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Lakeshore? as fourteen miles.7 This distance, subtracted from the eighteen miles to the bay, approximates the distance from the Russ Place to the bay.
Interestingly, Wailes, in visiting with Russ, observed the latter?s attempt to drain the nearby marsh. This corresponds with what has become known as the Jackson Marsh on local maps.
On May 22, 1857, Samuel wrote a letter to his sister, Rachel Jackson Lawrence. Several passages offer an insight into the Jackson family life and suggest that their father had not finished his shopping. He mentions that ?Pa? had arrived, but Samuel thought that ?Pa does not like this place as well as he did at first.? He added that his father ?spoke of going to see a place near New Orleans... the price of the place is $30,000.?
Two months later, Samuel wrote to his father, and expressed some concern. That text follows: ?You told me to say to Judge Beasley you would take the 80 acres next to Judge Bass. Judge Beverly told me you had bought when you came down the last time. And wrote to me to know if I had received a check from you he sayed you told him you would send it as soon as you arrived at Nashville. And is very anxious to receive it. And has been expecting it every day since you left.?
These passages have a bearing on subsequent events and proceedings to be discussed later in this text.
Samuel wrote to his sister again in September, expressing that he was looking forward daily to the arrival of their parents. The following month, their mother wrote to Rachel and described in detail the trip through Memphis and New Orleans on their way to ?the bay? and ultimately to Clifton.
The Fire
From this point, we have no correspondence until March 31 and April 4, 1858. In the first of these, Samuel, still at Clifton, wrote to Rachel; the second is a similar letter to his brother, Andrew Jackson III. Both letters reflect the gravity of some very bad news, telling of ?the entire destruction of the dwelling on the Russ Place.?
Samuel narrated that their father ?had engaged some workmen to make some repairs and for the entire house to be painted.? One night, after the carpenters had finished and the painters would have completed their work the next day, a fire spread through the house and the workmen barely escaped with their lives.
Samuel made clear in his letters that the parents had planned to take up residence at the Russ Place. He wrote, ?I had placed old uncle Ben and Creasy8 up there to take care of
7	Benjamin L. C. Wailes, Journal of Notes in Field, No. 4, August - September 1852. Mississippi State Department of Archives and History, 20076.0
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