Mortimer Melville Jackson
Attorney general of Wisconsin Territory for nearly five years
Elected the first judge of the fifth judicial circuit after Wisconsin became a state
Chosen chief justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, but declined to serve
In 1861, President Abraham Lincoln appointed him to a post at the consulate in Halifax, Nova
Scotia. Jackson presided over the trial of William Caffee in 1842. Caffee shot and killed
Samuel Southwick at a housewarming in White Oak Springs. Jackson sentenced Caffee to be hanged
by the neck until dead. The sentence was carried out near the railroad depot in Mineral Point
before a large crowd
As reported in the History of Iowa County, 1881: "In November 1842, William Caffee suffered the
extreme penalty of the law and paid blood for blood. Just before the wretch was taken to the
gallows, he expressed a wish to have a raw slice from the heart of Judge Jackson, to eat."
