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EARL B. JACKSON.
The progressive cashier of the Marion State and Savings Bank, Earl B. Jackson, has showed from the first of his business career his ability along the lines of his chosen avocation. His cool head and clear brain have placed him, at the early age of thirty-seven, in the most responsible position of a prosperous financial institution. His faculty for the management of business affairs has been in no small part an inheritance from his father, who for more than fifty years has been conspicuously identified with the business life of Marion.
Earl B. Jackson is the son of James Charlton Jackson and Cynthia E. (Calvert) Jackson. The former was born near Gallatin, Sumner county, Tennessee, on the 20th of June, 1842. In 1860 he moved from Gallatin and settled in Illinois, at Marion. His father was George Jackson, and his mother was Sarah Barham, a daughter of John Barham, whose wife was a Miss Wilson. When Mrs. Barham was a little girl she was carried off by the Indians and kept in captivity until her cousin, Colonel Hugh L. White, one of the early United States senators from Tennessee, had bought and paid for her, not once, but three times, then she was permitted to find her way home.
George Jackson was a stone mason, who lived in Tennessee till his death in 1845. His wife survived him only a few years, dying in 1850. She had five brothers, one of whom, Thomas, came to Illinois and lived
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in Williamson county, where he died leaving a large family. Joseph was a local politician, serving in the Tennessee legislature from the western part of the state, where he and his brother James passed their lives. The two other brothers, Jack and Charles, moved to Texas and raised large families there. George and Sarah Jackson had a large family of ten children, only three of whom are now alive. John and Al-myra died in early life ; Emily, who married D. C. Blackmore and died in Tennessee; Margaret, became the wife of M. W. Barham and died in Marion, Illinois; W. P. moved to Clay county, Missouri, making his home near Liberty, where he reared his family; Fielding D. died in Marion, Illinois, in 1909, leaving several children; Bailey P. raised his family to the old home town of Gallatin, Tennessee, where he died; Charles never reached maturity; James Charlton, of Marion, Illinois; Kate, dying in infancy; and Mollie, who lives in Atlanta, Georgia. After the death of his mother, James C. Jackson went to live with one of his mother's brothers. Here it was pretty much all work and no play, and his chances for an education were very meager. He started out early in life to earn his bread, beginning as a humble laborer. After coming to lllinois he learned the carpenter's trade. For fifteen years he continued to devote his splendid energies to the construction of good houses, and the old John Goodall residence is an evidence of some of the contract work that he did during this time. He had always been a keen thinker on political questions and when he gave up active mechanical work in 1877 his fellow citizens showed their confidence in his views and in his honesty of purpose by electing him their mayor. The new mayor possessed indefatigable energy, as was indicated by his service as deputy sheriff under John H. Duncan for four years, while at the same time he attended faithfully to his duties as mayor. He has repeatedly been honored with the confidence of his fellow townsmen, being reelected mayor in 1880 and again in 1882. During the latter election the issue turned upon the temperance question, whether Marion should become a �dry town.� In 1882 he was elected county clerk and served one term, and during these years his unswerving interest in the welfare of the younger generation has never failed, for he has given much time, in his twelve years of service on the board of education, to making the facilities for education in Marion of the very best. When local conditions do not conflict with the casting of a righteous ballot, Mr. Jackson is an ardent Democrat. Since 1887 he has been engaged in the furniture business and has acquired an interest in the undertaking business, as the firm of Jackson-Holland & Company.
On the 21st of August, 1863, Mr. Jackson married Cynthia E. Calvert, a daughter of N. B. Calvert. The latter was a carpenter and contractor, who had settled in Marion, coming from the South. Mrs. Jackson was born in her home town on the 27th of July, 1843. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Jackson are: Maggie, the wife of William Robbins, of Sanford, Florida; Augusta, who became the wife of Dr. Barter, of McLeansboro, Illinois; Earl B.; and Alice and Jessie, who died in infancy.
Earl B. Jackson was sent through the public schools of Marion and graduated from the high school in 1893. Later he had a year's work in the Southern Illinois Normal School at Carbondale. His first experience in business after leaving school was in the postoffice in Marion, where he served eighteen months as assistant postmaster under John Goodall. He was then offered the position of assistant cashier of the Bank of Norris City, and engaged in banking as a occupation. Subsequently he came to the Bank of Marion and served eighteen months in the same position. Then, giving up banking, he went into the furniture business with his father, remaining with him for a year and a half. At this time, he
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retuned to the Bank of Marion as its cashier. In 1902. when the institution became the Marion State and Savings Bank, he was obviously the only man for the cashiership and was elected to that position. He will soon have seen his tenth year of service in this capacity. The Marion State and Savings Bank, is one of the most prosperous institutions of its kind in Southern Illinois. It has a capital stock of $100,000.00, its surplus fund amounts to $20,000.00, and the total deposits reach the sum of $479,122.39. It numbers on its board of directors many of the prosperous men of the town, the personnel being as follows: E. E. Denison, J. H. Burnett, M. L. Baker, W. W. Whittington, W. J. Aikman, B. D. Bracy, W. G. Cochran, A. J. Binkley, J. M. Aikman, J. C. B. Smith and D. T. Hartwell. Mr. Jackson is secretary of Group Ten of the Illinois Bankers Association, now serving his third term as such. Outside of banking he is interested in the Jackson Furniture and Undertaking business. He has no interest in political life, allowing his father to carry off all the honors along that line.
Mr. Jackson was married in Norris City, Illinois, on the 6th of July, 1898, to Carrie Barnes, a daughter of Charles E. Barnes, who is one of the old settlers of White county, having come here from Pennsylvania. Mrs. Jackson received a high school education, and in addition attended the Chicago Conservatory of Music. They have one daughter, Pauline, born July 30, 1899.
The traits which made of the father a successful business man and wise political leader, that is, ability to feel the current of affairs, a careful attention to detail, coupled with the gift of grasping the real crux of a matter, the nerve to dare and the patience to wait, have appeared in his son to make of him an able financier. Earl B. Jackson, in the natural course of things, has a very bright future before him if the latter part of his life is spent as wisely and successfully as the earlier years.