Fulton-Clarke County GaArchives Obituaries.....Jackson, Walter Mitchell August 7, 1884
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Meredith Clapper http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00012.html#0002801 April 22, 2013, 3:14 pm

Sunny South 6 Sept 1884 p 8
The Death of Walter Jackson

A Touching Letter From His Distinguished Father

The death of this well-known and promising young man carried great sorrow to
many hearts in Georgia.  He was making rapid progress in the footsteps of his
honored and illustrious father, and like him, would have risen to eminence in
his profession.  He was the son of Chief Justice Jackson, of Georgia, who is
loved and honored by all Georgians for his great learning and unswerving piety.
 The following touching letter from him on the death of his son we clip from the
Constitution of this city, and it will be read with general interest:

Messrs. Editors-I have as little disposition as right to obtrude my private
griefs upon the public; but on the return of my wife and myself from the grave
of our only son, I saw your kindly lines in praise of him and sympathy for us,
which make a public expression of our appreciation of it not inappropriate or
presumptuous.  Accept the thanks of a heart in which those words of yours will
remain st__ped.  They are cherished more as words of neighborly kindness towards
a fellow citizen than of condolence with a public servant. In both capacities I
can say no more than emphasize the words, I thank you.

While thanking you, will you permit to make your widely circulated journal the
medium of thanks too, to the many friends of Walter in Water Valley, whose tears
mingled with ours over the grave of our boy and whose friendly acts to him
during the years of sojourn with them can never be forgotten. 

The spot which covers his body is in the family lot of Mrs. Mays, where her
husband lies and where her own body will be interred; and our sorrow that the
condition of the body, from the extreme heat of the weather, prevented its
interment in the soil of his ancestors, was softened by the certainty that on
it, where it lies, flowers would blossom and tears would fall as long as she
lived who had been a mother to the stranger boy she took to her home, and when
she was gone, her children, when they visited their father and mother's graves,
would not without a glance of love towards his who for years was an inmate of
their home and their constant companion.  The tears which her daughters shed
over his corpse are the best evidence that they will remember his grave.  May
God bless this saintly woman and each one of hers.

Nor can I forget to name in this return of thanks Captain and Mrs. Brown, at
whose house he boarded when he died, and whom they desired to move from his room
to their house that she might nurse him there.  At that hospital mansion we were
entertained and from its parlors his remains were taken to the cemetery.  May
God bless them and their children. 

Dr. Grant the beloved physician and friend of my son, how can words express our
thanks to him?   I am so glad he knows God and God has blessed him and will
bless him, I feel, always.

But I cannot enumerate those from whom Walter received kindness in his
Mississippi home.  From the ministers of the gospel, Presbyterian and Methodist,
to the colored boy who waited on him in health and in sickness the seven years
he lived in Water Valley, all are commended to the God of all grace who loves
and rewards every kind deed.  One word more.  Let no man think that I cherish
the slightest rebellion against this providence of God.  If my son had not been
a changed man-a new creature by the grace of God-I should have bowed my head in
submission to the judge of all the earth, who cannot do wrong.  But, blessed be
His holy name, He has put me to no such trial of faith.  Some two years before
his death, God prepared Walter to die.  Under the preaching of the Rev. Mr.
Hoyt, a Presbyterian evangelist, he was convicted (sic) powerfully and converted
and became a member of that branch of Christ's church. Every body in Water
Valley whom I interrogated testified to the radical change in the man's life. 
He would not take a drink of whiskey when offered to him even medically, stating
he had rather die.  He was active in the work of the church, prayed in public
when called on in his own church and in the Methodist church, whose prayer
meetings he attended. "By their fruits ye shall know them." 

Therefore, I humbly thank God that the cup he gives my wife, my children, and
myself to drink, has much of sweetness in the very bitterness of the draught. 
Thanking you again gentlemen, I remain, respectfully yours, James Jackson. 


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