Alonzo Jackson

Alonzo Jackson was born around 1834 in New York.¹ Details on his early life are scarce. A newspaper article from 1859 stated that Jackson worked at the White House for three years as a footman under President Franklin Pierce, though the exact years of his time there are unclear.² As a footman, Jackson performed a wide variety of jobs including assisting during meal service, delivering messages, answering the door, and helping the president when he traveled by carrying luggage and riding with the presidential carriage. 

After his three years at the White House, Jackson moved back to New York and worked as a waiter at the Astor House, a luxury hotel in Manhattan. In 1859, he was arrested for stealing $10 worth of cutlery from the hotel and sentenced to four months in prison.³ His sentence was commuted to three months when he received letters of recommendation from several prominent political figures including Mississippi Senator (and future President of the Confederacy) Jefferson Davis and Sidney Webster, the secretary for President Pierce.⁴ Jackson’s ability to solicit letters from these figures suggests he met them while working at the White House. After his release from prison, Jackson moved with his family to Detroit, Michigan. Government records from 1870 through 1890 show him living in Detroit and working as a laborer and “Brakeman,” presumably on a train.⁵ After this, Jackson disappears from the historical record.