Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage

Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage or more popularly known as The Hermitage is a historical plantation and museum that is located in Davidson County, Tennessee. It is 10 miles east of downtown Nashville. It is the home of the seventh president of the United States, Andrew Jackson, from 1804 until he died at the Hermitage in 1845.

By visiting this place, you will be able to know more about the life of Andrew Jackson and as well as his enslaved laborers. Workers in the Hermitage included enslaved men, women, and children and they were principally involved in growing cotton. Today, The Hermitage is a 1,120-acre National Historic Landmark that you can visit.

Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson is known as the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. He was an American soldier and a statesman. Before Andrew Jackson was elected to the presidency, he gained fame as a general in the United States Army and served both houses of congress. When he became the president, he sought to advance the rights of the common man against a corrupt aristocracy and to preserve the Union.

He was born in the colonial Carolinas to a Scotch-Irish family a decade before the American Revolutionary War. Andrew Jackson became a frontier lawyer and then married Rachel Donelson Robards. He served for a short period of time in the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate, representing Tennessee. When he resigned, he served as a justice from 1798 to 1804 on the Tennessee Supreme Court. He then bought a property which was later known as The Hermitage, and he became a wealthy planter who owns slaves

Andrew Jackson was appointed as the colonel of Tennessee militia in 1801, and he was elected its commander after a year. During the Creek War of 1813 to 1814, he led troops and won the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. The following Treaty of Fort Jackson required the Creek surrender of huge lands in present-day Alabama and Georgia.

In the coexisting war against the British, Andrew Jackson’s victory at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815 made him a national hero. He briefly served as Florida’s first territorial governor because he returned to the Senate. In 1824, Jackson ran for president, winning a plurality of the popular and electoral vote. However, there was no candidate who won an electoral majority that’s why the House of Representative elected John Quincy Adams in a contingent election. Jackson’s supporters founded the Democratic Party in reaction to the alleged corrupt bargain between Adams and Henry Clay and the ambitious agenda of President Adams.

Andrew Jackson ran again in 1828 and defeated Adams in a landslide. He became the only president to completely pay off the national debt in 1835 which fulfilled a longtime goal. He also survived the first assassination attempt on a sitting president.

When he retired, he remained active in Democratic Party Politics. He supported the presidencies of Martin Van Buren and James K. Polk. He has been widely revered in the United States as an advocate for democracy and the common man. He was ranked favorably among U.S. presidents according to surveys done by historians.

Slavery

The source of Andrew Jackson’s wealth was slavery. His 1,000-acre Hermitage is a self-sustaining plantation that depend completely on the labor of enslaved African-American men, women, and children. They were the ones who worked to produce The Hermitage’s cash crop which is cotton. The more land Andrew Jackson acquires, the more slaves he got to work it. It means that the survival of his family depends on the profit garnered from the crops worked by enslaved men everyday.

In 1804, when Andrew Jackson bought The Hermitage, he had nine enslaved African-Americans. Twenty-five years after that, the number increased to more than a hundred through purchase and reproduction. When Andrew Jackson died, you had about 150 people who lived and worked on the property.

One of the many slaves in The Hermitage was Uncle Alfred. He was born in the original kitchen across the yard from the original Hermitage log cabin. He was Andrew Jackson’s man servant and personal slave. He was the original curator and the very first tour guide in The Hermitage. He lived at The Hermitage longer than any other person. When he died in 1901, his funeral was held in the center hall of the mansion and he was buried in the Hermitage garden near Jackson’s tomb. You will be able to visit Uncle Alfred’s cabin when you tour The Hermitage.

The Mansio

When you visit Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage, you will be able to walk through the story and history of The Hermitage mansion. You will know what happened from Jackson’s initial purchase and major remodeling through devastating fire and restoration that the mansion has experienced before it became a historic landmark that is visited by millions of people in the present time.

Each room in The Hermitage mansion tell centuries of stories. These rooms act as portals into the daily lives of a lot of Jacksonian era individuals.

Garden and Grounds

Out of the 1,120 acres that The Hermitage covers, 1,050 acres of it includes anarea of Jackson’s plantation. The plantation is overseen and managed by The Andrew Jackson Foundation which was formerly called the Ladies’ Hermitage Association.

To the east of the house, you will be able to see a 1-acre formal garden that is designed in 1918 by William Frost, a Philadelphia-based gardener. This garden is consisting of four quadrants and a circular center bed with beveled bricks and pebbled pathways. It was originally used to produce food for the mansion.

You can also find here remnants of farm buildings used on Jackson’s plantation. They lie in the cotton fields. Aside from that, you can also visit the Hermitage Church that was built in 1824 using the funds donated by Jackson and others. It is where Jackson fulfilled a promise made to his wife Rachel. Until today, the church is still utilized for special events and services.

The First Hermitage is also on the grounds. It is comprised of the buildings that served as Jackson’s original farmhouse and log kitchen where the family lives until the mansion was built. This was eventually converted to slave quarters. These buildings will tell you two sides of a story when you visit the place.

Jackson’s Tomb

You can also find Jackson’s tomb in The Hermitage. In 1831, three years after Jackson’s wife, Rachel died, he hired an architect named David Morrison to remodel the Hermitage Mansion and as well as to build a tomb for both Rachel and him. The tomb designed by Morrison resembled a Greek temple that is found in the Telemachus scenic wallpaper that was chosen by Rachel for the Hermitage entrance hall. The construction was finished in the summer of 1832.

On June 8, 1845, Jackson died and he was laid to rest two days later in the tomb. From 1865 to 1883, the State did some much-needed maintenances to the Jackson tomb. Then the State handed over the Hermitage Mansion and the Jackson tomb to the Ladies’ Hermitage Association which was renamed the Andrew Jackson Foundation in 2014. Since then, the foundation worked to maintain and preserve the tomb as well as the landscape that surrounds it.

If you’re looking into visiting the place, it is in 4580 Rachel’s Lane, Nashville.It is open from 8:30 am to 6 pm, and the last ticket is sold at 5 pm. Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage is one of the best places you can visit in Nashville if you want to learn more about history.