Sometimes called the "Paul Revere of the South", Jouett rode to warn Thomas Jefferson, then the outgoing governor of Virginia that British cavalry had been sent to capture them.
38 Facts About Jack Jouett
1.
2.
Jack Jouett thrice served in the Virginia House of Delegates, first representing Lincoln County and later Mercer County before Kentucky's statehood.
3.
Jack Jouett represented Mercer County at the Danville Separation Convention in 1788.
4.
Jack Jouett later served three terms in the Kentucky House of Representatives, first representing Mercer County, then adjoining Woodford County.
5.
The elder Jack Jouett held a license to operate the Swan "ordinary" in Albemarle County, Virginia.
6.
Jack Jouett owned 13 black slaves in 1790, which number declined to 11 slaves in 1799.
7.
Jack Jouett's paternal grandfather, Jean Jouett, was a French Huguenot who had settled in Virginia in the early 1700s.
8.
Jack Jouett's mother, Mourning Harris, was a daughter of Revolutionary War veteran Harrison Harris, and a descendant of Sir William Harris, who signed the third Virginia charter and was knighted in 1611.
9.
Jack Jouett became a captain in the 16th Regiment of the Virginia militia during the American Revolutionary War, during which all three of his brothers served.
10.
Jack Jouett needed to ride fast enough to outrun the British.
11.
Jack Jouett soon encountered a train of 13 supply wagons at Boswell's Tavern bound for South Carolina where General Nathanael Greene led the main branch of the Continental Army in the South.
12.
At Monticello, Jack Jouett awoke Jefferson and his guests, several Virginia legislators.
13.
Jack Jouett then remounted to ride 2 miles further to warn the town of Charlottesville.
14.
Jack Jouett had breakfast with the legislators before making arrangements to leave, including spending two hours gathering his papers together.
15.
Jack Jouett continually checked the Charlottesville path up the mountain with his telescope for signs of the British.
16.
Jack Jouett's warning allowed most legislators to escape; however, seven were captured.
17.
Jack Jouett rode with General Stevens as he made his escape, but the wounded Stevens could not ride quickly enough to keep the British from catching up.
18.
Jack Jouett was wearing an ornate military costume with a scarlet coat and a plumed hat, and Stevens was dressed in shoddy clothing.
19.
British cavalry assumed that Jack Jouett must be a high military officer, so they ignored the shabby general, and pursued Jack Jouett, who successfully eluded them.
20.
Jack Jouett received the pistols in 1783, but the sword was re-ordered in 1804, and no documentation indicates Jack Jouett actually received it.
21.
In 1782, Jack Jouett moved across the Appalachian Mountains to Kentucky County, where veterans received land claims for their service.
22.
Jack Jouett attempted to help by knocking down the husband, only to have the wife hit him over the head with a pot.
23.
Jack Jouett fled the scene and traveled 35 miles before he found a blacksmith to remove the pot.
24.
Jack Jouett was among the ten men founding the town of New Market at the confluence of the Dick's and Kentucky Rivers.
25.
Shortly after Jack Jouett moved to Kentucky, the large county was divided into Lincoln, Jefferson and Mercer Counties.
26.
Jack Jouett served one term from Lincoln County before Mercer County's creation, then one term from Mercer County before local voters replaced both by Samuel Taylor and Alexander Robinson.
27.
Jack Jouett favored Kentucky's statehood at the Separation Convention held in Danville, Kentucky in 1788, in which he and Thomas Allen were Mercer County's two delegates.
28.
Politics being a part-time occupation, Jack Jouett farmed using enslaved labor.
29.
Jack Jouett built a house there in 1797, but would later return to Mercer County in the same general region.
30.
Jack Jouett married Sallie Robards in Mercer County, Kentucky in 1784.
31.
Jack Jouett settled in Lexington to paint portraits and miniatures.
32.
Matthew Jack Jouett studied with Gilbert Stuart in Boston, but he spent winters in New Orleans, Natchez and other cities, and was buried in the family burying ground of his father-in-law, William Allen.
33.
Jack Jouett had another notable martial descendant through Matthew, his grandson James Edward "Fighting Jim" Jack Jouett, who began his naval career as a midshipman in 1841.
34.
Jack Jouett served under Admiral Farragut, including in the Union Navy during the American Civil War, rose to the rank of Rear Admiral, ultimately retired to Sandy Spring, Maryland and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
35.
Jack Jouett died March 1,1822, at his daughter's house near Owingsville in Bath County, Kentucky.
36.
Jack Jouett is buried in Bath County at the "Peeled Oak" farm in an unmarked grave.
37.
Local Bath County historians such as John A Richards have concluded that Jack did die while at his daughter's home but he was buried at the Tanyard Graveyard, a place where many Revolutionary War Veterans of the area were known to have been laid to rest, two miles northeast of Jack's Woodford Farm.
38.
Jack Jouett's parting steed he spurred, In haste to carry the warning To that greatest statesman of any age, The Immortal Monticello Sage.