Editor’s note: The author, Steve Bailey, is outreach coordinator at the Anson County Historical Society.
Did you know that Andrew Jackson – the seventh president of the United States and the dude on the $20 bill – received his law license in Anson County? According to “History of Anson County” by Mary Medley (page 66), on Sept 26, 1787, Jackson spent the night at Buck’s Tavern in uptown Wadesboro in order to obtain a license to practice law.
In 1937, Virginia Horne of the Wadesboro Chapter of the DAR went to the state archives to obtain a copy of Jackson’s law license, which states the following: “Anson County, October Session, 1787, These may certify that Andrew Jackson Esquire produced the within commission authorizing him to practice as an attorney within the State of North Carolina before the Justices of the County Court of Anson & was qualified in due form.”
First United Methodist Church now stands where Buck’s Tavern once stood. According to the church’s history: “In the early 1880s our forefathers decided that is was time to make a big move to provide adequate facilities for their growing Church. They selected and purchased in 1883 and 1888 a very desirable location on the corner of Morgan and Greene streets known as the Buck Tavern lot, part of our present property, and proceeded to make plans for a new church.”