Robert Jemison, Jr.

Robert Jemison, Jr. (September 17, 1802 in Lincoln County, Georgia – October 16, 1871 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama) was a Civil War era politician who voted against the secession of Alabama and later became the state's Confederate senator from 1863–1865.He also served in the Alabama General Assembly from 1837 until 1863. He used the Jr. behind his name to distinguish himself from an uncle of the same name.

Jemison owned multiple businesses, running a stagecoach line, toll roads, toll bridges, grist mills, sawmills, turnpikes, stables, a hotel, and plank roads. He owned six plantations in western Alabama, totaling 10,000 acres (4,000 ha). The largest was his 4,000-acre (1,600 ha) Cherokee place plantation in what is now Northport, where he resided before building his townhouse, the Jemison-Van de Graaff Mansion, across the river in Tuscaloosa. Although against the secession of Alabama, he went on to the serve the Confederacy during the American Civil War and lost most of his monetary assets.

One of his businesses was the Tuscaloosa Bridge Company. It built two of the first covered bridges across the Black Warrior River. He and Horace King, a skilled multiracial slave from Russell County, became good friends when Jemison hired him to build bridges in eastern Mississippi. King became one of the most respected bridge designers and builders in the Deep South. In 1846, Jemison, along with his owner, John Godwin, obtained his freedom through an act of the Alabama Legislature. King built the last covered bridge at Tuscaloosa and Northport over the Black Warrior in 1872 just a few months after Jemison's death on October 16, 1871. Jemison made an arrangement with Tuscaloosa County for King to build the bridge and this bridge was the first of many that the county would build.

References

• Political Graveyard
• Confederate Congress bio