William Preston Anderson

Anderson was a native of Botetourt County, Virginia, born about 1775.{{Cite book |last=Adair |first=James Barnett |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tFYxAAAAMAAJ&dq=%22William+Preston+Anderson%22&pg=PA107 |title=Adair History and Genealogy |date=1924 |publisher=J. B. Adair |pages=107 |language=en}} {{free access}} According to a family history, "During the second term of General Washington's administration [1793–1797], he received from the President, a commission of Lieutenant in the U. S. Army." In 1797 he was licensed to practice law in Tennessee.{{sfnp|Ely|Brown|1987|page=355}} He was admitted to the bar of Davidson County in 1798.{{Cite book |last=Clayton |first=W. Woodford |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8ipEAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA97&dq=%22stockley+d.+hays%22&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&source=gb_mobile_search&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjt-IH-xseLAxVSOTQIHaMZEzw4FBDoAXoECAIQAw#v=onepage&q&f=false |title=History of Davidson County, Tennessee |date=1880 |publisher=J. W. Lewis & Company |isbn=978-0-7222-4833-1 |language=en}} Anderson was the third United States Attorney for the District of Tennessee, serving from 1798 to 1802.{{Cite report |url=https://www.justice.gov/d9/pages/attachments/2018/02/23/bicentennial_celebration.pdf |title=Bicentennial Celebration of United States Attorneys, 1789–1989 |last=Executive Office for United States Attorneys |date=1989 |publisher=United States Department of Justice |location=Washington, District of Columbia |at=212 of 218 (no pag.)}} Once upon a time, "Anderson had supplied [Andrew] Jackson with such goodies as game cocks from Virginia and hot tips on land investments."{{sfnp|Johnson|1973|page=172}} According to John Spencer Bassett's notes in The Correspondence of Andrew Jackson, Clover Bottom "was leased in November 21, 1804, by William Preston Anderson, with the privilege of buying 300 acres on the south for $3,000. On March 5, 1805, he sold two-thirds of his rights in the enterprise to Andrew Jackson and John Hutchings, and Apr. 8, 1806, he sold the remaining third to John Coffee."{{sfnp|Correspondence, Vol. 1|1926|page=112}} Anderson and his brother Patton Anderson won $4,000 by betting on Jackson's horse Truxton against Joseph Erwin's horse Ploughboy.{{sfnp|Johnson|1973|page=173}} 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 August 1805 he was present at a dinner in Nashville honor of Aaron Burr, at which he toasted "May his promptness, impartiality, and eloquent valedictory address, serve as a polar star to his successor and may all honest Americans never forget such merit."{{Cite news |date=1805-08-21 |title=Communication [Dinner for Burr at Talbot's Tavern] |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-tennessee-gazette-burr-at-talbots-t/171988294/ |work=The Tennessee Gazette and Mero District Advertiser |location=Nashville, Tennessee |volume=5 |issue=29 |page=2 |id=Whole No. 273 }}

He was appointed Surveyor General of the district of Tennessee. Anderson was the district surveyor "who had been one of those instrumental in effecting" the Chickasaw treaty of 1805,{{Cite web |title=Treaty with the Chickasaw, 1805 |url=https://treaties.okstate.edu/treaties/treaty-with-the-chickasaw-1805-0079 |access-date=2025-02-13 |website=treaties.okstate.edu}} and was part of an extended network of speculators, bankers, surveyors, and public officials that included John Brahan, James Jackson, John Coffee, John Drake, John Strother, Edward Ward, and Thomas Freeman.{{sfnp|Roberts|2020|pages=87–88}} Some or all of these men also had connections to Andrew Jackson and were involved in the settlement by white slave owners of what became the Huntsville, Alabama metropolitan area.{{sfnp|Dupre|2018|pages=196–197}} In 1806 Anderson may have lived or worked at a place called Federal Bottom, as there is notebook in the early land records of Tennessee recorded as "Anderson & Strother memorandum or Day Book made 1st May 1806. Federal Bottom,"{{Cite web |date=2019 |title=EARLY TENNESSEE LAND RECORDS, 1773–1922 Records of the Land Office, State of Tennessee. Records of the Board of Land Commissioners RECORD GROUP 50 |url=https://sos-tn-gov-files.tnsosfiles.com/forms/EARLY_TENNESSEE_LAND_RECORDS_1773-1922.pdf |website=Tennessee State Library and Archives |page=49}} and on December 31, 1806, he sent a letter to Andrew Jackson from Federal Bottom that was to be opened only by Jackson or John Coffee.{{sfnp|Papers of A. Jackson, Vol. 2|1984|pages=128–129}} The letter to Jackson touched on a number of issues, among which was that he owned Jackson money and wondered if Jackson would accept "a negro...or a land warrant" or both, in lieu of cash.{{sfnp|Papers of A. Jackson, Vol. 2|1984|pages=128–129}}

According to an account ledger published during the 1828 presidential campaign, one of the expenses that Aaron Burr had in account with Andrew Jackson in October 1806 was $700 for W. P. Anderson.{{Cite news |date=1828-09-10 |title=Burr and Jackson |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/lexington-weekly-press-burr-and-jackson/165382549/ |access-date=2025-02-13 |work=Lexington Weekly Press |pages=2}} Meriweather Lewis left two trunks full of possessions and documents with William P. Anderson (recorded in some accounts as William C. Anderson). After Lewis' death on the Natchez Trace in 1809, William Clark wrote his brother that he was going to check with Anderson about the papers. According to an inventory signed by Anderson, William R. Boote, John Brahan, and Thomas Freeman, most but not all of the items and papers in the trunks were sent to Washington, D.C. in November 1809, a handful of items were left with Anderson, the most substantial of which was "One Tomahawk—handsomely moun[te]d."{{sfnp|Jackson|1962|pages=470–474}}{{sfnp|Rose|Davies|2017|pages=226–228}}

Anderson served under Jackson in the Tennessee militia before and during the War of 1812.{{sfnp|Johnson|1973|page=172}} In 1813 Anderson was named superintendent of the Nashville recruiting district.{{Cite news |date=1813-01-29 |title=Adjutant General's Office |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/weekly-raleigh-register-adjutant-general/155760603/ |access-date=2024-09-22 |work=Weekly Raleigh Register |pages=1}} During the war he was colonel of the 24th United States Infantry, and engaged in the battle of Fort Harrison. On the Natchez Expedition of 1813, Methodist chaplain Learner Blackman made his acquaintance and reported that Anderson was "a very polite and agreeable man talked much with me about Religion."{{Cite journal |last=Phelps |first=Dawson A. |date=1953 |title=The Diary of a Chaplain in Andrew Jackson's Army: The Journal of the Reverend Mr. Learner Blackman. December 28, 1812–April 4, 1813 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/42621154 |journal=Tennessee Historical Quarterly |volume=12 |issue=3 |pages=264–281 |issn=0040-3261}} According to the editors of The Papers of Andrew Jackson, Anderson was "Jackson's aide de camp from 1803 to 1812, when he resigned to accept a commission as lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army. The friendship ended sometime later, perhaps during Jackson's quarrel in 1817 with Anderson's father-in-law, John Adair."{{sfnp|Papers of A. Jackson, Vol. 2|1984|page=8}}

The cause of their falling out is unknown,{{sfnp|Correspondence, Vol. 3|1928|page=422}} but it might have started with "the ridiculous hotel brawl" between Jackson, Jesse Benton, and Thomas Hart Benton.{{sfnp|Johnson|1973|page=175}} During the 1828 election cycle, Anderson presented letters from the duel surgeon, Dr. May, about potential misconduct by Jackson during the Dickinson duel.{{sfnp|Johnson|1973|page=176}} Thomas Waggaman, a resident in Washington, D.C. who apparently had worked closely with Charles Dickinson prior to his death, wrote to Felix Robertson on the eve of the 1828 election about the "Tennessee opposition" that "Col. Anderson's conduct appears to me at this distance equally strange and his motives must be very strong to justify a course characterized by so much violence."Thomas E. Waggaman, Washington, to Felix Robertson, 1828 November 29, id128670, Box: 1. Tyler Family Papers, Group H, 01/Mss. 65 T97 Group H. Special Collections Research Center. College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia Frustrated at the harassment unleashed by Jackson's campaign, Anderson ultimately released a public letter addressed to Jackson, his former friend:

{{blockquote|text=1st. Your besetting sins are, ambition, and the love of money. To acquire the latter you will act miserly and oppress your best friends; and when in pursuit of either, you are not what you profess to be.

2d. You are naturally and constitutionally irritable, overbearing and tyrannical.

3d. You are incapable of expending any charity toward those who happen to differ with you in opinion.

4th. You cannot investigate dispassionately any interesting or important subject, and if you could, your knowledge and abilities are not equal to the task.

5th. When you become the enemy of any man, you will put him down if you can, no matter by what means, fair or foul, honorable or dishonorable; if it be consistent with your views of popularity and interest, you will turn about and support the very man you have before attempted to destroy and pull down. These examples will suffice for the present; the Hon. Wm. H. Crawford, Gen. John Adair, and Col. Thos. H. Benton.

6th. You are miserably deficient in principle, and have seldom or never had power without abusing it.|source=Col. William P. Anderson (1828) }}

This got Anderson called a man "whose mind is much disturbed and shattered" by Jackson partisans, and the effort was ultimately to no avail: Jackson went on to eight years in the White House, while Anderson returned to private life.{{sfnp|Johnson|1973|pages=177–178}} Anderson died in April 1831.{{sfnp|Anderson|Anderson|1896|page=58}}

William P. Anderson had a brother named Patton Anderson, who apparently worked as a trader of land warrants, horses, and slaves.{{Sfnp|Campbell|2017|pp=52–54}} Judge Jo. C. Guild of Rose Mont wrote of "my uncle, Conn, Stokely Donelson, Patton Anderson, and several others, as fierce as bull dogs" escorting Andrew Jackson when he arrived at a racetrack sometime between 1805 and 1810 to declare that Jackson's opponent's horse ought to be disqualified.{{Cite web |title=Old times in Tennessee, with historical, personal, and political scraps and sketches. By Jo. C. Guild |url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433081844098&seq=67&q1=Patton |access-date=2025-04-28 |website=HathiTrust |language=en}} Patton Anderson and Andrew Jackson apparently jointly organized a series of cockfights for Fourth of July week in 1809, which were heavily patronized and during which "large sums of money and several horses were exchanged."{{Cite book |last=Brady |first=Cyrus Townsend |url=https://archive.org/details/trueandrewjackso00brad/page/62/mode/2up |title=The true Andrew Jackson |date=1906 |publisher=Philadelphia, London, J.B. Lippincott Company |others=The Library of Congress |pages=61–62}} On October 24, 1810, W. P. Anderson's brother Patton Anderson was shot and killed by David Magness in Shelbyville, Tennessee.{{Sfnp|Campbell|2017|p=3}} The Magnesses were defended by Felix Grundy in their first trial, during which Patton Anderson was characterized as an unruly drunk and a violent character generally.{{Sfnp|Campbell|2017|p=60}} The Magnesses also seemed to have unsavory reputations. Lawyers examining witnesses asked questions like "Did you ever bite off Dick Scruggs' nose?"{{Sfnp|Campbell|2017|p=62}}

Character witnesses in Anderson's favor included Nashville mayor Joseph Coleman, and Andrew Jackson, who undermined the prosecution's case when he testified something to the effect of "Sir, my friend Patton Anderson was the natural enemy of villains and scoundrels!"{{Sfnp|Campbell|2017|pp=64–65}} None of the Magnesses were convicted of anything in the shooting death of Anderson, although by the time the cases were resolved two years later they had served considerable time in jail.{{Sfnp|Campbell|2017|pp=99–110}} The Magnesses later relocated to Arkansas.{{Sfnp|Campbell|2017|pp=111–119}} Future Tennessee governor Newton Cannon was one of the jurors who voted to acquit; apparently because of this he "became the object of Jackson's displeasure ...for some reason Cannon was marked by Jackson as the cause of the acquittal."{{Sfnp|Vance|1908|p=183}}

Anderson was married twice, and fathered a total of 10 children. He married first, Nancy Bell of Davidson County, Tennessee, in 1800.{{Cite news |date=1800-02-25 |title=Nashville, February 25 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-tennessee-gazette-nashville-februar/155761366/ |access-date=2024-09-22 |work=The Tennessee Gazette |pages=3}} She died in 1809.{{sfnp|Papers of A. Jackson, Vol. 2|1984|pages=128–129}} His second wife, Margaret Lapsley Adair, was a daughter of politician John L. Adair of Kentucky. One of Anderson's sons by his second marriage was J. Patton Anderson who served as a colonel of the Mississippi Rifles in the Mexican-American War and was a general of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War.{{sfnp|Anderson|Anderson|1896|page=57}}

Anderson was a member of a Masonic lodge in Tennessee that was founded by James Robertson around 1789.{{sfnp|Kelley|1987|p=8}} Other members of the Masonic lodge included John Childress, Andrew Jackson, Seth Lewis, Howell Tatum, Bennett Searcy, and Robert Searcy.{{sfnp|Kelley|1987|p=8}}

• Alabama real estate bubble of the 1810s
• Andrew Jackson and the slave trade in the United States

{{reflist}}

{{ref begin|indent=yes}}

• {{Cite journal |last1=Anderson |first1=J. Patton |author-link=J. Patton Anderson |last2=Anderson |first2=Etta |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZUSCadb9pF8C&pg=PA57PXZL9WIAXWULU4BHQQZKWE4CHDOAXOECASQAW |title=Autobiography of Gen. Patton Anderson, C.S.A. (Monticello, Florida, 1865) and Gen. Anderson's Different Commands During the War |journal=Southern Historical Society Papers |date=1896 |volume=XXIV |location=Richmond, Virginia |publisher=Virginia Historical Society |pages=57–72 |language=en}}
• {{Cite book |last=Campbell |first=Jack MacGregor |url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/on1040034531 |title=The Great Magness Trial: The Killing of Patton Anderson, The Trial of the Magness Family, & the Pursuit of Justice on the Tennessee Frontier |date=2017 |publisher=Braybree Publishing |isbn=978-1-940127-12-5 |lccn=2017278701 |location=Dickson, Tennessee |oclc=on1040034531}}
• {{Cite book |last=Dupre |first=Daniel S. |title=Alabama's Frontiers and the rise of the Old South |date=2018 |publisher=Indiana University Press |isbn=978-0-253-03152-5 |series=History of the trans-Appalachian frontier |location=Bloomington, Indiana}}
• {{Cite book |title=Legal Papers of Andrew Jackson |date=1987 |publisher=University of Tennessee Press |isbn=978-0-87049-355-3 |editor-last=Ely |editor-first=James W. Jr. |language=en |editor-last2=Brown |editor-first2=Theodore Jr.}}
• {{Cite book |editor-last=Jackson |editor-first=Donald Dean |url=https://archive.org/details/lettersoflewiscl0000jack/mode/1up |title=Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition : with related documents, 1783–1854 |date=1962 |location=Urbana, Illinois |publisher=University of Illinois Press |via=Internet Archive }}
• {{cite journal |last=Johnson |first=Patricia Givens |date=April 1973 |volume=47 |issue=2 |pages=171–178 |title=William P. Anderson and 'The May Letters' |url=https://filsonhistorical.org/wp-content/uploads/publicationpdfs/47-2-5_William-P.-Anderson-and-The-May-Letters._Johnson-Patricia-Givens.pdf |journal=Filson Club History Quarterly |location=Louisville, Kentucky |issn=0015-1874

|oclc=6674913 }} {{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 }}
• {{cite book |last=Roberts |year=2020 |first=Frances Cabaniss |editor-last1=Reidy |editor-first1=Thomas |title=The Founding of Alabama: Background and Formative Period in the Great Bend and Madison County |location=Tuscaloosa |publisher=University of Alabama Press |orig-date=1956 |id={{Project MUSE|72323|type=book}} |lccn=2019018459 |isbn=9780817320430 |oclc=1133266247 |language=en-us}}
• {{Cite book |last1=Rose |first1=Richard |last2=Davies |first2=Phillip L. |date=2017 |url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.12987/9780300149081/html |title=Dear Brother: Letters of William Clark to Jonathan Clark |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-14908-1 |doi=10.12987/9780300149081}}
• {{cite thesis |last=Vance |date=1908 |first=Mildred Ethel |degree=M.A. |publisher=University of Wisconsin |url=https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/005749854 |title=Tennessee Politics in the Jackson Era |oclc=608865724}}
• {{cite book |last1=Various |author-last2=Jackson |author-first2=Andrew |year=1926 |title=Correspondence of Andrew Jackson, Volume I, to April 30, 1814 |url=https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001639368 |location=Baltimore, Maryland |publisher=The Lord Baltimore Press |lccn=26007292 |oclc=2533564 |editor-last1=Bassett |editor-first1=John Spencer |editor-link1=John Spencer Bassett |series=Carnegie Institution of Washington Papers of the Historical Research Department No. 371 |ref={{harvid|Correspondence, Vol. 1|1926}} |via=HathiTrust}} {{PD-inline}} {{free access}}
• {{cite book |last1=Various |author-last2=Jackson |author-first2=Andrew |year=1928 |title=Correspondence of Andrew Jackson, Volume III, 1820–1828 |url=https://archive.org/details/correspondenceof0003unse_q4f7/page/n5/mode/2up |location=Baltimore, Maryland |publisher=The Lord Baltimore Press |editor-last1=Bassett |editor-first1=John Spencer |series=Carnegie Institution of Washington Papers of the Historical Research Department No. 371, Vol. III |ref={{harvid|Correspondence, Vol. 3|1928}} |via=Internet Archive}} {{free access}}
• {{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 |year=1984 |publisher=University of Tennessee Press |location=Knoxville, Tennessee |isbn=978-0-87049-441-3 |lccn=79015078 |oclc=5029597 |ref={{harvid|Papers of A. Jackson, Vol. 2|1984}} }} {{free access}}

{{ref end}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Anderson, William Preston}}

Category:Businesspeople from Nashville, Tennessee

Category:1775 births

Category:1831 deaths

Category:United States attorneys

Category:18th-century American lawyers

Category:19th-century American lawyers

Category:Land speculation in the United States

Category:American military personnel of the War of 1812

Category:American slave owners

Category:American surveyors

Category:Tennessee National Republicans

Category:Burr conspiracy