (Minneapolis: H. C. Cooper, Jr., & Company, 1923), pp. 400-402; and the portrait of Henry W. Jackson in History of Wood County, Wisconsin, opposite page 400.
