![]() ![]() The next stage of her research took Weaver to the small town of Lynchburg on a four‐day trip. So I saw this as truly a story of love, honour and respect.” “Jack and his family went through great lengths to make sure Nearest’s legacy and the legacy of his children were not forgotten. “In that time, when you’re talking about a formerly enslaved man, you did not have to name him, they could have simply said ‘slave’ or left him out altogether,” Weaver adds. “And then you see his sons, George Green and Eli Green, mentioned over and over throughout the whole book.” By the final page, Weaver realised Nearest and his relatives were mentioned far more frequently than Jack’s own family. “So I get his biography, Jack Daniel’s Legacy, and from the very early pages you see Nearest mentioned over and over and over again,” recalls Weaver. One of 10 children, his father remarried but Jack’s stepmother was not keen on the young boy, so he found himself working on Call’s farm as a chore boy. I have no idea if Dan Call rented Nearest, or what it was, I just know that Nearest Green was the master distiller on his property and he was an enslaved man.”Īccording to Call’s family, Weaver says Jack Daniel ended up on Call’s farm when he was about seven, after his mother died from typhus fever when he was just four months old. “But we do know that slaves were working on his property, and back in those days it was quite common for people to rent slaves rather than own them. “I have done a lot of research since then and Dan Call did not have any slaves on record,” explains Weaver. The NYT article was essentially saying that although Call had been credited for teaching Daniel how to distil, it was more likely that the enslaved Nearest Green was the teacher. ![]() Nearest Green and Jack Daniel both worked on the property of a preacher and distiller named Dan Call. Weaver’s interest was piqued by a cover article in the New York Times International Edition that began to unpick the intricate role Green played in the beginning of a major American whiskey brand, Jack Daniel’s. Uncle Nearest CEO Fawn Weaverįawn Weaver was a writer in pursuit of a love story when she first started researching Nathan ‘Nearest’ Green. She tells SB how her groundbreaking marque came about. Author and entrepreneur Fawn Weaver was researching a book about Nathan ‘Nearest’ Green, the enslaved Black man who taught Jack Daniel distilling, when her life took a turn and she ended up starting a whiskey brand that honours him.
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