Malcolm Gilchrist

Malcolm Gilchrist (1776–1851) was an American land owner, slave owner, and politician. Originally from North Carolina, he settled in Jefferson County, Mississippi in the early 19th century where relatives had established a colony and planted a Presbyterian church. Gilchrist represented Jefferson County in the Mississippi House of Representatives for three terms in the 1820s and 1830s. He ran a stage coach stop and post office on the road between New Orleans and Jackson, Mississippi.

Biography Gilchrist was born and raised in Robeson County, North Carolina to a Scottish immigrant named John Gilchrist, brother of Malcolm Gilchrist. In 1811 he moved to Jefferson County in Mississippi Territory where his sister Flora Gilchrist and her husband Dougald Torrey had been pioneers of the Scotch settlement. He migrated by land with his wife's family, the Galbraiths, via the Camden Road, "which was used by thousands of people moving to Alabama and Mississippi and other states in the South." Another account produced 25 years after his death had it that "He was in the war of 1812, and was at Gen. St. Clair's defeat. The writer heard him many years ago give a very thrilling account of it. He moved South after that event, and settled in the Scotch settlement, which embraced many families in this and the adjoining county of Franklin, east and southeast of Fayette." He represented Jefferson County in the Mississippi House of Representatives in 1825, 1826, and 1835. In political party affiliation, "He was known as a sterling democrat." The same year he was the postmaster of Malcolm, Mississippi in Jefferson County. Malcolm was six miles south of Fayette. In 1842 "proscription" under the spoils system removed him from the postmaster office (the Whigs were nominally in power, with John Tyler in the presidency). The Malcolm post office was restored to him two months later, to the approval of the Mississippi Free Trader newspaper. In 1843 the Free Trader announced that Gilchrist "the patriarch of Jefferson county, is a candidate for the Legislature in the Senatorial district of Jefferson and Franklin counties, and is opposed the Hon. Chancellor Turner. Gilchrist is a thorough democrat of the genuine Jefferson stamp—the latter a disciple of Alexander Hamilton." Turner defeated Gilchrist in the November election.