John Carmichael Jenkins (1809–1855) was an American plantation owner, medical doctor and

horticulturalist Horticulture is the branch of agriculture that deals with the art, science, technology, and business of plant cultivation. It includes the cultivation of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, herbs, sprouts, mushrooms, algae, flowers, seaweeds and no ...

in the

Antebellum South In History of the Southern United States, the history of the Southern United States, the Antebellum Period (from la, ante bellum, lit=Status quo ante bellum, before the war) spanned the Treaty of Ghent, end of the War of 1812 to the start of ...

Biography

Early life

Jenkins was born on December 13, 1809, at the Windsor Forge Mansion in

Churchtown, Pennsylvania Churchtown is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Caernarvon Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, United States, along Pennsylvania Route 23. The population was 470 as of the 2010 census. History The first sett ...

.University of Miami Libraries
/ref>
, Mississippi Department of Archives & HistoryWilliam Kauffman Scarborough, ''Masters of the Big House: Elite Slaveholders of the Mid-nineteenth-century South'', New Orleans, Louisiana: Louisiana State University Press, 2006, pp. 128–12

/ref>Louisiana State University Libraries: Jenkins (John C. and Family) Papers
/ref> His father was Robert Jenkins (Pennsylvania politician), Robert Jenkins (1769–1848), a Congressman from Pennsylvania, and Catherine Carmichael (1774–1853).

Cortlandt Van Rensselaer Cortlandt Van Rensselaer (26 May 1808, in Albany, New York – 25 July 1860, in Burlington, New Jersey) was a Presbyterian clergyman from the United States. Early life He was a son of General Stephen Van Rensselaer and Cornelia Bell Paterson, hi ...

(ed.), ''The Presbyterian Magazine'', W. H. Mitchell, 1857, Volume 7, Issue 4, p. 18

/ref> He had one brother, David Jenkins (1800–1850), and six sisters, Elizabeth Jenkins (1803–1870), Mary Jenkins (1805–1859), Martha Jenkins (1805–1890), Phoebe Ann Jenkins (1807–1872), Catharine Jenkins (1812–1886), and Sarah Jenkins (1817-unknown). He graduated from

Dickinson College , mottoeng = Freedom is made safe through character and learning , established = , type = Private liberal arts college , endowment = $645.5 million (2022) , president = J ...

Carlisle, Pennsylvania Carlisle is a Borough (Pennsylvania), borough in and the county seat of Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, United States. Carlisle is located within the Cumberland Valley, a highly productive agricultural region. As of the 2020 United States census, ...

, and received a Doctorate in Medicine from the

Medical School A medical school is a tertiary educational institution, or part of such an institution, that teaches medicine, and awards a professional degree for physicians. Such medical degrees include the Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS, M ...

at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

in 1833.

Career

He moved to the

Wilkinson County, Mississippi Wilkinson County is a County (United States), county located in the southwest corner of the U.S. state of Mississippi. As of 2020, its population was 8,587. Its county seat is Woodville, Mississippi, Woodville. Bordered by the Mississippi River ...

, to take over the medical practise of his uncle, John Flavel Carmichael (unknown-1837), a medical doctor and plantation owner who had become blind.Jack Baldwin, Winnie Baldwin, ''Baldwin's Guide to Inns of Mississippi'', Gretna, Louisiana: Pelican Publishing, 2000, p. 8

/ref> He owned several plantations in the

Natchez District The Natchez District was one of two areas established in the Kingdom of Great Britain's West Florida colony during the 1770sthe other being the Tombigbee District. The first Anglo settlers in the district came primarily from other parts of Britis ...

, some of which he inherited, some of which he purchased and developed. For example, he owned the Cold Spring Plantation in

Pinckneyville, Mississippi Pinckneyville is an unincorporated community in Wilkinson County, Mississippi. Its elevation is 239 feet (73 m). The town was named for the prominent Pinckney family of South Carolina, from which many of its settlers came. Charles Pinckney help ...

.Dennis William Hauck, ''Haunted Places: The National Directory: Ghostly Abodes, Sacred Sites, UFO Landings, and Other Supernatural Locations'', New York, New York: Penguin Books, 2002, p. 22

/ref> Additionally, he owned several other plantations like the

Stock Farm Plantation In finance, stock (also capital stock) consists of all the shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided.Longman Business English Dictionary: "stock - ''especially AmE'' one of the shares into which ownership of a company ...

near

Nesbit, Mississippi Nesbit is an unincorporated community in DeSoto County, Mississippi, United States. History A post office operated under the name Nesbits Station from 1869 to 1881 and began operating under the name Nesbit in 1881. In the early 1900s, an academ ...

, in

DeSoto County, Mississippi DeSoto County is a county located on the northwestern border of the U.S. state of Mississippi. As of the 2010 census, the population was 161,252, making it the third-most populous county in Mississippi. Its county seat is Hernando. DeSoto Cou ...

, the Tarbert Plantation in

, and another plantation in

West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana West Feliciana Parish (French: ''Paroisse de Feliciana Ouest''; Spanish: ''Parroquia de West Feliciana'') is a civil parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana. At the 2010 census, the population was 15,625, and 15,310 at the 2020 census. ...

. A horticulturalist, he would use his Natchez residence, Elgin, as a

plant nursery A nursery is a place where plants are propagated and grown to a desired size. Mostly the plants concerned are for gardening, forestry or conservation biology, rather than agriculture. They include retail nurseries, which sell to the general p ...

for different varieties of fruit trees and cotton he would later use on other plantations. He also produced hybrid species of

orchid Orchids are plants that belong to the family Orchidaceae (), a diverse and widespread group of flowering plants with blooms that are often colourful and fragrant. Along with the Asteraceae, they are one of the two largest families of flowering ...

s.Steven Brooke, ''The Majesty of Natchez'', Gretna, Louisiana: Pelican Publishing, 1999, p. 8

/ref> Additionally, he was a wine connoisseur and collector of wine vintages. He was a member of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, Academy of Natural Sciences, the

Historical Society of Pennsylvania The Historical Society of Pennsylvania is a long-established research facility, based in Philadelphia. It is a repository for millions of historic items ranging across rare books, scholarly monographs, family chronicles, maps, press reports and v ...

and the

American Pomological Society The American Pomological Society was founded by Marshall Pinckney Wilder in 1848, to foster the growing of fruit and the development of new varieties, and is the oldest fruit organization in North America. Publications The organization's primary ...

. He kept a diary from 1841 to 1855. He was a proponent of

slavery Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

, both as an economic necessity and a constitutional right.

Personal life

In 1839, he married Annis (Field Dunbar) Jenkins (1820–1855), the daughter of Dr. William Dunbar (1793–1847) and granddaughter of Sir

William Dunbar William Dunbar (born 1459 or 1460 – died by 1530) was a Scottish makar, or court poet, active in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. He was closely associated with the court of King James IV and produced a large body of work in ...

(1750–1810), of the

Forest Plantation A tree plantation, forest plantation, plantation forest, timber plantation or tree farm is a forest planted for high volume production of wood, usually by planting one type of tree as a monoculture forest. The term ''tree farm'' also is used to ...

near Natchez, Mississippi. They resided at Elgin in Natchez. They had four children: *Alice Dunbar Jenkins (1841–1929). *Mary Dunbar Jenkins (1843–1927). *Captain John Flavel Jenkins (1846–1927). He served in the

Confederate States Army The Confederate States Army, also called the Confederate Army or the Southern Army, was the military land force of the Confederate States of America (commonly referred to as the Confederacy) during the American Civil War (1861–1865), fighting ...

and married Helen Louisa Winchester (1849–1917) of The Elms in Natchez. *Major William Dunbar Jenkins (1849–1914).

Death

He died of

yellow fever Yellow fever is a viral disease of typically short duration. In most cases, symptoms include fever, chills, loss of appetite, nausea, muscle pains – particularly in the back – and headaches. Symptoms typically improve within five days. In ...

on October 14, 1855, in Natchez.

Biography

Early life

Career

Personal life

Death

References

Further reading