Jere Baxter was born on February 11, 1852, in Nashville, Tennessee.

[1] After graduating from Montgomery Bell Academy, he studied law.

Baxter went into legal publishing, issuing The Legal Reporter, the nine-volume bound compilation of which came to be commonly known as Baxter's Reports.

[1] Baxter founded the Tennessee Central Railroad and helped found the communities of South Pittsburg, Tennessee, and Sheffield, Alabama.

[3][4] Baxter had a very public argument with Whitefoord Russell Cole over the Tennessee Central Railroad in the early 1900s.