Photo provided to the Times Observer/Times Observer photo by Josh Cotton Above, a photo of the Jackson homestead. Below, Robert H. Jackson Center Founder Greg Peterson interviews, at right, Tom Loftus, one of Robert H. Jackson’s grandchildren.

A grandson, a biographer and some local residents walk onto a property.

It might sound like the start of a joke but it was exactly the scenario that unfolded at the Spring Creek homestead that was the birthplace of Supreme Court Associate Justice and US Chief Prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials Robert H. Jackson.

Jackson was born in Spring Creek in 1892 and raised in Frewsburg, New York.

He didn’t go to college, instead obtaining an apprenticeship with a Jamestown law firm before going to law school in Albany, though he was denied a law degree because he was under the age of 21.

He returned to Jamestown, apprenticed for another year, and then passed the New York bar exam, serving in private practice until the 1930s.

Jackson became solicitor general in 1938, Attorney General in 1941 and then an associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court until his death in 1954, during which time he took leave from the court to serve as the chief prosecutor for the US in the Nuremberg trial, which prosecuted Nazi war criminals.

The family moved when Jackson was just five years old but the area remained a special place for him and his family.

The Robert H. Jackson Center is leading the effort to uncover and document the homestead just off of Hyers Rd. in Spring Creek Township.

RHJ Center Founder Greg Peterson said that the Center isn’t looking to take on any new construction at the site.

“You can see what once was,” Peterson said.

Joining with the Mercyhurst University archaeology department, the end result will include a dig at the site and a report of the findings.

“(That) monograph is the Robert H. Jackson Center’s end goal,” Peterson said.

The property is owned by Glendorn Land Inc., according to Warren County Assessment records. The owners, who also own the Lodge at Glendorn in Bradford, have agreed to let the Jackson Center work at the site.

One of the more interesting things to come from last week’s visit was discussion on how the property has changed hands over the years.

Keith Jackson, a neighboring property owner who is not a relation, said that he has an affidavit regarding the property from Elijah Jackson.

John Barrett, Jackson’s biographer and a St. John’s University law professor, said that Elijah was Robert’s great-grandfather who initially settled the area.

Barrett said that Jackson’s father, Will, first leased the property after the family moved to Frewsburg and eventually sold it to someone who ultimately lost it during the Great Depression.

Jackson actually considered re-purchasing the Spring Creek property in 1932, Barrett explained, and had been made aware of the following details:

¯ In 1919, Albert J. Patterson and his wife sold the property to Shell A. Martin and Alice L. Martin.

¯ “In 1921, the Martin’s acquired more Spring Creek Property from Sabina House,” Barrett said. “I don’t know how the Martins initially financed these purchases, but in 1924 they executed a $3,000.00 mortgage to the Ohio-Pennsylvania Joint Stock Land Bank of Cleveland, on three Spring Creek Township pieces of land (a 5.44 acre piece; a 200 acre piece; and a 2.5 acre piece), secured by a 33-year judgment note.”