People of Middle Tennessee

It is thought that James Franklin helped Colonel Gasper Mansker build his fort near present day Goodlettsville, Tennessee, in either 1779 or 1780. [See picture of Mansker's Fort reproduction]


James Franklin was the father of Isaac Franklin [ who was the subject of the book by Wendell Holmes Stephenson, Isaac Franklin, slave trader and planter of the Old South, Louisiana State University Press, 1938]. Isaac Franklin was the first husband of Adelicia Hayes Franklin Acklin, daughter of Oliver Bliss Hayes.

Thomas Hart Benton, who had a complicated relationship with Andrew Jackson, had a law partnership with Oliver Bliss Hayes in the Nashville area before he (Hayes) left his law practice to become a minister. Not only did Oliver Bliss Hayes have Acklin grandchildren, he and Jefferson Davis had mutual descendants. Oliver Bliss Hayes' grandson, Joel Bliss Hayes, Jr., married Jefferson & Varina (Howell) Davis's daughter, Margaret.