John Childress

Childress served as "entry taker" for Davidson County, Tennessee.{{Cite web |title=Early Governors' Papers {{!}} FromThePage |url=https://fromthepage.com/display/read_all_works?article_id=32066443 |access-date=2025-02-22 |website=fromthepage.com}} In 1803 he and four others, Joel Lewis, George Ridley, Alexander Ewing, and William Luntz, were appointed to raise money and hire contractors for a Davidson County/Mero District Jail.{{Cite web |title=Law Enforcement - Historical Notes |url=https://www.ctas.tennessee.edu/node/96615/printable/print |access-date=2025-02-23 |website=www.ctas.tennessee.edu}}

Childress was appointed the United States Marshal for the U.S. District Court of Western Tennessee in 1803 and was reappointed, at four-year intervals, serving continuously until his death.{{sfnp|Kelley|1987|p=31}}{{sfnp|Papers of A. Jackson, Vol. 2|1984|p=69}} In January 1805 he was a signatory to a petition protesting the court-martial of Thomas Butler, probably produced at the behest of Andrew Jackson and sent to Thomas Jefferson's government, recorded in official state papers under the title "Disobedience of Orders Justified on the Grounds of Illegality".{{Cite web |title=American state papers : Documents, legislative and executive, of the Congress of the United States / Selected and edited under the authority of Congress ... Military affairs v. 1 1832. |url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.35112103325876&seq=185 |access-date=2025-03-13 |website=HathiTrust |pages=173–174 |language=en}}{{Cite journal |last=Hickey |first=Donald R. |date=1976 |title=Andrew Jackson and the Army Haircut: Individual Rights vs. Military Discipline |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/42623606 |journal=Tennessee Historical Quarterly |volume=35 |issue=4 |pages=365–375 |issn=0040-3261}} In 1805, on the occasion of a duel between Thomas Jefferson Overton (nephew of John Overton) and John Dickinson, Andrew Jackson served as second to Overton and Childress served as second to Dickinson.{{sfnp|Papers of A. Jackson, Vol. 2|1984|pp=66–69}}

Childress' wife was a daughter of militia leader Elijah Robertson and a niece of Nashville pioneer James Robertson.{{sfnp|Kelley|1987|p=31}} Childress' offspring included five daughters who were important belles of early Nashville.{{sfnp|Kelley|1987|p=31}} One of the belles, Matilda Childress, married future U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Catron.{{sfnp|Kelley|1987|p=31}} Another daughter, Ann Maria Childress, married Morgan Welles Brown, appointed by President Andrew Jackson in 1839 to be judge of the United States District Court for the District of Tennessee. One of Childress' sons was George C. Childress, an important pioneer of the Republic of Texas.{{sfnp|Kelley|1987|p=31}} Childress died in 1819.{{sfnp|Papers of A. Jackson, Vol. 2|1984|p=69}}

{{Reflist}}

• {{Cite book |last1=Various |last2=Jackson |first2=Andrew |url=https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_jackson/5 |title=The Papers of Andrew Jackson, Volume II, 1804–1813 |editor-last1=Moser |editor-first1=Harold D. |editor-last2=MacPherson |editor-first2=Sharon |date=1984 |publisher=University of Tennessee Press |isbn=978-0-8704-9441-3 |ref={{Harvid|Papers of A. Jackson, Vol. 2|1984}}}} {{Free access}}
• {{Cite book |last=Kelley |year=1987 |first=Sarah Foster |title=West Nashville: Its People and Environs |publisher=Douglas Printing, Inc. |isbn=978-0-9615960-0-2 |location=Nashville, Tennessee |language=en-us |oclc=17229742 |lccn=87174035 }}

Category:1819 deaths

Category:19th-century United States Marshals

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