Jack Daniel

Lore & Background

Jasper Newton Daniel was the youngest of ten children born to Calaway and Lucinda Matilda (née Cook) Daniel, of Scots-Irish, Scottish, and Welsh descent. His date of birth is unknown; a town fire destroyed courthouse records, and his mother died shortly after his birth, likely from childbirth complications, leaving conflicting dates on tombstones. His father remarried in 1851 and later died while serving in the Confederate States Army, though the exact cause of death is not definitively recorded. Daniel was raised in the Primitive Baptist church.

According to company histories, as a boy in the 1850s, Daniel worked for preacher, grocer, and distiller Dan Call, who taught him to run a whiskey still. However, on the company's 150th anniversary in 2016, the company began telling a different story: that Daniel learned distilling from Nearest Green, one of Call's slaves. The distillery's first license is claimed by the company to be 1866, but biographer Peter Krass's 2004 book Blood & Whiskey maintains that land and deed records show the distillery was not founded until 1875.

Daniel never married and had no children. He took his nephews under his wing, including Lemuel 'Lem' Motlow, son of his sister Finetta, who handled the distillery's bookkeeping. In early November 1893, a mob of mounted night riders hanged four Black citizens—Ned Waggoner, his son Will, his daughter Mary, and his son-in-law Sam Motlow—from a tree, allegedly in retaliation for barn-burnings; the location is sometimes reported as Daniel's farm, but this is not universally confirmed. The perpetrators were never identified.

Reader's Guide

Jack Daniel's significance lies in founding a whiskey brand that became globally iconic, though the details of his life and the distillery's origins are marked by uncertainty and evolving narratives. The company's claim of a 1866 license is disputed by biographer Peter Krass, who cites land records pointing to 1875. The story of his learning distilling from Dan Call was later supplemented by the acknowledgment of Nearest Green, an enslaved man, reflecting a broader historical reckoning. Daniel's personal life was private—he never married—and his legacy was carried on by his nephew Lem Motlow, who operated the distillery through Prohibition and World War II. The 1893 lynching on his farm is a stark historical fact, though no perpetrators were identified. Daniel died of blood poisoning in 1911; a popular tale that he kicked a safe and injured his toe is disputed by his modern biographer, who says the story is untrue and that he died of unrelated gangrene. His legacy endures through the Jack Daniel's brand, but the historical record remains incomplete and contested.

Did You Know?

• Jack Daniel's exact date of birth is unknown, with sources placing it in 1846, 1849, or 1850.
• According to a 2004 biography, land and deed records show the distillery was not founded until 1875, despite the company's claim of 1866.
• In 2016, the company stated that Daniel learned distilling from Nearest Green, one of Dan Call's slaves, rather than from Call himself.
• In November 1893, four black citizens were hanged from a tree on Daniel's farm by unidentified night riders.