Born in January 1807, Alfred Eugene Jackson was a native Tennessean who became one of the area’s most successful businessmen, achieving prominence as a financial agent for the East Tenn. & Va. Railroad, which he helped to found. During the Civil War he was appointed a brigadier general in the C.S. Army and assigned to duty in East Tennessee and Southwest Virginia, fighting with particular distinction at the Battle of Saltville in 1864. He died in 1889 and is buried in the Old Cemetery.