Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) was the seventh President of the United States, serving from 1829 to 1837. Born in 1767 in the frontier settlement of the Waxhaws in South Carolina, Jackson moved to Salisbury, NC in 1784 and received his license to practice law in 1787, beginning his practice in North Carolina's Western District in Washington County (now a part of Tennessee). In October 1788, he moved to Nashville, where he met his wife Rachel. After serving as the major general of the Tennessee militia for twenty years and earning recognition as a military leader in the War of 1812, Jackson was elected to the U. S. Senate in 1823 and to the presidency in 1828. After serving two terms as president, Jackson returned to the Hermitage, his Nashville home, in early 1837. Eight years later, in 1845, Jackson died at his home at the age of 78.

Marathon, Alabama was a city that Jackson and John Coffee, his nephew and business partner, attempted to set up west of Melton's Bluff on a square mile of plantation land that Jackson purchased from John Melton's son after Melton's death in 1816. Coffee was the head government surveyor of the Alabama land cessions, a position he was appointed to thanks to Jackson's influence in Washington. Coffee surveyed the town and divided it into blocks and lots, but there is no evidence that any buildings were constructed, as Marathon soon ceased to exist.