The official unveiling ceremony of the portrait of Robert Chester was held Wednesday, May 1, upstairs in the courtroom of the Chester County courthouse. Chester County Historian James Bright did a presentation about the life of Robert Chester followed by the placement of the portrait downstairs on the first floor.
Colonel Robert Chester was born July 31, 1793, and was the oldest living Mason in the country at 98 when he died in 1892. He is buried in Riverside Cemetery in Jackson with his wife, Elizabeth Hayes, who was the niece of Andrew and Rachel Jackson. During his lifetime Robert Chester was a merchant, surveyor, farmer, politician, United States Marshal, Postmaster and soldier and served as President of the Tennessee Historical Society for a time. For naming the county after him, he purchased and gifted the Bell for the first county courthouse.
Mr. Bright would like to thank Debbie Shaw, the Senior Curator of Archaeology at the Tennessee State Museum in Nashville, for her assistance in the completion of this project.
