Assembling at Morganton, on the east side of the mountains, in the fall of 1788, the party proceeded leisurely to Jonesboro, which, although as yet only a village of fifty or sixty log houses, was the metropolis of the eastern Tennessee settlements.  There the party was obliged to wait for a sufficient band of immigrants to assemble before they could be led by an armed guard with some degree of safety through the dangerous middle country.  As a highway had just been opened between Jonesboro and Nashville, the travelers were able to cover the distance in fifteen days.  Jackson rode a fine stallion, while a pack mare carried his worldly effects, consisting of spare clothes, blankets, half a dozen law books, and small quantities of ammunition, tea, tobacco, liquor, and salt.  For defense he bore a rifle and three pistols; and in his pocket he carried one hundred and eighty dollars of the much valued hard money.  On the second day of November the emigrant train made its appearance in Nashville bringing news of much interest—­in particular, that the Federal Constitution had been ratified by the ninth State, and that the various legislatures were preparing to choose electors, who would undoubtedly make George Washington the first President of the Republic.

Less than ten years old, Nashville had now a population of not over two hundred.  But it was the center of a somewhat settled district extending up and down the Cumberland for a distance of eighty or ninety miles, and the young visitor from the Waxhaws quickly found it a promising field for his talents.  There was only one lawyer in the place, and creditors who had been outbid for his services by their debtors were glad to put their cases in the hands of the newcomer.  It is said that before Jackson had been in the settlement a month he had issued more than seventy writs to delinquent debtors.  When, in 1789, he was appointed “solicitor,” or prosecutor, in Judge McNairy’s jurisdiction with a salary of forty pounds for each court he attended, his fortune seemed made and he forthwith gave up all thought of returning to his Carolina home.  Instead he took lodgings under the roof of the widow of John Donelson, and in 1791 he married a daughter of that doughty frontiersman.  Land was still cheap, and with the proceeds of his fees and salary he purchased a large plantation called Hunter’s Hill, thirteen miles from Nashville, and there he planned to establish a home which would take rank as one of the finest in the western country.

The work of a frontier solicitor was diverse and arduous.  A turbulent society needed to be kept in order and the business obligations of a shifty and quarrelsome people to be enforced.  No great knowledge of law was required, but personal fearlessness, vigor, and incorruptibility were indispensable.  Jackson was just the man for the business.  His physical courage was equaled by his moral strength; he was passionately devoted to justice; he was diligent and