James Caleb Jackson
1811 – 1895
Photo Source: Univ. of Florida College of Medicine
A Brief Biography of James C. Jackson
While his contemporary and fellow reformer, Sylvester Graham, preceded his health campaign with work in the temperance movement, James C. Jackson was an active abolitionist before turning to the issues of diet and health. After a long illness and his subsequent recovery at a "hydropathic" spa in upstate New York, Jackson became so impressed with that curative fad that he set off on a new career as proprietor of his own water-cure practice. In 1858, at the age of 47, Jackson moved to Dansville, NY, where a spa had been in operation on the site of a mineral spring, and soon took over. Known as "Our Home on the Hill," Jackson's serene and highly-religious sanitarium became a well known escape for those seeking recovery or just a jump-start to better health. Residents and guests participated in a wide variety of physical exercises, group activities, and communal meals. The menu at Our Home frowned upon (but did not disallow) meat and emphasized the dietary regimen previously advocated by Sylvester Graham: whole grains and cold water. In 1863, the Dansville sanitarium counted as one of its borders Ellen G. White, who would go on to found the Sabbatarian Ministry that would eventually become the Seventh Day Adventist Church.
While at Dansville, Jackson is credited with inventing and marketing the
first cold breakfast cereal, a whole-wheat concoction he called "granula."
Granula was somewhat similar to the modern-day Post Grape-Nuts, but
simpler and, accordingly, much blander (if that can be imagined).
It was made by baking a thin, rolled-out sheet of water-soaked wheat
grains, crumbling the sheet into small pieces, and baking the ground
results. The cereal had to be soaked in water or milk for at least
20 minutes before consumption, and was often soaked and refrigerated
over night to further soften up the coarse grains. John Harvey
Kellogg would modify the granula recipe and market it on his own,
changing the name to "granola" to avoid litigation.
A James C. Jackson Bibliography
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Consumption: How to Prevent It, and How to Cure It. Boston: B. L. Emerson, 1862. -
Hints on the Reproductive Organs: Their Diseases, Causes, and
Cure on Hydropathic Principles. New York: Fowlers and Wells,
1853.
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The Sexual Organism, and its Healthful Management. New York: Arno Press, 1974. -
The Training of Children: or, How to Have Them Healthy, Handsome
and Happy. NY: Austin, Jackson & Co., 1872.