Our first day at the campground in North Nashville and we drove a short distance to the home of President Andrew Jackson known as "Old Hickory" more on that later. It is still warm and in the mid eighties--warm even for Tennessee in early October. We had a little bit of rain on the way to the Hermitage (means dwelling of retreat and solitude) but it cleared off for our visit.
This is our fourth presidential house on our trip, and we must confess that while all are interesting, we are starting to overload on reading exhibits and remembering/learning about various eras of American history. That said, the Hermitage was a very well done museum, tour and exhibition.
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| The Hermitage Front Entrance |
The tour of a small portion of the 1,000 acre park begins in a museum that included artifacts from his growing up on the frontier, battles he fought (including prisoner of war at 13 in the Revolutionary War and leading the decisive battle of New Orleans in 1812), time as governor of Florida and Tennessee and his eight years as president. There was a lot of information about Rachel Jackson who he was married to for thirty-seven years. Andrew felt that the personal attacks on his wife during his successful presidential run was a contributing factor to her death by heart attack. He was elected in November and she died in December before he took office. She was married when they met, though estranged from husband who lived in another state. The divorce took several years to accomplish, while Andrew, Rachel and her chaperone lived in Pensacola, Florida, where he served as Territorial Governor as the Spanish left.
The visit to the estate includes an audio tour with small hang around your neck devices the size of a small cell phone. These provided a welcome additional dimension to the tour or the grounds and gardens. The house historic interpreters were in period costume and added a lot of information and humorous stories to the tour. We learned that Jackson was called "Old Hickory" because of his toughness in battle, surviving a number of wounds and carried bullets, that would plague him later in life in his travels.
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| Interpreters Were All In Period Costume |
Jackson built three homes on this property over the 50 years he owned it. Until the War of 1812, they lived in a two-story log house that was good sized (1,000) square foot. After the Battle of New Orleans, when he drove the British out and saved the Mississippi River for the USA, he built a much larger 8,000 square foot home of brick and tulip popular. The bricks and wood all came from the huge plantation. It is painted to look like stone columns above and the tulip popular was stained to look like mahogany using a turkey feather and sponge. Most amazing is the original wall paper in most of the rooms, including the entry hall massive 14 foot tall wallpaper in a circle that tells the story of Homer"s Odyssey, of Telemachus journeys looking for his father.
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| "Old Hickory's" Bedroom |
Family descendants lived in the house through the Civil War, but afterwards sold the house and 30 acres to the state, as they were broke from having to free the enslaved Negroes on the cotton plantation. This home like Washington's Mount Vernon and Jefferson's Monticello were saved by local women's organizations, who held bake sales, wrote letters, and petitioned state legislatures to buy and donate these homes to preserve them.
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| Andrew and Rachel Jackson's Grave Site in Rachel's Garden |
Rachel was so beloved in Nashville, that the church bells pealed for an entire hour when she died and over 10,000 people followed her coffin to be buried on the estate. Jackson built the dome for her and they are both buried there. The garden is large, with a 25% set up at an apothecary garden. While in the garden, we saw a number of very beautiful butterflies that were a vibrant orange color. We don't know our butterflies, but they sure were pretty.
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| Butterflies in Rachel Jackson's Garden |
Part of the reason so much is known about the estate is that Amos, who was born here before the Civil War, as one the enslaved Negroes, stayed to farm 20 acres with his family when they became free in 1865. When the state bought the home, he worked with the Ladies Hermitage Association to give tours around the house, even posing with them in the gardens. He had purchased a bed, desk and several items from the Jackson heirs when they left and the Association wanted to buy them back for the house. He agreed to give them to the house, if he could be buried in the cemetery near Andrew and Rachel --- and he is!
Wish us luck for dry and cooler weather. It is supposed to be 88 here later in the week. Yikes!
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