LEGENDARY COMMENTS BY GEORGE CHEVALLIER 11-19-16

Nannie Rider Jackson

(The portrait above is an original oil painting of Mrs. Jackson and
can be seen displayed in the lobby of the Wicomico County Library)

Born on August 10, 1849, she was the daughter of Dr. William H. Rider, whose residence was Honeysuckle Lodge. It is still there on the east side of Camden Ave. and the south side of Tony Tank Lake south of Salisbury. The Rider family cemetery is still on the property.

Early in her life, in 1866, a year before she married Elihu E. Jackson, she was invited to attend the organizational meeting of a new Methodist Church. This was to become Trinity Methodist Church. She was the only woman in attendance, so the men elected her to be Secretary and keep the minutes. She remained faithful to Trinity Church all her life and convinced her husband, Elihu E. Jackson, former governor of Maryland, to build a new Trinity Church in 1904. Trinity Church still remains at its Division Street location near Route 50 to this day and is still an active Church.

She built and donated the Jackson Memorial Building to Trinity Church in 1913 as a memorial to her late husband, who had died in 1907. It was originally built as a YMCA. Trinity Church finished a $1.2 million project in 2008 to bring the building up to the standards of the 21st Century. It should stand as a loving tribute to her husband for many years to come.

A tribute was paid to her in her lifetime by her brother, Noah Harrison Rider. While in Alabama looking after his brother-in-law’s lumber interest, he gave the mill town that was built around the mill there the name of Riderville. Another town was named Riderwood in honor of their family name.

The Jackson’s residence at the corner of N. Division and Isabella Streets was an imposing 40 room mansion on 23 acres named “The Oaks”. She sold it for $100,000 in 1925 to an out-of-town buyer who sub-divided it for residences. The only existing remembrance of the grandeur of the property is a remnant of the brick wall along Isabella St. that once surrounded the entire property.

Nannie Jackson died on October 3, 1914 and is interred beside her husband in Parsons Cemetery in Salisbury.