Representative Andrew Jackson Clements

Andrew Jackson Clements (December 23, 1832 – November 7, 1913) was a surgeon and American politician who represented Tennessee’s 4th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives. He was born in Clementsville, Clay County, Tennessee, the son of Christopher Clements and Polly Fraim, and the grandson of John Clemans, a veteran of the American Revolutionary War, and Elizabeth Eagle. Raised in the Cumberland highlands of north-central Tennessee, Clements grew up in a rural environment shaped by his family’s longstanding local presence and patriotic heritage.

Clements received his early education at a private school before attending Burritt College in Spencer, Tennessee, one of the region’s early coeducational institutions. After his collegiate studies, he pursued medical training, studied medicine in Tennessee, and commenced the practice of his profession as a physician and surgeon in Lafayette, Tennessee. His medical career became the foundation of his public standing in the community. In his personal life, Clements married Nancy Jones; she died in 1858. He later married Matilda Harlan, with whom he had four children: Mollie, Carlos, Carolyn, and Fred.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Clements, a loyal Unionist in a deeply divided border region, entered military service in support of the United States. He served as a surgeon with the First Regiment, Tennessee Mounted Volunteer Infantry (Union), providing medical care to soldiers from his home state who had enlisted on the Union side. His work as a military surgeon during the conflict enhanced his reputation as a physician and underscored his commitment to the Union cause at a time when Tennessee was largely aligned with the Confederacy.

Clements’s wartime Unionism led directly to his entry into national politics. Elected as a Unionist to the Thirty-seventh Congress, he represented Tennessee’s 4th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from March 4, 1861, to March 3, 1863. His single term in Congress coincided with one of the most critical periods in American history, as the nation was engulfed in civil war. As a member of the Unionist Party representing Tennessee, he contributed to the legislative process during this tumultuous era, participating in the democratic process and representing the interests of his constituents from a state under divided control and shifting military occupation.

After leaving Congress in 1863, Clements returned to Tennessee and continued his involvement in public affairs during the early years of Reconstruction. He was elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives and served as a state legislator in 1866 and 1867. In that capacity, he took part in the difficult work of reestablishing civil government and redefining the state’s relationship with the federal Union following the Confederacy’s defeat. His service in the state legislature complemented his earlier national role and reflected his ongoing engagement with the political reconstruction of Tennessee.

Following his legislative service, Clements resumed the full-time practice of medicine. He returned to his profession as a surgeon and physician and also turned his attention to education and community development in the Cumberland highlands. On his estate, he established a school for the people of that section of the Cumberland region, seeking to expand educational opportunities in an area that had long been underserved. This endeavor illustrated his broader commitment to public service beyond elective office, combining his interest in social improvement with his standing as a respected local figure.

In his later years, Clements’s health declined, and he ultimately suffered from senility. He died of pneumonia on November 7, 1913, at Central State Hospital, a mental hospital in Lakeland, Jefferson County, Kentucky, where he had been confined due to his deteriorating mental condition. He was 80 years old, having lived 80 years and 319 days. Andrew Jackson Clements was interred at Glasgow Municipal Cemetery in Glasgow, Kentucky, closing a life that spanned from the antebellum era through the Civil War and Reconstruction into the early twentieth century, marked by service as a physician, Union military surgeon, congressman, state legislator, and local educator.