Rachel Stockley Donelson Chapter    

History

Rachel Stockley Donelson Chapter was organized by Miss Fanny Owen Walton, a descendant of John Donelson and Rachel Stockley Donelson, on October 15, 1930, to honor Mrs. John Donelson. 

In the first years of the chapter, lots of work was done in restoring the cemetery at Edenwold, located on the farm of deceased W.A. Donelson.  In 1948, 17 bodies of the Donelson family were moved to the cemetery at Hermitage near the grave of Rachel Stockley Donelson, 1715-1794.  Col. John Donelson, who was born in Virginia in 1718, was wounded, supposedly by Indians, and died about 1772-75, in an encampment on the banks of the Barren River in Kentucky. No one knows the exact place of his burial.

John Donelson and Rachel Stockley, a courageous woman, were married in 1739, and they had eleven children.  Their daughter, Rachel, married Andrew Jackson.  They were both from Virginia and came to Tennessee by boat, traveling 2,000 miles on the "Good Boat Adventure," landing at Ft. Nashborough after a four months' journey.

The Ancestors' room at National Headquarters has a lovely desk inscribed, "In Honor of Rachel Stockley Donelson, presented by Rachel Stockley Donelson DAR Chapter, Nashville, Tennessee."

The chapter has made generous contributions to the building fund of Memorial Continental Hall in Washington, D.C., the rose garden, furnishings for the Tennessee Room, Memorial Tower fund, and many other things as requests have been received.

The chapter unveiled a monument at the grave of Rachel Stockley Donelson at the Donelson Cemetery, and a tablet, dedicated to the memory of Col. John Donelson, was placed on the Hermitage Presbyterian Church on April 24, 1933.  This was on the 153rd anniversary of their landing at Ft. Nashborough.

All twenty-one of the original charter members were descendants of

John Donelson.

Miss Laura Wade

Mrs. Horatio Berry 

Miss Sara Crosby Berry

Mrs. Carlton Brush

Mrs. Charles L. Cornelius 

Mrs. William L. Dismukes

Mrs. Angie Cantrell Merritt

Mrs. Woodford H. Dunn 

Mrs. J. M. Ford 

Mrs. William L. Franklin 

Mrs. John Thomas Franklin

Mrs. Thomas Goodall 

Mrs. Andrew Houston King

Mrs. Wallace G. Long

Mrs. George F. Miller 

Mrs. Robert Vaughn 

Miss Lizziedine K. Wade 

Miss Fanny Owen Walton

Mrs. William B. Walton 

Mrs. Malcolm R. Williams 

Mrs. Trezevant Yeatman