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Jefferson Otterburn

Jefferson Otterburn (22 September 1805-19 January 1867) was an American Whig politician from Mississippi.

Biography[]

Jefferson Otterburn was born in Radford, Virginia in 1805, and he was named for President Thomas Jefferson. Otterburn was educated in Roanoke before opening a practice in Kingsport, Tennessee in 1827. Otterburn was initially affiliated with the Democratic-Republican Party's nationalist faction, as he advocated for internal improvements and was a moderate on the issue of slavery. Otterburn nevertheless took advantage of the expansion of white settlement into Mississippi and settled in Water Valley along the Enid Lake in the center of the state, founding the "Blue Ridge" plantation and growing cotton and indigo. Otterburn joined the National Republican Party in 1828 before joining the Whigs in 1834, and he served in the State House from 1834 to 1836. Otterburn maintained his conservative views throughout his life and backed the Constitutional Union Party on the eve of the American Civil War, though he passively supported the Confederacy during the ensuing conflict and made no effort to advocate for reunion. He joined the "Conservative Party" (effectively the Democrats) that formed in Mississippi during Reconstruction, and he died in Oxford in 1867.

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