Florida Historical Markers Programs - Marker Detail

Description: Constructed in the 1880s, this frame vernacular building was the residence of Dr. James Middleton Jackson and his wife, Mary Glenn (née Shands). Around 1846, the Jackson and Shands families migrated to Hamilton County, Florida, from Chester County, South Carolina. Jackson graduated from the Medical College of New Orleans (now Tulane University), and the couple married in 1858. Jackson enlisted in the Confederate Army in 1863 to serve as a surgeon in Captain E.J. Lutterloh’s company. In 1866, their son, James M. Jackson Jr, was born in White Springs, and the family moved to Bronson shortly thereafter. For more than 50 years, Dr. Jackson cared for the people of Levy County, not only as their physician, but also as a member of the Levy County School Board and County Commission. Mary came from a family who worked long and hard to bring health care to north central Florida. James Jr followed in his father's footsteps and graduated from Bellevue Hospital Medical College in New York. He set up practice in Miami in 1896, and upon his death in 1924, Miami City Hospital was renamed Jackson Memorial Hospital in his honor. The Jackson home was relocated to this site in 1998, and serves as the Town Hall of Bronson.