When the wrought-iron gates swing back on the cut-stone pillars at the
entrance to the driveway leading up to the Hermitage front door they
leave an opening that is a tight fit for an entering automobile,
although it was amply wide for the carriages in vogue a hundred years
ago when it was built. Anyhow, this front entrance is not open to
automobiles now--the ladies concluded that the trees were being
jeopardized by the visitors' cars--but, nevertheless, the Hermitage
makes its most impressive appearance when approached from the front.
The house is situated back about a hundred yards from the county road,
and is reached by a beautiful tree-lined driveway in the shape of a
guitar. This driveway was built in 1837, when the Jacksons returned from
the White House, and its design was suggested by Mrs. Sarah York
Jackson. The ever-ready and versatile Earl drew the plans for it, and he
and the General superintended the actual construction work. The General
took particular interest in it and personally looked after the planting
of the cedar trees on both sides of it. The driveway curves up to the
step leading onto the portico, shaded by two splendid old holly trees,
and here the visitor of today enters at the same place as did the guests
of General Jackson in the early part of the Nineteenth Century.
The floor plan of the Hermitage, as will be seen from the accompanying
sketch, was a convenient and commodious one.
Crossing the broad front portico, floored with flagstones quarried from
the native limestone, and entering through the beautifully detailed
double front door, the visitor finds himself in the wide central hall,
running from front to back, a feature so much in favor in Southern
architecture on account of the free ventilation thus afforded. The most
immediately striking architectural feature of the hall is the superb
circular staircase which sweeps in a perfect curve of beauty to the
second floor. Whoever designed and built this stairway, craftsman though
he may have been, had the soul of an artist combined with the brain of a
mathematician, for every feature of it is so carefully planned and built
that there is never a flaw in the flowing grace of its inspiring upward
spiral sweep.
[Illustration: Passage from kitchen on left to entrance to butler's
pantry on right, with rear gallery in the background.]
[Illustration: The Hermitage well, with primitive windlass and
bucket.]
[Illustration: The front gate and entrance driveway, bordered with
native cedar trees planted by General Jackson in 1837.]
[Illustration: The garden as seen from the window of one of the
guest rooms, showing the east field beyond.]
To the left of the hall are the double parlors, separated with folding
doors, and each with its doorway into the hall. Each of the parlors has
a handsome marble mantelpiece, the one in the front being made from
marble quarried in Italy while that in the rear is made from native
Tennessee marble. The crimson damask curtains at the windows were
ordered by General Jackson in Philadelphia in 1836 when the Hermitage
was refurnished, the color being specified because his wife had always
preferred it. The piano in the back parlor is one bought by General
Jackson for his little granddaughter, Rachel, soon after he retired from
the Presidency. "Would my baby like to take music lessons?" he asked her
one day; and when she answered in the affirmative he sent her mother to
town to buy her a new piano--the old one wasn't good enough for his
little pet. The old piano was sold in 1865 when the adopted son's widow
disposed of some surplus furniture, the purchaser being a neighboring
farmer who confided that he expected to use it to hive bees. There is
also to be seen in the back parlor a handsome mahogany center table
which has an interesting history. When General and Mrs. Jackson were
entertained in New Orleans in 1815, following the battle, the handsome
furnishings of the room where they were entertained were presented to
them and shipped up the river to the Hermitage when they returned. Most
of this presentation furniture was burned in 1834, but this old table
survived. On the mantel in the back parlor is General Jackson's favorite
clock, with its hands stopped at the hour of his death. All the
furnishings of the parlors--the chairs, mirrors, chandeliers, draperies,
carpets, vases, divans, etc.--are part of the Hermitage's original
furnishings, and are in the places they occupied when General Jackson
was alive. The crystal chandeliers are especially impressive. They seem
to hang rather low--but they were placed there in the days when candles
were used for lights, even before the later days when the primitive
tapers were replaced with the modern sperm-oil lamps.
A doorway leads from the front parlor into the dining room wing, and
there is also a door into the dining room from the broad front portico.
To the rear of the dining room are the pantry and storeroom, with a
passage leading to the semi-detached old-fashioned kitchen in the rear.
In the dining room is to be seen the massive mahogany sideboard
purchased by Mrs. Jackson in New Orleans when she and the General were
returning from Florida, together with the table, chairs and other
original furnishings of this room. Here also is displayed most of the
Hermitage silverware, including the silver formerly belonging to
Commodore Decatur, engraved with his coat of arms, which was purchased
from his widow by Jackson in 1833 when she was in reduced circumstances.
The General bought from Mrs. Decatur for $350 her china and silverware,
but he presented the china and two silver fruit baskets to Mrs. Emily
Donelson, giving the remainder of the silver to "my daughter, Sarah
Jackson." When Commodore Decatur was killed in his duel with Captain
Barron it left his wife in financial distress. One of her impatient
creditors brought suit against her which, to use her own words,
"frightened all the trades people with whom I have any little dealing
and makes them more pressing for payment;" and the General's check for
$350 gave her very welcome relief.
The dining-room fireplace is featured by the celebrated Eighth of
January mantelpiece, a rustic affair built of pieces of rough hickory by
one of Jackson's veterans of the Battle of New Orleans who made it as a
monumental labor of love, working on it all by himself and working only
on successive anniversaries of the battle until he got it finished on
January 8, 1839. The General entered into the spirit of the thing and
installed it in this room, with suitable ceremonies, on January 8, 1840.
It is now in a rather dilapidated condition, thanks to the depradations
of souvenir hunters in the early days before the present iron railing
was built.
The floor in the dining room is a reproduction, the only floor in the
house not original. This room, however, had been used for years as a
storeroom when the association took over the property and the flooring
was ruined. An oak floor was laid to replace it; but in 1931 this was
removed and a floor of wide poplar boards was built to correspond with
the original. All the floors in the house are made of poplar, except the
porch floors which are native Tennessee red cedar and which constitute a
striking tribute to the durability of this wood.
In the broad central hall downstairs there is seen on the walls the
celebrated pictorial wall paper, bought for the new house in 1836. Mrs.
Rachel Jackson Lawrence, the General's granddaughter, is authority for
the statement that similar paper was used in the hall before the house
was burned, and she was fond of recalling that the paper for this hall
had to be bought three times: The first time from Paris, during Mrs.
Rachel Jackson's lifetime; and the two purchases that had to be made to
get the paper on the walls in 1836. In the refurnishing of the new
Hermitage most of the purchases were made in Philadelphia by Mrs. Sarah
York Jackson; acting, of course, under the General's suggestions when he
had any to make. Accordingly in January, 1836, a shipment of furniture
and furnishings was made from Philadelphia, the invoice covering which
included the pictorial paper ordered from Paris: "3 sets of fine paper
hanging, Views of Telemachus, @ $40, $120." But the steamboat on which
these furnishings were being transported, the _John Randolph_, was
burned at the wharf at Nashville on March 16, 1836 (with the loss of
three lives); and only a part of the boat's cargo was saved. At a sale
of the salvage, probably through error, the crate containing the paper,
along with a lot of other stuff, was sold to Mr. W. G. M. Campbell who
had just finished building a new home on his farm on the Lebanon Road
near Nashville. Surviving members of Mr. Campbell's family state that he
did not know what was in the crate when he bought it, simply buying it
"sight unseen" along with other salvage from the burned steamboat. The
inescapable inference from the preserved correspondence is that
Jackson's Nashville factors, Yeatman and Company, who owned the _John
Randolph_, tried to recover the paper after they discovered that it had
not been damaged by the fire so as to render it unfit for use; but, it
seems, they were thwarted by Mr. Campbell who resorted to the expedient
of pasting the paper on the walls of the parlor of his new house before
starting to argue about it. The Campbell descendants today affirm that
they never heard that there was any argument about it, and that all
there was to it was that Mr. Campbell bought it at public sale, paid for
it and used it--a strictly legitimate and above-board transaction. But
on May 27, 1836, Colonel Armstrong wrote General Jackson in some heat as
follows:
"I send you enclosed a note addressed to me by the Messrs. Yeatman after
a conversation I had with them this morning. They have always been ready
and willing to do all in their power to get back the paper from those
who purchased it. When I called on Campbell I expected to get the paper;
that night he cut it and put it on the walls. Williams is not at home. I
saw Shelly, who will do nothing. He is not disposed to restore it.
Williams dare not, as his wife claims it; so I called on the Messrs
Yeatman and stated the facts, who willingly proposed to purchase another
set. I did not present Andrew's note to them enclosed to Colonel Love,
but suggested in their letter to draw on them for the amount. My dear
sir, when you have this whole matter explained it will give you a pain
to find men so lost to all honorable feelings as to retain that which
does not belong to them. It is a theft. The person who you got the other
set from will draw on Messrs. Yeatman or myself on sight and the draft
will be paid. Send it out as soon as possible, so that we may complete
the house. Major Eaton will be with you in a few days and will explain
this unpleasant affair and the treatment received. Yeatman will sue for
the real value of the paper. He thinks he has been badly treated by
Williams and Campbell. He offered them any profit in advance if that was
their object. Let me request you to send out the other without delay, as
I want to see the house complete before Mrs. Jackson and yourself get
out."
Colonel Armstrong's letter is tantalizingly incomplete in details, and
there is no other written reference to this "unpleasant affair;" nor is
there any inkling as to the identity of the Williams and Shelly
mentioned.
Be that as it may, the paper was hung on the walls of the Campbell
parlor and is there today, although it is now covered with two layers of
modern wall paper put on to satisfy the taste of modern tenants of the
old Campbell homestead who objected to the faded grandeur of the old
hand-painted paper imported from Paris and wanted something bright and
new.
Promptly upon receipt of news of the original paper's fate, General
Jackson wrote to his friend Henry Toland in Philadelphia and ordered a
duplicate set. This paper, manufactured by Dufour in France and imported
by Toland, is the paper that is on the walls of the downstairs hall
today, attracting the admiring glances of all visitors.
This paper depicts the familiar story from mythology of the adventures
of Telemachus on the island of Calypso while on his journey in search of
Ulysses. There are four scenes in the paper: No. 1, the landing of
Telemachus on the island, showing the queen advancing to meet him; No.
2, Telemachus, with Mentor beside him, relating to Calypso the story of
his travels; No. 3, the fete given by Calypso in honor of the visitor;
No. 4, Telemachus leaping from the cliff after the maidens of the island
had burned his boat upon learning of his resolution to escape.
Midway of the downstairs hall, on the right-hand side, is the door to a
cross-hall which leads to the side entrance on the east or garden side.
On either side of this little hall are doorways leading to the
downstairs bedrooms; and the entry hall at the side is flanked on the
left by a small room formerly used, first as the overseer's or steward's
room and later as a nursery, and now serving as the museum. On the right
is General Jackson's library or office which has a door leading to the
front bedroom (which was the General's) and another door opening on the
front portico, corresponding to the similar door at the other end of the
porch which affords entrance into the dining room.
Perhaps the most interesting room of all is that front bedroom, the old
General's room, just as it was the day he died. There is the high old
four-poster bed, with its heavy canopy and with its little steps at its
side, the bed on which he breathed his last. There is the couch by the
window on which he spent so much of his time during the latter years of
his life. There is his chair, his dressing gown, his tobacco box; and
there above the mantel is the portrait of his much beloved Rachel,
placed where his eyes could see it the first thing in the morning and
the last thing at night while he lived and where the last flickering
glance of his closing eyes rested the day he died. Two windows look out
on the front porch, and it was by these windows that the plantation's
slaves gathered and waited weeping while he gasped out his last few
breaths. Also it was through one of these windows that the old man
leaped one night when he awoke suddenly and found his room filled with
smoke. A spark had popped out of the fireplace and set fire to his big
chair, but he thought that the house was afire and fled precipitately,
calling for help. Here is a room redolent with memories of the old
General; it is no wonder that visitors linger at its doorway longer than
at any other spot in the whole house.
The room immediately across the side hall was originally known as "Mrs.
Jackson's room" and was used as a family sitting room, before the wings
were added. At that time the present back parlor was used as the dining
room, and the front parlor was known as the portrait parlor, being the
room in which all the portraits were hung. In 1832 this back bedroom was
refurbished to be used by Andrew Jackson, junior, and his wife as their
room. "It will be more convenient than upstairs," the General wrote
Andrew when suggesting this use of the room--and perhaps he also looked
ahead to the time when the adjoining little room would be useful as a
nursery.
The office or library, adjoining General Jackson's bedroom, might well
be said to have been the center of political activity of the United
States for thirty years. History was made in this room. Presidents were
made and unmade, Cabinet officials and other high dignitaries had their
fate decided there. Here are the furnishings--the bookcases, desks and
chairs--just as they were in those days. One feature that might strike
the visitor is that there are not so many books in evidence as one might
expect to find in the library of the President of the United States.
Less than 1,000 volumes are in the cases. Andrew Jackson was a man of
action rather than reading, but the books he possessed (many of them
gifts of admirers and of proud authors) indicate that he had a widely
diversified taste for good literature and that he was not a stranger to
classical and studious reading.
The Hermitage bookshelves show a library of which nobody need feel
ashamed. Here are Shakspeare's works, the poems of Byron and Burns and
Dryden, Pilgrim's Progress and theological works alongside the novels of
Smollett and Fielding. Here is Johnson's Dictionary, and an early
Encyclopedia Americana; the Spectator, the Rambler; early American
novels, notably those of William Gilmore Simms and Charles Brockden
Brown; here are Horace and Virgil in translation--and a burlesque Iliad.
Memories of his war on the Bank are recalled by the numerous treatises
on banking and currency; and one is reminded of his military days by a
copy of the Infantry Regulations, dated 1812, along with a number of
books referring to the War of 1812. There is a complete array of medical
books for the home--necessary in those days before the telephone and
automobile made doctors so immediately accessible; and his practical
knowledge of stock breeding is indicated by the books on the veterinary
science and the other aspects of animal husbandry. Here is young
Andrew's copy of Robinson Crusoe, also some of his schoolbooks; and a
sentimental touch is provided by a calf-bound copy of Burns' Poetical
Works on the flyleaf of which is inscribed "To Rachel Jackson, from her
beloved husband, And^w Jackson." Also reminiscent of Rachel is a flower
gardening guide, with quaint old illustrations. There are bound volumes
of Niles' Weekly Register, there are the Madison Papers and the American
State Papers, some law books of the early days--in short, it is the
library of a country gentleman and statesman of a century ago.
Here in his office, aside from his books, we find his old walnut desk,
used throughout his life from the time he was a practicing attorney; the
mahogany tables; candlesticks and lamps. It is the workshop of the
statesman, just as he left it nearly a century ago.
In a cabinet on one side of the room are a number of bound volumes of
newspapers of Jackson's day, which recalls the fact that he was an
omnivorous reader of the newspapers and periodicals current in his time.
His postage account with the Nashville postoffice in 1825 shows that he
received regularly the following papers: _Washington City Gazette_,
_Florence Gazette_, _American Farmer_, _Louisville Public Advertiser_,
_National Journal_, _National Chronicle_ (daily), _Niles Register_,
_Columbian_, _Louisiana Gazette_, _Kentucky Gazette_, _Baltimore Morning
Chronicle_ (daily), _Jackson Gazette_, _Knoxville Enquirer_, _Allegheny
Democrat_, _Mobile Commercial Register_, _National Republican_,
_Knoxville Register_ and _Florida Intelligencer_--all these in addition
to the Nashville papers. One wonders how he had any time at all for
reading books!
The little room to the right of the side entrance was originally
designed for an overseer's room, but was later used as a nursery for the
children of Andrew, junior. Now it provides an admirable place for the
display of the many interesting Jackson relics accumulated by the Ladies
Hermitage Association. Here is a wonderful array of historical and
personal relics--the General's swords and pistols (also his prayer book
and silver communion cup); his gold spurs, epaulettes and stirrups, and
his dress suit; Mrs. Jackson's lace cap and veil; specimens of the White
House silver, china and cut glass; the famous candle taken from the tent
of Cornwallis; medals; jewelry; letters and documents--an intensely
interesting collection of memorabilia pertaining to the vivid career of
the Hermitage's master. Literally hours may be spent in this room
profitably and pleasantly.
[Illustration: One of the garden walks, with original boxwood and
crape myrtle.]
[Illustration: View of garden from the house, showing the tomb in
the corner in the background.]
The hall between the library and museum was originally an open entry,
but was enclosed when the rebuilding was done. The closet on the
right-hand side of the hall, under the stairway, was added after General
Jackson's death, but the left-hand closet was original. This was used in
the old days to store the cotton goods made by the plantation spinners
before it was doled out to the sewing women. Every year in the late fall
the negroes were called up to the overseer's room to be given their
winter clothing, and this occasion was always seized upon by the negroes
for a big celebration. A plantation slave orchestra, composed of fiddle,
tambourine and bones, would make music while the negroes were coming and
going and everybody--black and white--always had a big time on these
occasions.
Going upstairs by way of the back stairway there is to be found on the
right a bedroom that was used by the boys brought up on the
place--Andrew Jackson, junior; Andrew Jackson Donelson and Andrew
Jackson Hutchings. On the left is the bedroom occupied so long by Ralph
E. W. Earl, the artist who married one of the nieces of Mrs. Jackson and
who, upon his wife's early death, was taken in as a permanent member of
the Hermitage household.
The arrangement of rooms upstairs is similar to the downstairs of the
central part of the house--a broad central hall, running the full length
of the house, with two bedrooms on each side of it. This hall has doors
at front and rear opening onto the upstairs back and front porticos; and
its walls are covered with a hand-painted duplicate of the scenic paper
downstairs. This duplicate paper was painted by Miss Jennings for use in
the replica of the Hermitage which stood on the exposition grounds at
the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904. After the exposition closed it was
brought back to Nashville and placed in its present location, where it
provides a pleasing complement to the original paper in the lower hall.
On the western side of the upstairs hall the back bedroom was used as a
guest room (and it was seldom empty); and the front bedroom is
officially labeled "The Lafayette Room," probably because it was in the
corresponding room in the old Hermitage that the Marquis de Lafayette
spent the day when he visited Jackson in 1825, ten years before the
present Hermitage was constructed.
The fire in 1834 destroyed much of the furniture then in use in the
house, and it was replaced with goods purchased in Philadelphia. Jackson
left the selection of the furnishings to Mrs. Sarah York Jackson, his
only suggestion in connection with the furniture being that she order
beds with plain posts instead of carved ones as they would be easier to
keep clean. This admonition accounts for the severely plain bedsteads to
be seen throughout the Hermitage.
This new furniture was shipped in coastwise vessels to New Orleans, and
thence by river steamboats to Nashville. There seems, for some reason,
to be a strange conflict of erroneous opinions about the origin of the
furniture used to furnish the new Hermitage. Some have stated that it
was imported directly from France. At one time it was persistently
reported that Jackson took the White House furniture to the Hermitage
when he retired from office in 1837. The records clearly indicate,
however, that the furniture was bought in Philadelphia through Jackson's
agent there, Henry Toland, and consigned by Toland to Maunsel White,
Jackson's New Orleans factor, with instruction to send it up the river
to the Hermitage. The total value of the new furniture was $2,303.77,
divided among seven Philadelphia merchants. A specimen bill for
furniture from one house, showing the values prevailing at the time, was
as follows:
Andrew Jackson, Jr., Esqr.,
to Barry & Krickbaum Dr
To 1 large wardrobe $ 75
2 dressing bureaus to match 110
2 wardrobes, French pattern 120
1 elliptic front bureau 45
1 secretary and bookcase, complete 50
2 pier tables, marble tops 120
1 work table, elegantly fitted up 50
1 work stand, marble tray top 35
2 ditto ditto 50
1 marble slab 10 $665
The detailed bill of lading for the principal consignment of the new
furnishings gives a good idea of the original cost of much of the
furniture now in the house:
Andrew Jackson, junior, Esqr.,
to George W. South, Dr.
For the following goods, shipped on board the ship Edward Bonaffe:
6 mahogany bedsteads, including the packing @ $240
$40
24 fancy chairs, cane seat, rich blue and gold 60
@ $2.50
Matting to cover the chairs 2 $302
For the following goods shipped on board the Ship Milo:
4 curtains, crimson silk lined with white silk 300.00
and full mounted, @ $75
Box 1.00 301
7 pair tongs and shovels, polished steel, @ $ 31.50
$4.50
1 pair Ditto large size 7.50
1 pair chamber candlesticks, plated 6.00
1 brass fender, Best 13.00
Box 1.00 59
1 wardrobe, black and ornamented 50.00
2 wash stands, marble tops, @ $18 36.00
2 ditto small, @ $5 10.00
2 large size bureaus @ $30 60.00
2 center tables @ $30 60.00
8 packing boxes 16.50 232.50
5 wire fenders with knobs @ $4.50 22.50
1 nursery fender 6.50
Box 1.75 30.75
2 pairs brass andirons @ $6 12.00
1 pair ditto 6.50
2 pairs ditto @ $7 14.00
32.50
Box 1.00 33.50
3 sets of fine paper hanging, Views of Telemachus @ $40 120.00
Shipped by Ship John Sergeant:
150 yards super Nankeen matting @ $.50 $75.00
20 yards Brussels 4/4 stair carpeting, crimson 57.50
damask center with red border, @ $2.87½
1 mahogany bedstead packed 40.00
1 " " very fine 60.00 232.50
1 blind, large size 10.00
1 pair blinds to match 10.00
1 dozen 40 inch stair rods 6.50
Box. 1.75 28.28
1,339.50
Insurance for Bonaffee at $400
" Milo 900
" Jno Sergeant 300
$1,600
@ 1½% $24
Policy 1 25.00
$1,364.50
Received payment, Geo. W. South, January 14, 1836.
All the goods mentioned in the above invoice arrived safely in New
Orleans, but when they were reshipped on river steamboats to Nashville a
large part of the goods was lost when the _John Randolph_ burned at the
wharf in Nashville on May 16, 1836. The _John Randolph_ carried eighteen
crates of the new Hermitage furniture, including the famous Telemachus
paper, and this loss coming close on the heels of the loss of his house
must have been sorely discouraging to the old man. But he promptly, upon
receipt of the bad news, wrote Andrew to check up the bills of lading
and let him know just what parcels were burned so that he could reorder
them in Philadelphia. His letter closes on a pathetic note: "This
catastrophe will make it necessary that I should have more means, and in
one of my letters I said to you to inquire whether the tract in the
Western District, or part of it, could be sold and for what. You told me
some time ago that there was a man would give five dollars per acre for
400 acres. If you can get that for it in cash I authorize you to sell
it. You can say with truth that I had declined taking that offer for it
because it was too low; but the burning of my house, and now my
furniture, makes it necessary for me to sell."
The General's worst fears were realized insofar as he was perturbed
about the inability of his resources to absorb the loss of his home and
furniture. Soon after his return from Washington he wrote to a friend:
"I returned home with just ninety dollars in money, having expended all
my salary and most of the proceeds of my cotton crop; found everything
out of repair, corn and everything else to buy for the use of my farm;
having but one tract of land besides my homestead, which I sacrificed
and which has enabled me to begin the new year clear of debt, relying on
our industry and economy to yield us a support, trusting to a kind
providence for good seasons and a prosperous crop." To another friend he
wrote, complaining that he had to buy bacon for his family and also corn
and oats for the stock--an unforgivable thing to a practical farmer.
Furthermore, upon his return he found "the new roof of my house, just
rebuilt, leaking and to be repaired." Continuing he said: "I carried
$5,000 when I went to Washington--it took all of my cotton crop ($2,250)
with my salary, to bring me home. The burning of my house and furniture
has left me poor." A few days after his return he said: "I find my
blooded stock in bad order and too numerous for empty corn cribs and hay
lofts. I have determined to sell out part to enable me to feed the
balance better." In the spring of 1838, anticipating a needed vacation
at a health resort during the approaching summer, he was trying to sell
off some town lots he owned in Alabama, admitting frankly that unless he
could sell the lots he would not have the means to make the desired trip
to the springs. It was at this time that he wrote: "To wind up our debts
since last spring we have paid upwards of $7,000. Andrew was
inexperienced, and most men are likely to become swindlers when an
opportunity offers, and he happened to fall into the hands of men who
pretended to be friends and trusted too much to their honesty. But,
thank God, we are not now in debt."
But in the midst of his adversity we find him writing unselfishly to
Andrew Jackson Donelson: "I heard you say that your means to buy corn
was exhausted. Inclosed I send you half of my present means after paying
for my corn, oats and fodder engaged. This half Eagle ought to buy you
three barrels of corn. It will buy 20 bushels of oats, which will be
better for your colts."