The results of the Republican nomination for Vermont’s 1936 gubernatorial race had come in. Horatio Nelson Jackson had fallen just shy of winning, coming in second behind George Aiken, but ahead of many other contenders. For the 64-year-old businessman, it may have been the only time he came up short in an endeavor he‘d committed himself to. It was why he’d been one of America’s most famous individuals.
Horatio Nelson Jackson (1872–1955) was born in Toronto to a minister. He received a fine education in Canada before moving to the United States to earn his medical degree at the University of Vermont. He graduated in 1893 and soon began practicing medicine in Vermont. In 1899, he married Bertha Richardson Wells , who came from one of the state’s richest families. The wealth that came from the marriage proved providential in the coming year.
