Almost from the time it was built, the Hermitage held an attraction for
visitors from all over the country; and since the death of General
Jackson it has been a veritable Mecca. To enumerate all of its
distinguished visitors would be to build up a bulky roster of the noted
men of the past century; but mention may be made in passing of some of
the more prominent people who have crossed the threshold of the
Hermitage, either to be greeted by its famous master during his lifetime
or to honor his memory since his old home has been established as a
national shrine.
Despite its relatively isolated location and its inaccessibility during
the early days, no less than eight Presidents of the United States have
been formally entertained there, not to mention those who have visited
it as an incident of a trip to Nashville. The first Presidential guest
was James Monroe, who visited Nashville in June, 1819. This was before
the present brick Hermitage was built--probably just about the time it
was started--and President Monroe was perhaps the last famous guest to
be entertained at the old log Hermitage. Mr. Monroe's visit marked the
first time that a President of the United States had ever been
entertained in Nashville, and the proceedings were correspondingly
elaborate. The President had proceeded from Washington to Charleston,
South Carolina, and thence to Augusta, Georgia, and it was to the latter
city that General Jackson went to meet him and escort him to the
Hermitage. After spending two days there the party went on to Nashville.
A few miles out from the city they were met by a committee of prominent
citizens, with a company of soldiers, by whom they were accompanied into
town with no little flourish and fanfare of trumpets. Upon arrival in
Nashville a further formal welcome was officially extended; there was a
big dinner at the old Nashville Inn, with a long list of patriotic
toasts to be drunk by the diners, and the next evening there was a great
ball in honor of the distinguished guest.
Other Presidents who have come to visit at the Jackson shrine have been
Martin Van Buren, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, James K. Polk,
Millard Fillmore, Rutherford B. Hayes, William H. Taft, Theodore
Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt. The visit of the earlier Roosevelt
is particularly notable in the annals of the Hermitage, because it was
he who obtained from Congress an appropriation of $5,000 to be devoted
to the repair of the old house.
When Mr. Hayes visited the old home of his distinguished forerunner in
the President's chair the ladies who accompanied him were particularly
careful to introduce him to old Uncle Alfred. After the introduction was
over, and Alfred had shaken hands with Mr. Hayes, the ladies explained
to the old servitor that the white gentleman had held the same high
office as General Jackson. "Well, if you'd a been as great a man as he
was," said the candid old negro, "I'd a shuck your hand pretty near
off!" President Taft on his subsequent visit to the Hermitage was told
this anecdote, and the old halls reëchoed with his characteristic
booming laughter.
Another man who bore the title of President and who was a close friend
of Jackson and a constant visitor at his home was not, indeed, a
President of the United States but the President of the Republic of
Texas--Sam Houston, the distinguished and eccentric Tennesseean who
mysteriously and suddenly resigned the governorship and went to live
with the Indians and then ended his self-imposed exile and went to Texas
to become that state's most famous citizen.
Jackson was intensely interested in the annexation of Texas, and when
that was finally accomplished and Houston was elected as the new state's
first Senator, Old Hickory looked forward with the keenest delight to
the visit which Houston was planning to pay him on his way from Texas to
Washington. But when the Texas hero reached Nashville he learned to his
dismay that the old statesman, long in precarious health, was that day
literally on his death bed; and although he hastened to the Hermitage
with all speed, he was just a few minutes too late to give a farewell
clasp of the hand to his old friend. Just before reaching the house he
met the carriage of Doctor Esselman on his way back to Nashville, and
the doctor conveyed to him the sad intelligence of the General's death;
so Houston, instead of going on to the Hermitage, stopped by at Tulip
Grove, but after the funeral he stayed over at the Hermitage for a brief
visit with the family. In her reminiscences Mrs. Rachel Jackson Lawrence
recalls this visit and how to her childish mind the sober black clothing
he then wore contrasted so strongly with the brilliant military uniform
in which he was arrayed when he had visited the Hermitage a few years
before, soon after his history making victory over Santa Anna at San
Jacinto. Mrs. Lawrence also told of a visit Houston paid to the
Hermitage in 1836, when the work of rebuilding the house had not quite
been completed. At that time the flagstones of the front portico had not
yet been laid, and General Houston to the great amusement of the
children got down in the sand and loose dirt and played "Doodle bug,
doodle bug, come out of your hole." There was no pose of false dignity
about Sam Houston--maybe that was why so many people loved him.
The earliest distinguished visitor to the Hermitage--and the one whose
visit had the most far-reaching implications--was Aaron Burr, the
spectacular figure of the early nineteenth century whose strange
adventures almost embroiled General Jackson in serious trouble.
Burr's first visit to the Nashville settlements, and to the Hermitage,
was in May, 1805. He had just stepped down from the vice-presidency and
his farewell speech to the Senate had been greatly admired. His fatal
duel with Alexander Hamilton, which had stigmatized him in the East, did
not detract any from his popularity on the Tennessee frontier where
killing a man in a duel was not regarded as a matter involving any
serious moral turpitude. Upon his arrival in Nashville he was given a
reception that amounted to an ovation, culminating in a sumptuous dinner
with the usual round of toasts and speeches. Jackson rode in from the
Hermitage to take part in the festivities, attended by a servant leading
a milk-white horse; and when the dinner was over Colonel Burr went back
with him to the Hermitage as his guest. "I have been received with much
hospitality and kindness, and could stay a month with pleasure," Burr
wrote his daughter, Theodosia. From Nashville Colonel Burr went to New
Orleans; but on his return trip in August stopped at the Hermitage again
for a visit of eight days. To Theodosia he wrote: "For a week I have
been lounging at the house of General Jackson--once a lawyer, after a
judge, now a planter; a man of intelligence, and one of those prompt,
frank, ardent souls whom I love to meet."
In September, 1806, Burr was back at the Hermitage, this time with his
mind apparently fully made up as to his contemplated expedition to the
Southwest. Theodosia he had brought along with him as far as
Blennerhassett Island on the Ohio where he had left her; and in his
frequent talks with the prominent citizens of Nashville during his stay
there he discussed freely his plans to establish colonies "on the
western waters." There were not lacking even then suspicious persons who
wanted to know more about the exact nature of the mysterious Colonel's
mysterious plans; but Jackson, at first at least, seemed to give full
credence to Burr's declarations of pacific intentions, and at the fete
given in the visitor's honor in Nashville he entered the ballroom
accompanied by Jackson attired in his full uniform as a major general.
This third visit lasted only a few days, Colonel Burr hastening back to
Kentucky; but in November Jackson, the merchant and boat-builder,
received from him an order for the building of five large flatboats at
his Clover Bottom boatyard and an accompanying order for enough
provisions from his Clover Bottom store to stock them for their trip
down the Mississippi. In the light of subsequent events it might have
seemed significant that such a handsome piece of business was thrown in
the lap of the frontier celebrity who happened to be major-general of
the militia as well as a boat-builder and merchant, but if Burr counted
on influencing Jackson's judgment he reckoned without his man. Jackson,
at the time he accepted the order, must have been convinced of the
law-abiding nature of Burr's intentions. There was no secrecy about
their negotiations. But friends, not of so trusting a nature, were
insistent in urging him to watch his step; and so he wrote a candid
letter to Burr, telling him of the stories being circulated about his
alleged nefarious schemes, and asking him for the truth. He also wrote
to Governor Claiborne of the Orleans Territory, telling him of the
rumors, and to President Jefferson offering the services of himself and
his militia in the event of any trouble. Meanwhile the work on the boats
went right along. Burr had paid for them in advance, and Jackson felt
honor-bound to complete them despite his growing suspicions; but he gave
his partner, John Coffee, strict instructions to accept no more business
from Burr.
In December Burr came back to Nashville from Kentucky. There the
suspicions against his expedition had crystallized into charges that led
to his arrest; but Henry Clay defended him and he was acquitted in
triumph.
When Burr arrived at the Hermitage, for the fourth time, the customary
warm welcome was conspicuously lacking. Jackson himself was not at home
and Mrs. Jackson, so it is recorded, was "cool and constrained." Burr
took lodgings at the tavern at Clover Bottom; and when Jackson got home
he immediately called on the Colonel there, in company with General
Overton, and frankly told him of the rising tide of suspicion and
distrust. Burr glibly protested the innocence of his intentions; but it
is significant that he continued to lodge at the tavern and was not
invited to stay at the Hermitage. When General Jackson permitted a
friend to stay at a public house instead of insisting that he go home
with him, it is a strong indication that the General was beginning to
smell a mouse.
On December 22, 1806, Colonel Burr and a handful of adventurous young
men recruited in the neighborhood embarked in the boats and pushed off
from Clover Bottom. The denouement came swiftly. Burr had hardly left
Nashville before President Jefferson's proclamation denouncing him and
his expedition reached town; and the populace which a few weeks before
had been entertaining him with balls and banquets now burnt him in
effigy. Jackson, as commander of the troops in this section, was
commanded by the Secretary of War to hold his forces in readiness to
march; and he entered fully into the spirit of his instructions with a
prompt display of energy and zeal. The militia was assembled, warnings
were sent down the river against "all men engaged in any enterprise
contrary to the laws or orders of our government;" but, upon receipt of
news from the government forts down the river that the Burr flotilla had
no warlike appearance, the near-panic subsided.
Despite his alacrity in carrying out the orders of the President and the
Secretary of War, General Jackson clearly gave evidence that he did not
understand clearly what was going on. He was obviously reluctant to
suspect Burr of ulterior designs, and he felt strongly that there was
something sinister behind all the furor. In the end, he himself was
brought under suspicion and was summoned as a witness in the trial in
Richmond when Burr was at length arrested and arraigned. Jackson never
was put on the witness stand; but he did take occasion, while he was
waiting in Richmond, to mount the courthouse steps and make a stump
speech in favor of Burr who, he had finally come to believe, was being
persecuted by Jefferson.
When he sat down and thought the matter over, Jackson doubtless
regretted deeply the day that the hospitality of the Hermitage had been
extended to the fascinating Burr.
A guest at the Hermitage whose visit demonstrated not only Jackson's
open-armed hospitality but also his winning way with children was a
young boy whose name later filled a large place in history--Jefferson
Davis.
In 1815 young Davis, then only seven years old, was sent from his home
in southwestern Mississippi to the St. Thomas School in Washington
County, Kentucky. This was at that time necessarily an overland trip,
there being no steamboats, and the way lay through that part of
Mississippi known as "The wilderness" before the civilized part of
Tennessee was reached. Travelers through this Choctaw and Chickasaw
country followed the Natchez Trace and generally went in parties for
safety and companionship. Young Jefferson Davis accompanied a party
headed by his father's friend, Major Hinds who had participated in the
Battle of New Orleans, and Major Hinds's son, Howell, was also a member
of the party. The two boys were about the same age and, mounted on their
ponies, greatly enjoyed the long overland trip up the romantic and
dangerous Natchez Trace.
When the little cavalcade reached Nashville, the first thought of Major
Hinds was to visit his old commander, General Jackson, under whom he had
seen such stirring service just a few months before. Accordingly, the
whole party went trooping out to the Hermitage, and there they were so
cordially received that instead of staying for a few days they remained
several weeks.
"General Jackson's house at that time," wrote Mr. Davis in later years,
"was a roomy log house. In front of it was a grove of fine forest trees,
and behind it were his cotton and grain fields. I have never forgotten
the unaffected and well-bred courtesy which caused him to be remarked by
court-trained diplomats when President of the United States, by reason
of his very impressive bearing and manner.
"Notwithstanding the many reports that have been made of his profanity,
I remember that he always said grace at his table, and I never heard him
utter an oath. In this connection although he encouraged his adopted
son, Howell Hinds and myself in all contests of activity, pony-riding
included, he would not allow us to wrestle; for, he said, to allow hands
to be put on one another might lead to a fight. He was always very
gentle and considerate.
"Mrs. Jackson's education, like that of many excellent women of her day,
was deficient; but in all the hospitable and womanly functions of wife
and hostess she certainly was excelled by none. A child is a keen
observer of the characteristics of those under whom he is placed, and I
found Mrs. Jackson amiable, unselfish and affectionate to her family and
guests and just and mild toward her servants.
"Our stay with General Jackson was enlivened by the visits of his
neighbors, and we left the Hermitage with great regret and pursued our
journey. In me he inspired reverence and affection that has remained
with me through my whole life."
This account of his memorable visit to the Hermitage was dictated by Mr.
Davis 75 years later, during the last year of his life; and the fact
that his visit as a child left on his mind such a vivid impression is an
eloquent tribute to the glowing personality of Jackson and the kindly
manner of his wife.
It was at the old log Hermitage that Jackson received the first visit of
Thomas H. Benton, the man who later became his close friend and then his
enemy and then his friend again. Young Benton had been admitted to the
Tennessee bar in 1804 and was practicing in Franklin, a few miles from
Nashville. In 1805 he had a land title case in which were involved some
legal points upon which Andrew Jackson had ruled while he was sitting on
the Superior Court. These rulings had not been published, however, and
so Benton saddled his horse and rode to the Hermitage to ask the
ex-justice for an official report of the cases. Upon learning his
errand, Jackson courteously offered to write out the opinions for him;
so, with Jackson dictating and Benton transcribing, the opinion of the
Superior Court was thus tardily reduced to written form. It was typical
of the hospitality of the Hermitage that Benton, who had made an
instantaneously good impression on Jackson, was prevailed upon to
prolong his formal call to a two-days' visit; and there was the
beginning of a friendship which had a lasting and far-reaching effect
upon the careers of both of them. For many years Benton was a frequenter
of the Hermitage to such an extent as almost to be regarded as a member
of the family; and, despite an intervening period of enmity growing out
of a bloody, knock-down-and-drag-out fight, Benton's eulogy of Jackson
when he died showed the depth of his affection for the older man.
A visitor of world-wide distinction who was a guest at the Hermitage was
the celebrated Marquis de Lafayette. General Jackson had long been an
admirer of the patriotic Marquis. Mrs. Jackson herself is authority for
the statement that Jackson first saw him at Charleston "on the
battlefield" when he was a boy of twelve and the Marquis was at the
zenith of his great Revolutionary popularity. When Jackson was in
Washington in the latter part of 1824 as a Senator he met Lafayette, in
fact lived at the same tavern with him while he was there, and it was
probably at that time that the Marquis was invited to visit Nashville
and the Hermitage. He had previously written Jackson, soon after his
arrival in this country, saying "I will not leave the United States
before I have seeked and found the opportunity to express in person my
high regard and sincere friendship."
The Marquis and his party steamed up to the wharf in Nashville on May 4,
1825, and were there greeted tumultuously by the Nashville populace,
General Jackson foremost among them. The enthusiastic Nashvillians had
prepared a rather elaborate entertainment for the celebrated French
nobleman, including a big parade and a formal call on Governor Carroll.
The next morning the Marquis reviewed the Tennessee militia (which had
been encamped at Nashville a week patiently awaiting his belated
arrival) and after the review the party boarded the steamboat again and
proceeded up the river to the Hermitage to have dinner with General
Jackson. Dinner in those days was a big meal served at about three
o'clock in the afternoon.
Fortunately, a record of this visit is preserved in a book written by M.
LeVasseur, Lafayette's secretary, who, after telling of the
entertainment in Nashville, says: "At one o'clock we embarked, with a
numerous company, to proceed to dine with General Jackson, whose
residence is a few miles up the river. We there found numbers of ladies
and farmers from the neighborhood whom Mrs. Jackson had invited to
partake of the entertainment she had prepared for General Lafayette. The
first thing that struck me on arriving at the General's was the extreme
simplicity of his house. Still somewhat influenced by my European
habits, I asked myself if this could really be the dwelling of the most
popular man in the United States, of him whom the country proclaimed one
of her most illustrious defenders; of him, finally, who by the will of
the people was on the point of becoming her Chief Magistrate. One of our
fellow-passengers, a citizen of Nashville, witnessing my astonishment,
asked me whether in France our public men, that is to say the servants
of the people, lived very differently from other citizens. 'Certainly,'
said I, 'thus, for example, the majority of our generals, all our
ministers, and even the greater part of our subaltern administrators,
would think themselves dishonored and would not dare to receive anyone
at their houses if they possessed such a residence as this of Jackson's;
and the modest dwellings of your illustrious chiefs of the
Revolution--Washington, John Adams, Jefferson--would only inspire them
with contempt and disgust.'"
Having thus tactfully ingratiated himself with the party, M. LeVasseur
accompanied the other guests on a visit of inspection to the farm and
garden, and then:
"On returning to the house, some friends of General Jackson who probably
had not seen him for some time, begged him to show them the arms
presented to him in honor of his achievements during the last war; he
acceded to their request with great politeness and placed on a table a
sword, a saber and a pair of pistols. The sword was presented to him by
Congress; the saber, I believe, by the army which fought under his
command at New Orleans. These two weapons, of American manufacture, were
remarkable for their finish and still more so for the honorable
inscriptions with which they were covered. But it was to the pistols
that General Jackson wished more particularly to call our attention. He
handed them to General Lafayette and asked him if he recognized them.
The latter, after examining them attentively for a few minutes, replied
that he fully recollected them to be a pair he had presented in 1778 to
his paternal friend, Washington, and that he experienced a real
satisfaction in finding them in the hands of one so worthy of possessing
them. At these words the face of 'Old Hickory' was covered with a modest
blush, and his eye sparkled as in a day of victory. 'Yes, I believe
myself worthy of them,' exclaimed he, in pressing the pistols on
Lafayette's hands to his breast, 'if not from what I have done, at least
for what I wished to do for my country.' All of the bystanders applauded
this noble confidence of the patriot hero, and were convinced that the
weapons of Washington could not be in better hands than those of
Jackson." (These pistols, it should be here interpolated, were presented
to General Jackson by General George Washington's nephew, Bushrod
Washington; and were a part of the valued collection of trophies in the
Hermitage until they were lost in the fire in 1834.)
[Illustration: The front parlor, with original furniture, carpet and
damask silk hangings.]
[Illustration: Front of upstairs hall, showing the linen closets
flanking the wide doorway leading onto the upper front gallery.]
Lafayette's stay at the Hermitage was short. In the late afternoon his
steamboat returned to Nashville where a grand banquet was given in his
honor that evening, with General Jackson presiding. The Marquis left the
next morning by steamboat for Louisville, and had a narrow escape from
death when the boat struck a snag in the Ohio and sank within a few
minutes. Fortunately, however, he escaped without injury.
Another distinguished visitor from France in the early days was the
elder Michaux, the great naturalist, who tells in his journal how he
"spent the night twelve miles from Nashville at the home of a Mr.
Jackson." Michaux, however, with his naturalist's heart, was much less
impressed by the reputation, then hardly more than local, of General
Jackson than he was by the beauty of the yellow-wood trees he found "on
land belonging to a Mr. Overton south of Nashville" in greater abundance
than he had ever noticed the trees elsewhere. He sent home some seeds
from these trees found on Judge Overton's hills, and in two of the parks
of Paris today may be seen specimens of this rather rare tree grown from
the seeds sent from Nashville by this early visitor.
Still another celebrated Frenchman visited the Hermitage in 1843 and
paid his respects to the old hero--Marshall Bertrand, one of Napoleon's
famous marshals, who came to Nashville in the course of his travels in
America and, as a matter of course, was entertained at dinner by
Jackson, despite his debilitated health.
Perhaps the greatest strain ever placed upon the hospitality of the old
house was when it was visited in August, 1830, by Major John H. Eaton
and his bride, the erstwhile Peggy O'Neal, the storm center of the early
days of the Jackson administration. This was a visit that required no
little stage managing and window dressing; for the vivid Mrs. Eaton had
not only disrupted the President's Cabinet, she had brought discord into
his own family; and it was in the midst of the strained relations
existing between Jackson and the Donelsons that the Eatons made their
visit to Tennessee.
Jackson was spending the summer of 1830 at home, and he was determined
that the Eatons should be formally entertained at the Hermitage and that
his connections, as he called Major Donelson and his wife, should assist
in the reception. Here was a situation that called for all the keenest
diplomacy of the most astute members of the Kitchen Cabinet; but the old
reliable John Coffee, himself one of the "connections," exercised his
powers of persuasion on the Donelsons and at length it was arranged that
they would help Old Hickory entertain his celebrated but slightly
tarnished guests. Gleefully Jackson wrote to Eaton in August when Coffee
had finished with his wire-pulling:
Private and for your own eye.
My dear Major: I send my son to meet you at Judge Overton's and to
conduct you and your lady with our other friends to the Hermitage,
where you will receive that heartfelt welcome that you were ever wont
to receive when my dear departed wife was living. Her absence makes
everything here wear to me a gloomy and melancholy aspect, but the
presence of her old and sincere friend will cheer me amidst the
melancholy gloom with which I am surrounded.
My neighbors and connections will receive you and your lady with that
good feeling that is due to you, and I request you and your lady will
meet them with your usual courtesy, which is so well calculated to
gain universal applause even from enemies and the united approbation
of all friends. Our enemies calculate much upon injuring me by raising
the cry that I forced Mr. A. J. Donelson from me and compelled him to
retire because he would not yield to my views, which they call
improper. I mean to be able to shew that I only claimed to rule my
household, that it should extend justice and common politeness to all
and no more, and thus put my enemies in the wrong; and if any friends
desert me, then it is theirs not my fault.
General Coffee has, since here, produced a visible and sensible change
in my connections and they will all be here to receive you and your
lady who I trust will receive them with her usual courtesy and if a
perfect reconciliation can not take place that harmony may prevail and
a link broken in the Nashville conspiracy. I trust you are aware that
I will never abandon you or separate from you so long as you continue
to practice those virtues that have always accompanied you, nor would
I ask you or your friend to pursue a course to compromise or be
degrading to themselves or feelings; but I am anxious that we pursue
such a course as will break down the Nashville combination, which I
view as the sprouts of the Washington conspiracy.
Under these more or less auspicious circumstances the Eatons came to the
Hermitage, where nothing was left undone to make them feel that they
were just as welcome as any other guest that ever crossed the threshold
of the old house. The Donelsons were there, taking part in the reception
of the guests, Mrs. Donelson the very essence of punctilious and cordial
hospitality--although she probably had her enthusiasm well under
control. Pretty Peggy Eaton was no fool; she must have known of the
cajoling it had required to prepare the way for her reception at the
Hermitage; and, although she was spiteful enough to relish the concealed
discomfiture of the Donelsons, it was probably a relief to her and to
everybody else (except perhaps Old Hickory himself) when the party was
over and the Eatons had to go.
Mrs. Eaton in her old age sat down and wrote a rambling sort of
autobiography, in the course of which she told of this visit to the
Hermitage--although nowhere in her reminiscences does she mention the
Donelsons, whom she so cordially hated. The dinner at the Hermitage in
her honor, she relates, was a splendid occasion, with the General doing
the honors with great gusto and making jokes with the guests over the
carving of a barbecued pig which was one of the features of the dinner.
The General also distinguished himself as a host by passing the bread
himself, which was his way of making everybody feel at home. After
dinner, however, the master of the Hermitage disappeared; and then it
was that Mrs. Eaton, sent by her husband to look for him, found him
kneeling by Rachel's grave in the garden with the tears streaming down
his face. Recalling to him his duties as a host she persuaded him to
return to the house, where he again donned his mask of gaiety and
entered into the hilarity of the guests assembled there.
Writing of the Presidential campaign of 1824, Parton says: "The
Hermitage was more like a hotel than a home during the summer, so
numerous were the guests whom curiosity, friendship or political
business brought to it." And an old lady in Nashville told Parton that
she had often been at the Hermitage in those simple old times when there
was in each of the four available rooms not merely a guest but a family,
while the young men and solitary travelers who chanced to drop in
disposed of themselves on the piazza or any other half-shelter about the
house.
"Never was the Hermitage without a guest," says Buell in his Jackson
biography, "and most of the time it was crowded. Jackson and his wife
carried the old-fashioned Southern hospitality to an extreme. They did
not wish their guests to be simply visitors, but made them temporary
members of the family."
It seems to be the unanimous and unchallenged opinion that a visitor at
the Hermitage was always made to feel at home and led to believe that
his visit conferred an especial pleasure on his hosts. All comers were
welcome.
But Andrew Jackson did not wait for guests to come to the Hermitage. Nor
were its broad doors open only to the distinguished and prosperous. A
characteristic incident is told by one of his early acquaintances
relative to the son of the famous Daniel Boone: "The young man had come
to Nashville on his father's business, to be detained some weeks, and
had his lodgings at a small tavern towards the lower part of town.
General Jackson heard of it; sought him out; found him; took him home to
remain as long as his business detained him in the country, saying:
'Your father's dog should not stay in a tavern while I have a house.'"
The hospitality of the Hermitage not only knew no limitation on the
grounds of a visitor's prosperity or prominence, it was extended alike
to friend and foe.
A son of the notorious William G. (Parson) Brownlow, a rabid Whig and
bitter anti-Jackson man, relates that on one occasion in 1845 a party of
East Tennessee Whigs who had been attending a convention in Nashville
and were on their way home decided to stop at the Hermitage and pay
their respects to the ex-President. Parson Brownlow was one of the
party, and when they reached the gate he expressed some doubt as to the
propriety of his entering the home of the man whom he had so vigorously
and consistently denounced, but he was prevailed upon to go along with
his friends. He insisted, however, that when they got inside the house
he would remain in the background so as to avoid the necessity of having
his name called in the general introductions. But Jackson always knew
what was going on about him, and he immediately noticed that there was
one of the party who had not been introduced, whereupon Brownlow was
presented. "I have heard of you before," the old General said with dry
wit; but he shook his hand cordially and treated him with particular
courtesy during the remainder of the call, never giving any sign that
one of his guests was a man who had waged bitter warfare on him during
his days of political activity.
Another similar example was afforded by the visit of Mr. Leslie Combs, a
former member of Congress from Kentucky, who came to the Hermitage as a
messenger from one of the sons of General Isaac Shelby, bearing a letter
relating to a controversy that had sprung up between the Shelbys and
Jackson. Mr. Combs arrived at the Hermitage just before dinner time, was
received with the greatest courtesy, invited into the dining room to
join the family at dinner, and urged to stay at the house as a guest.
When he left Old Hickory himself put some apples in his
saddle-bags--but, at the same time, he made an appointment with him to
meet him at a certain hotel in Nashville, the next day, and when the
appointment was kept General Jackson proceeded to denounce Mr. Combs for
acting as his enemies' messenger, and wound up by indulging himself in
his favorite pastime of denouncing Henry Clay. As long as Mr. Combs was
a guest at the Hermitage, Old Hickory's code demanded that he be treated
with punctilious politeness; but, on neutral ground, he wanted Mr. Combs
to know exactly how he felt.
Stephen A. Douglas is now remembered in history principally on account
of the series of political debates preceding his victorious contest with
Abraham Lincoln for a seat in the United States Senate; but he also is
recalled by Jacksonian students as the man who delivered the leading
speech in the House of Representatives in 1834 on the resolution to
refund the fine paid by General Jackson under the order of Judge Hall in
New Orleans following his declaration of martial law there after his
victory over Pakenham. Some time after the passage of this resolution
there was a political convention in Nashville and the delegates visited
the Hermitage to pay their respects to the venerable ex-President. When
Judge Douglas was presented to Jackson, according to an account of the
episode in _Harper's Weekly_ in 1857, the old General exclaimed:
"Are you the Mr. Douglas who delivered a speech in Congress showing that
I did not violate the Constitution at New Orleans?"
"I did deliver a speech on that subject," modestly replied Mr. Douglas.
"Then sit down here beside me," said General Jackson with enthusiasm, "I
desire to return you my thanks for that speech. You are the first man I
know who has done me justice. You have relieved my mind from a weight
that has lain upon it for thirty years. Let me thank you, sir."
The account concludes: "Senator Douglas's heart was too full to speak.
He pressed the veteran's hand, and withdrew from the room to conceal his
emotions."
In a diary kept by an old resident of Nashville, Mr. James M. Hamilton,
there is displayed an evidence of the cordiality of the master of the
Hermitage in receiving the kind of a visitor who generally is not a very
welcome guest to the most hospitable of hosts.
Mr. Hamilton was a youth, working in a store in Nashville, and after
General Jackson's return from Washington in 1837 he was sent out to the
Hermitage to collect an account amounting to more than $3,000 which
Andrew, junior, had run up while the General was President. Mr. Hamilton
had been brought up a Clay Whig, and he was admittedly terrified at the
prospect of bearding the fire-eating General Jackson in his den and
trying to collect a bill. But he swallowed his fears, mounted his horse
and rode out to the Hermitage, entered the General's office and
proffered the bill to him. Colonel A. S. Colyar, in his _Life and Times
of Andrew Jackson_ quotes from the Hamilton diary:
"'Let me see it, my son,' said the General; and he reached forth his
long slender hand. As his eyes rested on item after item, I eagerly
watched the expression of his countenance. No frown of displeasure was
there, but simply attention. Folding the paper, he slowly said: 'This is
a large bill. My son Andrew is a good man, but a very extravagant one. I
see many things here he could have done without. But, my son, I will pay
this bill on one condition. It is that your employers will correct
mistakes, should there be any.' I assured him that they would certainly
do so, and he requested me to write a check on the Planters' Bank,
adding: 'My son, I came home from Washington with but 75 cents of my
salary left, and had it not been for the kindness of my friend, Francis
Blair, in lending me money, I would not be able to meet these
obligations.' I had never written a check and had no form with me, but I
did the best I could and he signed it. He then requested me to write a
receipt. Again I was puzzled, but I did the best I could and he accepted
it.
"I arose to go. He invited me most cordially to remain to dinner. I was
too much delighted, too happy, too much relieved to think of such a
thing. I longed to get back to the store and show them my check and tell
them of my success. I felt a wild, boyish admiration for the great man
before me, and I wondered how anyone could be so wicked as to say aught
disagreeable of him.
"'If you will not stay, then you must see something of the Hermitage,'
he said, leading the way. I walked beside him about the grounds, the
feeling of admiration and enthusiasm all the while in my heart for the
great, tender-souled man whose guest I was. As we neared the tomb he
raised his hand and, pointing, said: 'My son, there lies the best woman
that ever lived.' A cloud of sadness spread over his face, and the
expression was in keeping with the crepe on his hat--that crepe was worn
the rest of his life.
"'George,' he called, 'show Mr. Hamilton around and I will await him
here.' I was shown the old gray warhorse, well cared for in his
stable--the steed hero of the battle of New Orleans--and also the
carriage which was made from the timbers of the ship _Constitution_, and
in which General Jackson rode at the side of Mr. Van Buren from the
White House to the east wing of the Capitol on the occasion of the
inauguration of the latter.
"Returning, I found the ex-President awaiting me at the door. As I took
leave he warmly pressed my hand and invited me to visit him, saying that
my short stay under his roof had given him a great deal of pleasure,
that when he came to the city he would be very much gratified if I would
seek him out and speak to him."
In Jackson's circumstances then a visitor seeking payment of a $3,000
account must have been about as unwelcome a guest as could well be
imagined; but the affable manner in which he received that timid youth,
shrinking from an unpleasant duty, showed the manner of man he was--and
perhaps gives us a clue to the reason for the ardent admiration of his
friends.
Long before the Hermitage was formally opened to the public as a
national shrine, visitors to Nashville, despite the difficulties
involved, were in the habit of making the pilgrimage to Jackson's old
home to see the house where he had lived and to stand by his tomb.
An interesting bit of human interest material is to be found in the
visit, on the last day of March in 1851, of none other than the
celebrated Mr. Phineas T. Barnum, accompanied by his current protégé,
Jenny Lind. This was while Mr. Barnum was conducting the Swedish
Nightingale on her history-making tour through the United States, during
the course of which two concerts were given in Nashville. While there
the immortal songstress, accompanied by Mr. Barnum, and his daughter,
engaged a carriage and drove out the dusty road to the Hermitage.
"On that occasion," relates Mr. Barnum in his reminiscences, "for the
first time that season, we heard the wild mocking-bird singing in the
trees. This gave Jenny Lind great delight, as she had never before heard
them sing except in their wire-bound cages."
That is all that Mr. Barnum says in his book about this incident,
pregnant with beauty and romance. The Nightingale's first encounter with
her only rival, the Southern mocking-bird! What a subject there for a
man with a poet's imagination! But Mr. Barnum hurries on in his book to
tell in great detail of an elaborate series of practical jokes he staged
the next day--April Fool's Day. But it is fascinating to let the mind
play with the idea of the great Swedish singer standing there entranced
that spring day beneath the hollies and cedars and magnolias of Old
Hickory's lawn, listening to the sad, sweet music of the native
songbird. What wouldn't history give for a motion picture, with sound
effects, of that dramatic little episode on the Hermitage lawn touched
on so briefly in his book by the voluble Mr. Barnum?
This, by the way, was not Barnum's first visit to the Hermitage. Early
in 1838, while touring the South with a tented theatrical company, he
relates that "We exhibited at Nashville (where I visited General Jackson
at the Hermitage)." How tantalizingly economical with words is the old
showman! How entertaining and enlightening it would be to know more
about the visit of Barnum to Jackson! Barnum admitted that he was a
master of humbuggery; some of Old Hickory's opponents charged that he
was a skilled practitioner of the same art. Did they admire each other?
Why didn't Barnum tell us more about his visits to the Hermitage?
On a hot July day in 1862 there clattered up the driveway of the
Hermitage a distinguished and unexpected group of visitors--General
Nathan Bedford Forrest and his men. This was before the guard of Federal
troops was stationed at the old house; in fact, Nashville had only
recently been surrendered by the Confederates and Forrest was making it
his business to harass the city's outposts to such an extent that the
army of occupation was not yet entirely sure that it could hold the
city.
On this occasion Forrest had just made a foray into Lebanon and was
moving with his men down the Lebanon Road towards Nashville with the
idea of seeing how close he could get to the city before stirring up a
nest of bluecoats. But the Hermitage could not be passed by by any
native Tennesseean, even General Forrest, without a visit; and so the
famous "Wizard of the Saddle" and his lusty young troopers turned aside
from the dusty road for a brief respite from their business of making
war and to pay a tribute to Tennessee's noblest warrior of all.
The day of Forrest's visit happened to be the first anniversary of the
First Battle of Manassas, the famous defeat of the Federals known by
them as the Battle of Bull Run; and the ladies of the Hermitage
neighborhood had gathered there for a picnic and celebration. The sudden
appearance of the idolized Forrest and his men added just what was
needed to make the affair a stupendous success; and the Confederate
calvarymen partook of the picnic dinner under the trees, walked the
garden paths with the young ladies and wandered through the halls of Old
Hickory's old home like typical sight-seers, temporarily oblivious of
the fact that a detachment of Yankees was hot on their trail.
When the occasion demanded it, the hospitality of the Hermitage could
function on a wholesale, large scale basis. For instance, when a
regiment of Texas volunteers paid a visit of respect to General Jackson
just before his death they did not go away without entertainment or
without refreshment. Only a day before their visit did Jackson learn of
their impending descent on him and immediately all the plantation's
facilities were directed to the preparations for the visitors. Sheep,
beeves and chickens were killed in large quantities, and every fireplace
on the plantation was filled to capacity with meats of every
description. A wagon was sent to Nashville and brought back a wagonload
of bread, for the Hermitage's ovens couldn't bake that much bread on
such short notice; and when the 900 Texans marched up the driveway the
next morning everything was ready for them. The officers were
entertained in the dining room while the rank and file were fed, picnic
fashion, on the lawn. This occasion was enlivened, during the course of
the proceedings, by the chance discovery by Aunt Hannah of one of the
camp followers of the regiment making off with two of the Hermitage's
handsome silver pitchers. Cries of "Stop, thief! Stop, thief!" by the
faithful old servant quickly attracted the attention of the soldier
guests, the thief was promptly apprehended and the pitchers recovered.
And while the soldiers were receiving Old Hickory's congratulations for
recovering his highly prized pitchers the thief quietly walked off in
the confusion and thus escaped punishment.
Was there ever such a house for hospitality? Peddlers and Presidents,
rich men and poor men, famous men and obscure youths, individuals and
regiments of soldiers--all looked alike to the Hermitage. Is it any
wonder that it was famous, far and wide, as a place where
everybody--friend or foe--was always welcome?