“Previously to Jackson’s starting, he committed all his law business to me, at the same time assuring me that as soon as he should see Col. Stark and his family and Mrs. Robards situated with their friends, he would return and resume his practice. He descended the river, returned from Natchez to Nashville, and was at the Superior Court, in the latter place, in May, 1791, attending to his business as a lawyer and solicitor-general for the government. Shortly after this time, we were informed that a divorce had been granted by the Legislature of Virginia. “The divorce was understood by the people of this country to have been granted in the winter of 1790–1791. I was in Kentucky in the summer of 1791, remained at old Mrs. Robards’, my former place of residence, a part of the time, and never understood otherwise than that Captain Robards’ divorce was final, until the latter part of the year 1793. In the summer of 1791, General Jackson went to Natchez, and, I understood, married Mrs. Robards, then believed to be freed from Captain Robards, by the divorce in the winter of 1790–1791. They returned to Nashville, settled in the neighborhood of the city, where they have lived ever since, esteemed and beloved by all classes. “About the month of December, 1793, after General Jackson and myself had started to Jonesborough, in East Tennessee, where we practised law, I learned for the first time that Captain Robards had applied to Mercer Court, in Kentucky, for a divorce, which had then recently been granted; and that the Legislature had not absolutely granted a divorce, but left it for the Court to do. I need not express my surprise, on learning that the act of the Virginia Legislature had not divorced Captain Robards. I informed General Jackson of this, who was equally surprised; and during our conversation, I suggested the propriety of his procuring a license on his return home, and having the marriage ceremony again performed, so as to prevent all future cavilling on the subject. “To this suggestion, he replied that he had long since been married, on the belief that a divorce had been obtained, which was the understanding of every person in the country; nor was it without difficulty he could be induced to believe otherwise. [Illustration: THE FIRST RESIDENCE OF ANDREW JACKSON. ] “On our return home from Jonesborough, in January, 1794, to Nashville, a license was obtained, and the marriage ceremony again performed. “The slowness and inaccuracy with which information was obtained in Tennessee at that time, will not be surprising when we consider its insulated and dangerous situation, surrounded on every side by the wilderness, and by hostile Indians, and that there was no mail established until about 1797.”