Oliver Toussaint Jackson was born April 6, 1862 to Hezekiah and Caroline Jackson. He grew up in Oxford, Ohio, a college town, and received primary schooling in the town along with five of his siblings. By age 14, Oliver began working in the restaurant industry as a server and caterer. In 1883, he worked in Cleveland with his brother James Harvey as a server and on a newspaper for Black people called The Gazette. Working for The Gazette may be when Jackson first became involved in politics, as the newspaper was supportive of the Republican Party. Later Jackson started working for a different Black newspaper, The Globe, which was Democratic leaning. In Cleveland he also worked for the Vendome restaurant, but left in 1888 for a new start in Denver. He began working in Denver in 1889 in a catering business called “Jackson and Vernell” with Ms. Jane Vernell. He married his first wife, Sadie Cook in September 1889 at age 27. By 1892, he moved to Boulder and began running a Stillman Cafe and Ice Cream Parlor. In 1896, he opened his own restaurant, the Stillman Lunch Counter, on Pearl Street, but this venture closed two years later. He also worked for the Boulder Chautauqua's restaurant, which was a social and educational assembly, the University Club and Douglas Social Club in Denver. In 1898, he purchased his first piece of farmland in Boulder County, naming it “Jackson’s Resort.” Jackson sold liquor and held parties with music and dancing. However, by 1905, a combination of prohibition and Ku Klux Klan influence gained motion in Boulder, resorting in Jackson getting arrested for selling liquor without a license and Jackson turning his public resort into a private club. He then listed the land for sale by the end of 1906. In this time period, Oliver’s wife, Sadie, passed away, and he married his second wife, Minerva. In 1908, he began working for the newly elected Governor Shafroth as a messenger. Talk of a Black colony was growing momentum in Colorado at this time, and the Negro Townsite and Land Company was formed in 1909. With all his other economic ventures failing, a farming community was the next step on O.T. Jackson’s journey towards prosperity and financial independence. With Governor Shafroth’s help, he found and paid for the initial 320 acres of Desert Claim land that was to become Dearfield.
O.T. Jackson was known for being a very reserved man. Many Dearfield residents described his demeanor as being not sociable or easy going. You wouldn’t see him chatting with town members after church, in fact he was not known to even attend church, which separated him from the cultural center of town. While Jackson worked as the Governor’s messenger, he spent the weekdays in Denver running the Dearfield Agency and working for the Governor, leaving Minerva to run the townsite and their businesses. In 1915, Jackson resigned from his messenger position, citing the success of Dearfield as the reason. Sometime before 1933, he regained his role, working with Governor Adams and Johnson for 14 months. In 1933, we was denied the position by Governor Johnson who found Jackson disloyal. Unlike many of the residents who moved to Dearfield, who hoped to run their farms and stay afloat, Jackson wanted more and more for the town. He urged settlers to work together as a community and support each others businesses, instead of searching elsewhere for cheaper prices. Jackson was known to be money oriented, and would adapt his vision for Dearfield and his life depending on what seemed profitable. Charles Rothwell described him as an “Uncle Tom” when discussing why he became disliked by the people of Dearfield. O.T. Jackson ran a filling station and a lunch room in Dearfield, and kept the businesses open long after the majority of Dearfield had cleared out. He lived in Dearfield until 1945 when he fell sick and had to move back to Denver. He passed away on February 23, 1948, leaving all of the funds from his checking account to Jennie Jackson, his niece who had moved to Dearfield in 1943.
1862 → Born, Oxford, Ohio
1883 → Working at Vendome Restaurant, Cleveland, Ohio
1888 → Moved to Denver, Colorado
1889 → Married Sadie C. Cook, Working with Jane Vernell
1892 → Moved to Boulder, Working at Stillman Cafe and Ice Cream Parlor
1896 → Owner of Stillman Lunch Counter
1898 → Began running Jackson's Resort
1905 → Sold Jackson's Resort farm
1905 → Married Minerva Matlock
1908 → Began working as Governor's Messenger
1910 → Purchased land in Weld County for Dearfield
1911 → Built property in Dearfield
1915 → Resigned from Governors Messenger position
<1933 → Began working for Governor again, fired in 1933
1934 → Sold/leased out Lunch Room
1942 → Minerva passed away
1943 → Jennie Jackson moved in
1948 → O.T. Jackson passed away
1973 → Jennie passed away
Hezekiah Jackson was born as a freeman around 1822 to parents Betsy and Berry Jackson in Virginia. He married Caroline V Chavous in Charlotte County in April of 1847. Caroline was born Virginia Caroline Chavous in 1829. She was born to Jacob and Phoebe, both free people at the time. In 1850, Caroline was counted on the Big Lick, Virginia census with the couple's first two children, Sarah and James. By 1860, the Jacksons moved to Oxford, Ohio, having four more children: Catherine, Clayborn, Oliver, and George. In June of 1868, Virginia Caroline gave birth to a set of twin boys: Edwin and Edward. Two months after their birth, she passed away on August 12th, 1868, and the twins passed that September. Hezekiah lived until 1881, working as a gardener and woodcutter.
Sadie was born Sarah C. Cook on October 10th, 1856 to Major and Pricilla Cook in Detroit, Michigan. In the late 80’s the family was living in Oberlin, Ohio, and Sadie’s sister, Jennie, had married James H. Jackson. Living with James was Oliver T. Jackson, who then became close with the Cook family. Sadie moved to Denver with Oliver in 1888, and the pair married in 1889. In 1900, the Jackson’s lived in Boulder with Oliver’s brother James, and their niece, Jennie. At some point prior to June of 1900, Sadie gave birth, according to the census that year, but the child did not live very long. By 1904, when conditions for Jackson’s Resort starting declining, Sadie moved back to Detroit, Michigan, where she died on the 1st of February, 1904.
Minerva Matlock was born in 1867 to James and Hannah. She had three siblings: Sarah, Thomas, and Mary. The Matlocks lived and farmed in St. Joseph, Missouri. Between 1880 and 1905, Minerva moved to Denver. In late June, 1905, Minerva purchased O.T. Jackson’s Resort in Boulder, Colorado. Two weeks later, on July 12, 1905, Minerva and Oliver married. In 1911, Minerva moved to Dearfield, supporting Oliver’s homesteading dream. That spring, Minerva’s father, James, moved to Boulder to take over the farm there, however a year later the buildings were burned, and James moved to Dearfield. At Dearfield, Minerva held a high position, managing the daily affairs of the townsite, the filling station, and lunch room during the week while Oliver pursued his other business ventures in Denver. She remained living in Dearfield with her husband until her death on December 14, 1942.
Jennie S. Jackson was born on April 24, 1884 in Morris, Minnesota to George and Francis Isadore Jackson. Her father George presumably passed away before June of 1895, and by 1900 she was living briefly with her uncles Oliver and James Jackson in Boulder, Colorado. At age 18, she married Lewis E. Allen on April 19, 1902 in Minnesota. By 1920 she was widowed or divorced living in Chicago and working as a laundress, and by 1935 she had moved to Los Angeles. Throughout her travels she made multiple visits to her Uncle Oliver’s homestead colony, and remarked on how lively the site was. In the early 1940s, O.T. reached out to ask her to move to Dearfield to help run the businesses and townsite. She moved there in 1943, following the death of Minerva, and began living in the old Dearfield Lodge. She was shocked by how much the Depression had changed the town, noting how desolate and rundown the streets began looking. By 1946 the Jackson’s began trying (unsuccessfully) to sell the townsite. When her uncle passed in 1948, Jennie inherited the Jackson’s property. She still had hope for Dearfield, insisting that one day the land will be worth something again and the people will come back. She spent all her time living at Dearfield until 1953, when she began living mostly in Greeley, and while still visiting Dearfield whenever possible. In Greeley she lived with a cousin named Ethel Carter and her husband, and played bingo. In January 1973, Jennie passed away, marking the end of the Jackson family’s life at Dearfield.
Throughout O.T. Jackson’s adult life he boarded multiple boys from the State Home for Dependent Children, which was a state-wide institution established in 1895 for neglected, homeless, or orphaned children. One boy was named George White, who lived with the Jacksons in Dearfield when the couple first moved there. Another boy, John Swan, was boarding with the Jacksons in 1930. While Minerva and Oliver never had any children of their own, they sent these boys to school in Masters and Dearfield once the school was built, homed them, and presumably used their help to work the couples land while they ran their multiple businesses.
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