Politician. He was a pioneer settler of what would become the State of Tennessee, serving in several offices. Overton represented Sumner County as a delegate to the 1789 North Carolina convention to ratify the United States Constitution. In 1795 he received an appointment from President George Washington as supervisor of revenue for the District of Tennessee, Territory South of the River Ohio. The following June, Washington appointed Overton to the post of district inspector of the revenue. John Overton came to Tennessee to the Nashville area in 1789. After studying law, he was admitted to the bar in April of 1790. He represented Jackson's interest in the complicated divorce of Captain Lewis Robards and his wife Rachel, who eventually became Jackson's legal wife in 1794. The personal and professional relationship between Overton and Jackson expanded into a business partnership in May of 1794, when the two men became partners in land speculation and dealing in claims for land reserved by treaty for the Native American tribes of Cherokee and Chickasaw. At one time the two bachelors shared the same house. His plantation, the Traveler's Rest, was built in the 1790s and depended on slave labor. His home is now a historical site. In August 1804 Overton was elected to succeed Jackson as a member of the Superior Court of Tennessee, the forerunner of the Tennessee Supreme Court. In 1810, he became a judge at the Superior Court of Tennessee. In November of 1811, he resigned his position as a judge and resumed practicing law. He, along with Generals Andrew Jackson and James Winchester, founded the city of Memphis, Tennessee in 1819. In 1820 he married Mary, the daughter of General James White, founder of the city of Knoxville, Tennessee. Overton endorsed Jackson as a candidate for the office of President of the United States and on March 4, 1829 his friend Jackson was taking the oath of office. Overton remained an intimate political advisor to Jackson throughout his first term as president. Sources question in hindsight why Overton was not nominated for the office of vice president. By Jackson's second term, Overton's health was declining. After his death, several structures such as parks and schools were named in his honor.