Adelicia Acklen

Adelicia Hayes Franklin Acklen Cheatham (March 15, 1817 – May 4, 1887) was an American planter and slave trader. She became the wealthiest woman in Tennessee and a plantation owner in her own right after the 1846 death of her first husband, Isaac Franklin. As a successful slave trader, she had used his wealth to purchase numerous plantations, lands, and slaves in Tennessee and Louisiana.

In 1880 Acklen sold four contiguous plantations in Louisiana as one property. These have formed the grounds of the Louisiana State Penitentiary (also known as "Angola" after one of the plantations) since 1901.

When married to her second husband, Joseph Alexander Smith Acklen, Adelicia Acklen built the Belmont Mansion in Nashville, Tennessee. She sold the property in 1887; it was converted for use as a girls' school and later junior college campus. It is now operated as a museum at the center of what is now known as Belmont University.

Early life Adelicia Hayes was born in Nashville, Tennessee. Her parents were Northerners: her father was Oliver Bliss Hayes, a lawyer and later Presbyterian minister from South Hadley, Massachusetts. He was related to Rutherford B. Hayes, the 19th President of the United States from 1877 to 1881. He started fully concentrating on his plantations by 1841, mostly in Louisiana. The couple had four children together: Victoria (1840–1846), Adelicia (1842–1846), Julius Caesar (1844–1844), and Emma Franklin (1844–1855), none of whom survived early childhood. The widow Franklin became the wealthiest woman in Tennessee. Together, they built the Belmont Mansion outside Nashville for use as a summer estate, complete with gardens and a zoo. They had six children; two daughters died young, Laura (1852–1855) and Corinne (1852–1855). The others made careers and families: Joseph H. Acklen (1850–1938) became a politician and served as U.S. Representative from Louisiana; William Hayes Ackland (1855–1940) was an attorney, writer and art collector; Claude M. Acklen (1857–1920), and Pauline (1859–1931) married a Mr. Lockett.

Acklen had leased and then sold the plantations in Louisiana in 1880. In 1901, the state bought four of them, including the one known as Angola. This became the nickname of the Louisiana State Penitentiary that was developed on these lands, where prisoners worked the fields for commodity and sustenance crops.

Death Acklen died on a shopping trip in New York City on May 4, 1887, at the age of seventy.