Much of the sentimental interest attached to the Hermitage centers
around the garden, that fenced-in acre to the east of the mansion house
which was set aside by General Jackson for that purpose when the
Hermitage was built in 1819. We know that the exact site of the house
was carefully selected by his wife, and it is safe to assume that it was
she also who picked out this particular spot for the garden.
A short time before the Hermitage was built the General, accompanied by
Rachel, visited in Washington on official business; and on this occasion
they made the pilgrimage to Mount Vernon. Jackson was obviously much
impressed by his visit to the old home of George Washington, so much so
that he left in his papers a written memorandum of his impressions
aroused by his journey to what he described as "the venerable dwelling
of the patriarch of our liberties."
It is only a speculation, of course, but it is interesting to entertain
the fancy that it was perhaps as a result of this visit that the old
General, upon his return to Tennessee, decided to build for himself a
home more in keeping with the dignity of the position he had attained as
a national hero. Perhaps Rachel herself suggested it to him. She was
proud of the General and the distinctions he had gained; maybe she put
the thought in his head that the Hero of New Orleans ought not to be
receiving his guests in a log house, that he should live in a little
more style--something approaching the quiet dignity of Mount Vernon,
which they both admired. A new house they should have--and, of course,
by all means, a garden.
At any rate, we find in the old General's memorandum of his Mount Vernon
trip the following reference: "A neat little flower garden, laid out and
trimmed with the utmost exactness, ornamented with green and hot houses
in which flourish the most beautiful of the tropical plants, affords a
happy relief to the solemn impressions produced by a view of the antique
structure it adjoins, and leads you insensibly into the most delightful
reverie, in which you review in imagination the manner in which the
greatest and the best of men, after the most busy and eventful life,
retired into privacy and amused the evening of his days." And so, when
the Hermitage mansion house was built in 1819, we find close by its side
"a neat little flower garden, laid out and trimmed with the utmost
exactness;" and, although it is difficult to picture the tempestuous old
warrior puttering about a flower garden, his correspondence reveals that
thoughts of it occupied a part of his attention throughout his lifetime,
and contemporaries have recalled that he had more than the average man's
interest in the flowers, particularly admiring the roses and the pinks.
That the garden was no mere afterthought or casual incidental to the
building of the house is shown by the fact that in 1819 he engaged,
evidently for the task of laying it out and planting it, an English
professional gardener named William Frost, reputed at that time to be
one of the best gardeners in the metropolis of Philadelphia. The best
was none too good for Rachel in those days.
During his long absence from home during his two terms as President,
Jackson's correspondence is liberally sprinkled with references to his
garden. In all the great difficulty he experienced in obtaining the
services of competent or satisfactory overseers, one of his criticisms
of them was that they were derelict in their care of the
garden--Rachel's garden. And in May, 1835, when his son wrote him
relative to the good conduct of the new overseer most recently engaged
he replied: "How I am delighted to hear that the garden has regained its
former appearance that it always possessed whilst your dear mother was
living, and that just attention is now paid to her monument. This is
truly pleasing to me, and precisely as it ought to be."
In May, 1832, in a letter to his son's young wife General Jackson wrote:
"I sincerely regret the ravages made by the frost in the garden, and
particularly that the willow by the gate is destroyed. This I wish you
to replace. The willows around the tomb I hope are living, and a branch
from one of these might replace the dead one at the garden gate. It will
grow if well watered and planted on receipt of this." But it didn't
grow--or else the youthful Sarah neglected to plant it; and it was not
until 1925 that a member of the Ladies' Hermitage Association ran across
this letter of the General's and decided that, better late than never,
his wishes should be carried out. The willows at the tomb--the willows
General Jackson had himself planted nearly a century before--are now
dead and gone, probably crowded and shaded to death by the stately old
magnolias that now guard the plot of graves. But a scion was taken from
another willow on the place and today the young willow may be seen there
at the garden gate, belatedly replacing the one destroyed by the late
frost in the spring of 1832.
The garden plot occupies an acre of ground, surrounded by a high picket
fence built of enduring Tennessee red cedar. The fence is of the old
substantial type, constructed of pointed pickets mortised with precision
into the horizontal sustaining members, and entrance is gained through
an old-fashioned wooden gate, reached by a short brick walk from the
door on the eastern side of the house.
Inside the garden, eight feet from the fence, the plot is encircled by a
gravel walk about six feet wide, and similar bisecting walks cut the
garden into four plots. In the center the walks converge on a
geometrically designed system of concentric circular beds in which
annuals bloom from year to year. Roses climb on the fence, and shrubbery
is planted along the sides of the walks, the central portion of each of
the four plots now being kept in grass. In the middle of the north side
is the original brick tool house, the path to which is shaded by an old
rustic rose arbor; and peeping out between the box bushes and crape
myrtles may be seen an occasional moss rose or other old-fashioned
plant.
We do not find here the hothouses with their tropical plants which the
General and Rachel so much admired at Mount Vernon; but evidently an
effort was made to introduce unusual shrubbery into the garden, for in
addition to the customary plants found in a Southern garden of the
period there are to be seen some of the more rare and exotic shrubs--fig
trees brought from the far South, a pink magnolia from Japan, etc.
The planning and arrangement of the planting is such that it provides
attractions the whole year round. There are flowers throughout the
blooming season from early spring to late fall; then there are the
brightly colored leaves of the bushes and trees; and during the winter
there is the glossy green foliage of magnolias and the faintly scented
box bushes beside the garden paths, the barrenness of the flower beds at
that season being relieved by the sweet-scented winter honeysuckle which
defies the seasons and blooms in December and January as though it were
mid-summer. The Hermitage garden is never without its attractive
features.
In early spring there is first the brilliant bloom of the English
hawthorn, then the narcissi and tulips and hyacinths making the air
heavy with their fragrance, also the jonquils and old-fashioned
blue-bottles and purple shades. Crocuses and butter-and-eggs and, later,
iris and peonies all combine to make the garden a springtime riot of
bloom. So spectacularly do the peonies bloom that they always attract
large crowds of visitors while they are in full flower, more than a
thousand visitors having gone to the Hermitage garden in one day to
witness the rare floral spectacle.
Interspersed with all the conventional plants and shrubs are some of the
native wild flowers that bloom in the fields and along the river banks
near by; for when the Hermitage garden was first planted the florist's
art had not reached its present peak of perfection, and although the
thoughtful General sent home flower seeds from Philadelphia and
Washington, Rachel took pleasure in augmenting the garden's finery by
selections from the surrounding country. Visitors may still see in the
beds there the nodding Jacob's ladder, the columbine and other such
homely blossoms. The wild yucca, with its semi-tropical appearance, was
brought in from some of the near-by cedar glades, along with prickly
pear cacti and rock roses; and a graceful fringe tree was planted near
the entrance gate.
In the beds in the center of the garden there have always grown tulips
in the springtime and then some kind of annuals to sustain the
succession of blooms through the summer. Early in June the great
collection of ascension lilies begin to bloom, filling the garden with
their perfume; and throughout the summer there are the roses, both in
bush and climbing form, mostly of the old-fashioned varieties--moss
roses, the yellow briar, maiden's blush, Louis Phillippe, macrophylla,
pink musk, etc.
The shrubbery also contributes its share of blossoms, from the golden
bells, bridal wreath, snowballs and calacanthus of the spring through
the altheas or Rose of Sharon of the summer, to the pink and red crape
myrtles of the late summer which cap off their showy mass of blooms with
a brilliantly colored array of scarlet leaves in the fall months.
The Hermitage garden offers some form of attraction at any season of the
year.
During the early days of the Ladies' Hermitage Association the wealth of
bloom in the garden was turned to good account, especially in the
spring. Then cuttings of jonquils and peonies, literally by the
wagonload, were sent into Nashville and sold on the street; and there
were also sales of seeds and cuttings and surplus bulbs, so that
visitors might take away with them living mementoes of the Hermitage
garden. From this source the association was able to derive a
considerable and much-needed revenue at a time when funds were scarce
and every dollar of income was welcome.
During his lifetime Uncle Alfred, who acted as a guide to visitors,
always took especial interest in the garden and beamed with proprietary
pride when visitors gave expression to their appreciation of its
beauties. "Please do not pluck the flowers" says a conspicuous sign by
the side of the gate; but if a visitor really seemed interested in the
garden's attractions the old retainer would slyly say: "Now if you like
dat rosebud, I won't see you if you gets it."
Some idea of what the Hermitage garden looked like in the old days may
be gathered from a description of it which was given in an interview
printed in one of the Nashville papers several years ago with an old
lady who had visited there with her father when she was a girl. Looking
back down the vista of the years, she said:
The flower beds about the middle of the garden were there when the
General lived there. He had an old negro, Alfred, to attend to the
garden. They had a regular vegetable garden combined with the flower
garden. The vegetable garden was not with the flower part of the
garden, but you could see the vegetable garden when you stood in the
flower garden or where the flowers were. They had cabbages, potatoes,
beets, beans and squash and other vegetables in the vegetable part of
the garden. They had sage and thyme around on the edge of the flower
beds. They had in the flower beds hollyhocks, beds of pinks of all
colors, rose bushes, tea roses, macrophylla and cinnamon roses, moss
roses, white lilacs, tiger lilies, heliotrope (white and purple). Some
of the beds were edged with sweet violets. There were poppies in some
of the beds, and hyacinths and tulips. The Washington bower was on the
side--on the fence and climbing up the trees in the garden--they were
trees with long white flowers, locust trees I think. The garden was
larger then than it is now--it was larger east and west than now and
was fenced with a plank fence. There was a weeping willow there but I
can't locate it now. There was a large rope swing near the house and
near to the entrance to the garden. It was tied to the limb of a
hickory tree.
Continuing with her description of the garden this old lady spoke of two
magnolia trees "about the middle of the garden near the tomb--good big
trees" and in speaking further of the weeping willows stated that they
were "just over the fence, near and opposite the tomb." She also named
more of the flowers that grew in the old garden: Several big bushes of
crape myrtle; verbenas, all colors; sunflowers; all-colored flags--red,
white and purple; snowballs; red, pink and white peonies; old-fashioned
honeysuckle--coral, white and yellow, lilacs, white and purple. The
"Washington bower" she describes as having a purple flower, so it was
probably the large-flowering variety of clematis which was also known as
the virgin bower. She also mentioned, in enumerating the shrubbery,
"japonica bushes" which, she said, "has red blossoms and comes early and
late;" and this, we may presume, was the flowering shrub known now as
the English hawthorn and also called the fire-bush.
The garden as it stands today is just about as it was in the days when
it bloomed and blossomed under Rachel's tender care, except that the
flowering shrubs and bushes have now attained the size and beauty gained
only with the passing of the years. But it was not in any such condition
as this that the Ladies' Hermitage Association found it when they took
charge. During the wartime occupation of the premises by the guard of
Federal troops the garden was almost obliterated. Being fenced in and
convenient to the house, it appealed to the cavalrymen as an ideal
corral for their horses, and it was so used during the three years the
Federal troops remained on the grounds. It is easy to imagine the damage
done--and it is also easy to imagine Old Hickory's devastating wrath if
he had known that his government's troops were so heedlessly desecrating
Rachel's flower garden.
After the war but little was done to repair the damage done by the
soldiers' horses. The fence was restored, and this kept out wandering
stock and permitted the hardy shrubs to grow again; but the paths were
overgrown with weeds, washed by the recurring rains, and in 1889 little
trace of the old walkways remained except for the marginal brick
borders. (These bricks, by the way, were especially designed and made
for the purpose, being longer and thicker than ordinary bricks and also
beveled at the top. They were manufactured on the place when the bricks
were burned for the building of the big house, the depression in the
ground where the clay was dug out for all the bricks being still visible
in the extreme northwestern corner of the big wooded lot directly across
the road from the front entrance to the Hermitage.)
In spite of the discouraging aspect of affairs in the garden when the
ladies took over the property, however, the work of restoring it to its
original beauty was valiantly attacked, and one of their very first
activities was to engage a man to clear away the weeds and blackberry
bushes and the volunteer elms and hickories, rebuild the paths and
restore the garden to some semblance of its former appearance. The work
of restoration has been carefully done, with a full appreciation of the
importance of retaining the spirit and form of the original design and
planting. A competent garden authority was retained to plan the work in
later years, and there has been no effort to modernize or improve the
garden--only a faithful determination to repair the ravages of time and
present it to the visitor today just as it was when the General and
Rachel were alive and wandered up and down its broad paths in admiration
of its beauty.
The focal point of interest in the garden, of course, is the tomb in the
southeast corner. When his beloved Rachel died in December, 1828, just
on the eve of their departure for his first Presidential inauguration,
the old General laid her away in the corner of the garden and,
heavy-hearted, started off for Washington alone.
During the subsequent eight years, as the bitterly fought battles of
partisan politics raged and surged about him in the nation's capital,
his heart remained buried in the garden at the Hermitage. In May, 1829,
he wrote to the Rev. Hardy M. Cryer (that bizarre combination of devout
Methodist preacher and horseman) saying: "In the day I am laboriously
employed, and it is only when late in the night I retire to my chamber
that I have time to think of or write to my friends. It is then that I
feel the great weight of the late affliction of Providence in the
bereavement I have been visited with in the loss of my dear wife; I find
myself a solitary man, deprived of all hope of happiness this side the
grave, and often with myself at the Hermitage, there to spend the
remnant of my days and daily drop a tear on the tomb of my beloved wife
and be prepared, when Providence wills it, to unite with her in the
realm above."
Due to the need for his immediate departure for Washington after the
death of his wife, it was necessary that she be buried in a plain grave
over which a temporary shelter was built. But it was never the General's
idea that her resting-place should go without a more elaborate monument;
and even before he left the Hermitage in January, 1829, he began
negotiations looking to the design and construction of what he described
as a "monumental tomb." A contract for the building of the tomb was
given a Nashville contractor, D. Morrison; and Mr. Morrison designed a
simple but impressive structure of classic Greek lines. It is built of
stone, its dome-like top being supported by fluted stone columns and
covered with copper. The structure is surrounded by a simple iron fence.
The inscription on Mrs. Jackson's tomb is popularly supposed to have
been written by the General himself. Mrs. Rachel Jackson Lawrence stated
that it was written by Major Henry Lee, the talented though scapegrace
Virginian who was Jackson's secretary and a resident of the Hermitage at
the time of Mrs. Jackson's death. It has even been attributed to Major
John M. Eaton. Whoever wrote it, it is a beautiful and moving tribute to
the pioneer woman who occupied the central place in Andrew Jackson's
heart throughout his life:
_Here lie the remains of Mrs. Rachel Jackson, wife of President
Jackson, who died the 22nd of December, 1828, aged sixty-one years.
Her face was fair, her person pleasing, her temper amiable, her heart
kind. She delighted in relieving the wants of her fellow creatures and
cultivated that divine pleasure by the most liberal and unpretending
methods. To the poor she was a benefactor; to the rich an example; to
the wretched a comforter; to the prosperous an ornament. Her piety
went hand in hand with her benevolence, and she thanked her Creator
for being permitted to do good. A being so gentle and so virtuous
slander might wound but could not dishonor; even death, when he bore
her from the arms of her husband, could but transport her to the bosom
of her God._
In strong contrast to this eloquent eulogy is the Spartan simplicity of
the old General's own epitaph, certainly written by himself:
GENERAL ANDREW JACKSON
Born March 15, 1767
Died June 8, 1845
There would have been no such simplicity as this about Old Hickory's
final resting place, however, if some of his admirers had had their way.
Early in 1845, only a few months before Jackson died, Commodore J. D.
Elliott of the United States Navy, commander of the old _Constitution_,
brought home from Palestine the marble sarcophagus in which had rested
the remains of the Roman emperor, Alexander Severus. Commodore Elliott
wrote to General Jackson, advising him that he had brought home this
handsome relic and deposited it with the National Institute with the
suggestion that it be tendered Jackson for his own tomb. "I pray you,
General," wrote Elliott, "to live on in the fear of the Lord; dying the
death of a Roman soldier, an emperor's coffin awaits you."
But General Jackson, as might have been expected, while courteously
expressing his appreciation of the spirit of veneration that prompted
the proffer, firmly declared that: "I can not consent that my mortal
remains shall be laid in a repository prepared for an emperor or king."
"My republican feelings and principles forbid it;" Jackson's letter
continues, "the simplicity of our system of government forbids it. Every
monument erected to perpetuate the memory of our heroes and statesmen
ought to bear evidence of the economy and simplicity of our republican
institutions and of the plainness of our republican citizens, who are
the sovereigns of our glorious Union and whose virtue is to perpetuate
it. True virtue can not exist where pomp and parade are the governing
passions. It can only dwell with the people--the great laboring and
producing classes--that form the bone and sinew of our confederacy.... I
have prepared an humble depository for my mortal body beside that
wherein lies my beloved wife where, without any pomp or parade, I have
requested, when my God calls me to sleep with my fathers, to be laid;
for both of us there to remain until the last trumpet sounds to call the
dead to judgment when we, I hope, shall rise together clothed with that
heavenly body promised to all who believe in our glorious Redeemer who
died for us that we might live, and by whose atonement I hope for a
blessed immortality."
[Illustration: Walnut desk used by General Jackson, with chair made
from the wood of the frigate _Constitution_, presented to him by
Levi Woodbury.]
[Illustration: General Jackson's office or library, showing his
armchair, presented to him by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, beside
the candle-stand where he customarily opened his mail. For thirty
years this room was the political center of the United States.]
When the new Hermitage was built in 1819 and the garden was laid out,
one of General Jackson's first acts was to walk out into the garden with
Rachel and select the spot where their remains would rest side by side
when life had passed. At this time the General's health was precarious,
racked as he was by eight years of almost continuous campaigning while
in a debilitated physical condition, and he frankly expressed the belief
that he would not live long. At that time it seemed highly improbable
that he would outlive the blooming Rachel by nearly seventeen years.
This burying ground in the corner of the garden is not, legally
speaking, now a part of the Hermitage property. To insure its permanent
care, General Jackson on September 17, 1832, executed a formal indenture
with John H. Eaton, John Coffee, and Andrew Jackson, junior, "and their
heirs forever," whereby he "bargained, sold, conveyed and delivered" to
them in trust "one-fourth part of an acre of ground, out of the
Hermitage tract, to be laid off and run out so as to include the tomb or
monument placed on the remains of his dear departed wife, Rachel
Jackson, and designed as the deposit of the remains of the said Andrew
Jackson when it pleases God to take him hence, and the family of Andrew
Jackson, junior, and his heirs." It is provided that the trustees and
their heirs shall preserve the sacred deposit made upon said ground and
let the tomb or monument remain undisturbed and "hold the ground subject
to the use and purpose mentioned, forever." This conveyance is duly
registered in the courthouse at Nashville, and was taken into
consideration when the Hermitage property was transferred to the state
in 1857.
Here in this quiet corner, sheltered by the heavy green foliage of the
old magnolias that guard the tomb of the General and Rachel, are the
graves of the adopted son and his family connections. Here lie Andrew
Jackson, junior (the adopted son), and his wife, Sarah York Jackson;
Colonel Andrew Jackson (the adopted son's son), his wife Amy A. Jackson
and his younger brother Captain Samuel Jackson, who was killed at
Chickamauga; also the two other sons of Andrew Jackson, junior, who died
in infancy; Rachel Jackson Lawrence, daughter of Andrew Jackson, junior,
her husband, Dr. J. M. Lawrence and their son and daughter, John
Marshall Lawrence and Sazie Lawrence Winn; Mrs. Marion Adams, sister of
Sarah York Jackson; and R. E. W. Earle, the artist.
On the other side of the General's monumental tomb, just across the
graveled walk, is a single mound with a plain, low marble headstone on
which is carved: "Uncle Alfred. Died September 4,1901, aged 98 years.
Faithful servant of Andrew Jackson." It was Uncle Alfred's fondest wish
in his old days that his mortal remains might be laid to rest as closely
as possible by the side of his old master, the General; and the promise
that he would be so buried lent solace to his declining years. So long
as "the Gin'ral" lived, Alfred kept as closely by his side as possible;
and close by his side he remains as master and servant sleep their long
sleep in the dark magnolias' shade.
When General Jackson in his letters spoke of returning to the Hermitage
to cast a tear on the tomb of his departed wife it was no mere figure of
speech. After his retirement from public life in 1837 he went back to
the home place and spent the rest of his days on the farm in pleasant
association with the family of his adopted son. Here a part of his daily
routine consisted in a long walk in the afternoon which invariably wound
up at the side of Rachel's tomb, where he was wont to sit in
contemplative reflection. His little granddaughter, Rachel, was his
customary companion on these walks; but she soon learned that when his
steps turned toward the tomb he wished to be alone, and when they
reached the garden gate she always withdrew her hand from his and ran
away about her childish diversions, leaving him to his thoughts. Even
after he became bedridden in the last year of his life, on pleasant days
he required that his chair be carried to the garden and placed by the
side of the tomb; and there he sat through the hours, dreaming of the
stormy and pleasant days of the past.
Just to the east of the tomb the visitor to the garden today sees a
group of hickory trees closely together in a straight row; and
concerning these trees there is an interesting little story. On December
18, 1830, President Jackson received from an admirer in Ulster, New
York, Colonel Charles E. Dudley, a parcel of hickory nuts ("nutts" in
Jackson's free-and-easy orthography) from a tree in Ulster said to be
the only one of its kind known in New York. Colonel Dudley doubtless
felt that he was the author of a delicate compliment in sending these
unique hickory nuts to Old Hickory himself; and the President in his
formal note of thanks, seemed duly appreciative of the honor intended.
"To perpetuate this memento of the kind regard of Mr. and Mrs. Dudley,"
he wrote in the formal official third person of the period, "he has sent
one dozen of these nutts to be planted in his garden at the Hermitage,
to encircle the tomb of his departed wife, and to have the following
inscription engraved on the marble. 'The Dudley hickory of Ulster, New
York, presented by Mr. and Mrs. Dudley to the President.'"
Further reference to the nuts is seen in a letter written by President
Jackson in the spring of 1831 to his adopted son, who was about to
return to Tennessee: "I sent to Mr. Daniel Donelson some hickory nutts
with a request that he would hand them to the overseer with a letter
directing Steele to plant them around your mother's tomb." That they
were duly planted is attested by the attention-attracting row of tall,
straight trees seen there today; but there is no sign of the inscription
mentioned in General Jackson's letter to Colonel Dudley. No one now
living remembers whether the trees were planted in strict accordance
with the General's expressed wish that they encircle the tomb, although
one of Jackson's biographers does mention that "some fine hickory trees
that grew in the garden" were at one time removed in a mistaken effort
to improve the appearance of the place.
Despite the careful and painstaking preparations made by General Jackson
to insure that the last resting place of his mortal remains would be by
the side of his beloved wife in the tomb in the Hermitage garden, it was
only by the interposition of the governor of the state that there was
frustrated an effort to nullify this last wish of the old General.
When the state purchased the property in 1856 and then began to make
plans to tender it to the Federal government as a suitable site for a
military academy in the South, somebody had the bright idea of digging
up the bodies of the General and Mrs. Jackson and removing them from the
Hermitage to Capitol Hill in Nashville. Accordingly a bill was
introduced in the General Assembly in 1860 providing for such removal,
and it was promptly passed by the Senate. Before the lower house could
act on it, however, Andrew Jackson, junior, heard of the plan and
immediately raised a loud and well-justified protest. Directly to
Governor Harris he went to remonstrate against the enactment of the
bill, pointing out that upon his death-bed General Jackson had expressed
the hope that the remains of himself and his wife should under no
circumstances be removed from the Hermitage. Governor Harris thereupon
sent a special message to the Senate and House of Representatives
"respectfully recommending" that the bill be rejected and that Old
Hickory's wishes be respected. In those days a respectful recommendation
from Governor Harris was just about equivalent to an edict, and nothing
more was heard about disturbing the Jackson remains.
But, although this plan for the official removal of the remains was
defeated, there was another mysterious and criminal attempt on General
Jackson's body several years later. It was late in the summer of 1894
that a visitor appeared at the Hermitage one morning and, as was the
customary procedure with visitors, was courteously conducted through the
house and about the grounds. It was noted at the time that he displayed
an unusual interest in the Jackson family and home life and talked with
Uncle Alfred at great length about his old master. He showed particular
interest in the tomb; although, at the time, no sinister intent was
attached to his interest. After spending the morning on the place he
went to a near-by country store for a bite to eat during the middle of
the day and then returned and loitered about the premises throughout the
afternoon until nearly dark. At length, to the relief of the custodian
who was growing vaguely apprehensive, the stranger departed; and it was
thought he had gone for good.
It is easy to imagine the custodian's horrified astonishment, on
visiting the garden next morning, to find a large and gaping hole in the
ground on the west side of the tomb near the head of General Jackson's
grave. The hole was deep enough to expose the stone foundations of the
tomb; but fortunately the burial vaults were enclosed in a solid wall of
masonry, and the grave-robber's felonious intentions were defeated. It
developed, upon inquiry, that the mysterious stranger had borrowed a
spade from the near-by Donelson home at Tulip Grove the preceding
afternoon and that it had been carefully returned and left at the door
of the house in the early morning hours. The ghoul had evidently, from
the extent of his operations, worked all night in opening the big
excavation; and he was doubtless exasperated to discover that the
careful and substantial work of the builder of the tomb in 1831 had made
the General's last home impregnable to such assaults.
The Ladies' Hermitage Association made every effort to ferret out the
mystery; but, with the limited means at their disposal, they were able
to learn nothing at the time. But several months later a man died in a
hospital in New York who confessed that he was a professional
body-snatcher (a practice not uncommon at that time) and that among
other exploits of his infamous career he had made the ineffectual
attempt on the Jackson tomb. Just what he intended to do with the body
if his efforts had been successful was not revealed; and today it is
hard to imagine how the body of an ex-President would command any
premium even in the grave-robbers' underworld; but the fact remains that
the attempt was made, and it was only because of the staunch
construction of the tomb that the body of the General remained
undisturbed.