Although everyone in the family has heard the stories grandma Molly used to tell about her Indian heritage I have as this writing not been able to find any trace of native American blood in the Combs line. But, the Jackson side is another story and various blood lines abound. Here is how I see it after combining all of the tales I have heard along with numerous documents and records.
Probably in a small village on the Mississippi River in what is now western Tennessee is where our progenitor was born about the year 1807. He was full-blooded Cherokee. His Indian name was told to me to be Powtan or Poutan or something similar. One must remember that these were troubled times for the eastern Cherokee and they were being continually pushed westward by the white man. An aspiring young General was trying to make a name for himself and was doing his level best to do it at the expense of the Indian. His name was Andrew Jackson.
As the story goes, General Jackson was leading a raiding party into Tennessee, probably around the year 1815, and came upon the village where our ancestors lived. He ordered his men to spare noone and they did not. Every man, woman and child was massacred. While assembling his men General Jackson heard some faint crying sounds and after a search was conducted he found two small children hidden in a hollowed out tree stump. Their mother had put them there for safety before the soldiers killed her. Jackson took these children, a boy and a girl, back with him to be used as slaves. One took the name Elizabeth Jackson and it is said that she married a black man and moved to the Chicago area. The other took the name Porter Jackson and I would have to guess that after the death of the then President Andrew Jackson, Porter was set free. Porter was in Virginia at this time and this is where he met his wife to be, Mary.
Porter married in 1843 to Mary. This is all that I know about this woman. She is listed with Porter every census and she is listed as either Indian or mulatto. Whether or not she really was Indian is not yet known and may never be known. On the census she gives her birth year as 1827 and in the state of Virginia. Mary was a full 20 years younger than Porter. Their first child was James b. 1844 followed by Ellen b. 1846, Martha b. 1850, David b. 1851. Their next child was Mary b. 1853 and she was the first of their children to be born in their new home in Breathitt Co. Ky. Porter and Mary had moved from Va. to Ky. sometime around 1852. Other children followed; Sarah b. 1855, Parriott b. 1857 and their last child John Anderson Jackson b. 2 Dec. 1859.
For whatever reason old Porter packed up and moved to Perry Co. Ky. during the 1860s and reversed his name thus becoming Jackson Porter. This makes me think that maybe Porter got into a bit of trouble and opted for a change of scenery. He had the good fortune to run into the Reverend William Stidham who let him settle on some of his land which was later purchased by John A. Jackson and became the old homestead on Meadow Branch. By the 1880 census Porter and Mary had once again taken the Jackson surname and were well established in Perry County. The closest thing to a will for Porter was a conveyance from Porter to his son John in 1884 which gave all of his land and material possessions to John if John would provide for and keep Porter for his remaining years. I can find no further records on Porter after 1884. There are two unmarked graves in the Jackson cemetery on Meadow Branch which are located on either side of an old tree which I believe belong to Porter and Mary. All of the graves that lie in a straight line away from these two graves are Jacksons so this is how I came up with my deduction.
After Porters death John Jackson took over the old homestead and married in 1885 to Martha Stidham, the daughter of Morris and Polly Campbell Stidham. John and Martha lived out their lives on Meadow Branch along with their six children; Polly, Elvira, James, Joseph, Elizabeth and Mary. I never heard any bad things about John but the way I understand it, he didn't take much lip from anyone, even if he was a little on the short side. The pictures I have seen of John always show him with a large handle-bar mustache and dad said that he smoked a pipe and would thump you on the head with it if you made him mad. John would say that the pipe was there so he could bite down on it and tighten his teeth.
Martha died in 1929 and John passed on in 1947. Both are buried in the Jackson Cemetery on Meadow Branch. Their son James was born in 1892 and worked in the mines for awhile until the good Lord called him to preach. He teamed up with another preacher named ticky Jim and they went on the circuit spreading the word of God. Jim evidently was quite prominent among the churches in the area because he eventually was named to the governing body of the churches. This unfortunately didn't last long mainly because of Jim's desire for moonshine and women. I heard that he took to hoboing and would catch a train to New York and back again just to get away. He did all this while married to Cora Collins whom he married in 1915. Cora was the daughter of Arch and Cynth Hacker Collins. Jim finally divorced Cora and remarried to Martha Campbell and had six more children by her, he and Cora had nine - 15 total children. Jim died in 1975.