<!--See WP:STRONGNAT-->
Horatio Nelson Jackson (March 25, 1872 – January 14, 1955) was a Canadian-American physician, Army medical officer, businessman, and automobile pioneer. In 1903, he and his hired mechanic and driving partner Sewall K. Crocker became the first people to drive an automobile across the United States, a road trip from San Francisco to New York City, with additional miles travelled to his home in Vermont.
Jackson served in World War I and was a key organizer of the American Legion, where he held the position of Vice Commander. He was also the owner of the Burlington Daily News, president of the Burlington Trust Bank, and owner of the first local radio station WCAX. He was nicknamed "The Mad Doctor."
Early life and medical career
thumb|H. Nelson Jackson as a physician in Vermont
Jackson was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, on March 25, 1872, a son of Samuel Nelson Jackson (1838–1913) and Mary Anne (Parkyn) Jackson (1843–1916). His siblings included J. Holmes Jackson, who served several terms as mayor of Burlington, Vermont and S. Hollister Jackson, who served as Lieutenant governor of Vermont until his death in the great Vermont flood of 1927. Horatio N. Jackson also maintained a close lifelong relationship with his cousin, Dr. Herbert A. Parkyn, who was the founder of The Chicago School of Psychology.
Jackson attended the schools of Toronto and Toronto's collegiate institute. 20 hp Winton, which he named the Vermont, after his home state, bade his wife goodbye, and left San Francisco on May 23, carrying coats, rubber protective suits, sleeping bags, blankets, canteens, a water bag, an axe, a shovel, a telescope, tools, spare parts, a block and tackle, cans for extra gasoline and oil, a Kodak camera, a rifle, a shotgun, and pistols.
Heeding the failed attempt by automobile pioneer Alexander Winton (founder of the Winton Motor Carriage Company, which manufactured Jackson's car) to cross the deserts of Nevada and Utah, Jackson decided to take a more northerly route through the Sacramento Valley and along the Oregon Trail. This allowed them to avoid the higher passes in the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountains.
Journey
thumb|right|Jackson driving the Vermont on the 1903 cross-country drive
On May 23, 1903, the car was transported by ferry from San Francisco to Oakland and pointed eastward. But only into the journey, the car blew a tire. Jackson and Crocker replaced it with the only spare they had, in fact, the only right-sized spare tire they could find in all of San Francisco.
On the first night of the journey they discovered that the side lanterns were too dim. On the second night, they stopped early in Sacramento and replaced them with a large spotlight mounted on the front of the Vermont. Jackson had wanted a dog companion since Sacramento. (equivalent to $ in ). It turned out that the dusty alkali flats the travelers encountered would bother Bud's eyes so much (the Vermont had neither a roof nor windshield) that Jackson eventually fitted him with a pair of goggles. At one point, Bud drank bad water and became ill, but survived.
At this point, the trio became celebrities. The press came out at every stop to take their picture and conduct interviews. At Mountain Home, Idaho, citizens warned them that the Oregon Trail was not good further east, so Jackson and Crocker veered off their original course along the southern edge of the Sawtooth Mountains. At Hailey, Idaho, Crocker wired the Winton Company for more parts.
thumb|left|H. Nelson Jackson on his drive
On June 16, somewhere in Idaho, Jackson's coat, containing most of the travelers' money, fell off and was not found. At their next stop, Jackson had to wire his wife to send them money to Cheyenne, Wyoming. Between June 20 and 21, all three of them got lost in Wyoming, and went without food for 36 hours before finding a sheepherder who gave them a meal of roast lamb and boiled corn. The only mishap happened just east of Buffalo, New York, when the Vermont ran into a hidden obstacle in the road and Jackson, Crocker, and Bud were thrown from the car. Their trip expended over of gasoline.thumb|Bud the dog became an instant celebrity and was used in many advertisements.After leaving New York City, Jackson joined his wife and drove home to Vermont. About from home, his car, once again, broke down. His two brothers, each driving his own automobile, came to help him get going again. Shortly after returning to the road, both of the brothers' vehicles broke down, and Jackson towed them both home with the Vermont. Upon reaching the threshold of Jackson's garage, the Vermonts drive chain snapped. It was one of the few original parts never replaced during the entire journey.
In 1903, Dr. Jackson visited Mexico and secured options on several silver mining properties in Santa Eulalia, in the state of Chihuahua. He brought the opportunity to San Francisco, where a company was organized to acquire and develop the properties. This was the same trip that he would then drive back across the country from. In 1904, Dr. Jackson was appointed Managing Director and spent a significant portion of the next six years in Mexico overseeing operations. In 1910, he negotiated the sale of the "Buena Tierra" mine to the Exploration Company of England and Mexico.
World War I
thumb|Horatio Nelson Jackson known as the Daddy of the [[American Legion.]]
A longtime member of the Vermont National Guard when World War I broke out, Jackson was considered too old for active service, but he contacted the former President Theodore Roosevelt, a good friend with whom he often vacationed in his New York summer home, and through his influence Jackson was placed on active duty as a captain in the Medical Corps. While attached to the 313th Infantry, 79th Division as a surgeon, Jackson sustained a gunshot wound in the right forearm near Montfaucon during the Meuse–Argonne Offensive.
His Commanding officer wrote: "Your service as a Medical officer could not have been surpassed, and your great assistance in, at all times going about over the field and encouraging the men to go forward under fire in order that we could keep up the drive to the front we had started to, and the example you set to your men by your absolute disregard of your personal safety was such as to be of great assistance to the whole regiment as an offensive unit. You had trained your Sanitary personnel of the regiment to such a state that they funtioned perfectly. They not only looked after the wounded of your own regiment but many of those from other regiments who came into your lines, Your medical officers became inspired by your example and they, too, did heroic work." Prompted by a telegram from Theodore Roosevelt Jr., he attended the St. Louis caucus as the organization’s official organizer. By 1922, he had taken on a leadership role as a director of the American Legion Publishing Corporation.
A member of Burlington, Vermont Post No. 2, Jackson served as National Vice Commander from 1921 to 1922. He was widely recognized for his exceptional contributions to Vermont’s presence within the national organization. Over the years, he served as the state’s National Executive Committeeman and, during four years as an alternate, focused his efforts abroad. While in Europe, he helped organize FIDAC (the Inter-Allied Veterans Federation) and successfully arranged for representatives from ten allied nations to attend the American Legion’s national convention in New Orleans.
Awards and decorations
thumb|right|upright=0.72|Jackson in uniform after [[World War I ()]]
Jackson's military awards included the Distinguished Service Cross, the Legion of Honour, and the Croix de Guerre.
Distinguished Service Cross citation
Later life
Jackson served as a senior officer in the Officer Reserve Corps. He twice ran unsuccessfully for Governor of Vermont. In addition to owning and publishing the Burlington Daily News, he was head of the Burlington Trust Company, and owned and operated radio station WCAX (now WVMT). At one point he was ticketed for exceeding the speed limit in Burlington.
Jackson died on January 14, 1955, in Burlington, Vermont, and was buried in the Lakeview Cemetery there.
The Vermont
thumb|Exhibit at the [[National Museum of American History recreating H. Nelson Jackson's first successful North American transcontinental automobile trip in a 1903 Winton touring car, the Vermont]]In 1944, Jackson gave his Winton, the Vermont, to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., where it is preserved at the National Museum of American History.
H. Nelson Jackson and Bertha would also serve as the unofficial adoptive parents to the two sons of another brother, Lieutenant Governor S. Hollister Jackson, who died in the Great Vermont Flood of 1927. His nephews, Nelson P. Jackson, a 1933 graduate of USMA, and Samuel H. Jackson II, would both serve as colonels in the United States Air Force.