Andrew Jackson's duel victim, once forgotten, gets second burial
More than 200 years after he fell in a duel with a future president, and almost a century after his grave was lost and forgotten beneath someone's front lawn, Charles Dickinson will be laid to rest again.
President Andrew Jackson took part in more than a dozen duels over the course of his life. But Nashville attorney Charles Dickinson was the only man he killed.
Dickinson's lost tomb had been an enduring
mystery to Nashville historians. He was laid to rest on his father-in-law's estate, but when the old plantation was subdivided and developed in the 1920s, his elaborate box tomb vanished, and the exact location of the gravesite was forgotten.
Since 2004, archaeologists have returned repeatedly to dig up the front yard at 216 Carden Ave., where they believed his grave must be. Last summer, they found him, or what was left of him — the hexagonal outline of an old coffin, a collection of corroded nails and a single human finger bone....
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President Andrew Jackson took part in more than a dozen duels over the course of his life. But Nashville attorney Charles Dickinson was the only man he killed.
Dickinson's lost tomb had been an enduring
mystery to Nashville historians. He was laid to rest on his father-in-law's estate, but when the old plantation was subdivided and developed in the 1920s, his elaborate box tomb vanished, and the exact location of the gravesite was forgotten.
Since 2004, archaeologists have returned repeatedly to dig up the front yard at 216 Carden Ave., where they believed his grave must be. Last summer, they found him, or what was left of him — the hexagonal outline of an old coffin, a collection of corroded nails and a single human finger bone....