Jordan Anderson

Anderson was born in December 1825 somewhere in Tennessee. By the age of seven or eight, he was sold as a slave to General Paulding Anderson of Big Spring in Wilson County, and subsequently passed to the general's son Patrick Henry Anderson, probably as a personal servant and playmate as the two were of similar age. In 1848, Jordan Anderson married Amanda (Mandy) McGregor. The two eventually would have 11 children. In 1864, Union Army soldiers camped on the Anderson plantation and freed Jordan Anderson. He then may have worked at the Cumberland Military Hospital in Nashville before eventually settling in Dayton, Ohio, moving with the help of Dr. Clarke McDermont who was a surgeon at the hospital. There Anderson found work as a servant, janitor, coachman, or hostler, until 1894, when he became a sexton, probably at the Wesleyan Methodist Church. He held this position until his death. His employer, Valentine Winters, was father-in-law to McDermont. Anderson died in Dayton on April 15, 1905, of "exhaustion" at 79 years old, and is buried in Woodland Cemetery, one of the oldest "garden" cemeteries in the United States. Amanda died April 12, 1913; she is buried next to him. ==Letter and aftermath==

In July 1865, a few months after the end of the Civil War, Colonel P.H. Anderson wrote a letter from Big Spring, Tennessee, to his former and now freed slave Jordan Anderson asking him to come back and work the plantation, which had been left in disarray from the war. Harvest season was approaching with nobody to bring in the crops; the colonel was making a last-ditch effort to save the farm.). Jordan calculated wages at $25 a month for 32 years for himself and $2 a week for 20 years for his wife Mandy. He also asked for accumulated interest, minus the costs for their clothing, "three doctor's visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy". He asks the back wages be delivered via the Adams Express company, stating: "If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past, we can have little faith in your promises in the future." Anderson asks if his daughters will be safe living in Tennessee and able to have an education, since they are "good-looking girls" and notes that he would rather die "than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters... how it was with poor Matilda and Catherine." The letter concludes: "Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me." ==Legacy==

'' Dr. Valentine Winters Anderson, Jordan Anderson's son, was a close friend and collaborator with Paul Laurence Dunbar, a noted African-American author. A character called "Jeremiah Anderson", who is asked by his former master to return to the plantation and refuses, appears in Dunbar's short story, "The Wisdom of Silence". ==See also==