1804, when he bought a tract of some twenty-eight thousand acres, six
thousand acres of which he retained permanently as the Hermitage
plantation. From the beginning he showed that he had a genius for
farming. Crops were large, and his wealth grew rapidly, until he
became the wealthiest man in all that country. After a few years he
became famous as a breeder of race horses. He owned a track of his own
not far from the mansion.
For fifteen years Mr. and Mrs. Jackson lived in a log cabin. But they
maintained a large establishment. They had their slaves, and they
drove in a carriage drawn by four horses. And they entertained
royally. Jackson's biographer, James Parton, tells of a Nashville lady
who said that she had often been at the Hermitage "when there were in
each of the four available rooms not a guest merely, but a family,
while the young men and solitary travellers who chanced to drop in
disposed themselves on the piazza, or any other shelter about the
house."
The log house was still the plantation-house when General Jackson's
neighbors gathered to welcome him home as the victor of New Orleans.
In the response he gave to their greeting he made a prophecy:
"Years will continue to develop our inherent qualities,
until, from being the youngest and the weakest, we shall
become the most powerful nation in the universe."
General Jackson was popular with all in the neighborhood of the
plantation. To his slaves he was a hero. To his wife he was devoted.
Parton says that he always treated her as if she was his pride and
glory. And words can faintly describe her devotion to him. She also
was popular among the servants; her treatment of them was courteous in
the extreme. A visitor to the Hermitage told of being present at the
hour of evening devotions. Just before these began the wife of the
overseer came into the room. Mrs. Jackson rose and made room for her
on the sofa. One of the guests expressed her surprise to a lady
sitting next her. "That is the way here," the lady whispered, "and if
she had not done it, the General would."
Peter Cartwright, the famous pioneer preacher, told in his
Autobiography an incident that revealed the General's nature.
Cartwright was preaching, when the pastor of a church, who was with
him in the pulpit, leaned forward and whispered, "General Jackson has
just come in." The outspoken preacher replied, so that every one could
hear: "What is that if General Jackson has come in? In the eyes of God
he is no bigger than any other man!" After the service Jackson told
Mr. Cartwright of his hearty approval of the sentiment.
That there might be more room for entertaining passing strangers like
Mr. Cartwright, as well as hosts of friends, Jackson began to build
The Hermitage in 1819, of brick made on the plantation. When this
house was burned in 1836, a new house was built on the old foundation,
and with the same general plan. The building has the rather unusual
length of 104 feet. Six pillars support the roof in front and in rear.
Between the building of the first house and its successor came most of
Jackson's political career. During this period also was the visit of
General Lafayette. On this occasion the Frenchman, recognizing the
pair of pistols which he had given to Washington in 1778, said that he
had a real satisfaction in finding them in the hands of one so worthy
of possessing them. "Yes, I believe myself to be worthy of them,"
Jackson began his reply, in words that seemed far less modest than the
conclusion proved them; for he added: "if not for what I have done, at
least for what I wished to do, for my country."
The Hermitage never seemed the same place to Jackson after the death
of his wife, on December 22, 1828, only a few days after his first
election to the presidency.
Two years after his final return from Washington, after attending
service at the little Presbyterian church on the estate, he begged the
pastor, Dr. Edgar, to return home with him. The pastor was unable to
accept, but promised to be on hand early in the morning. All night the
General read and prayed. Next morning, when Dr. Edgar came, he asked
to be admitted to the Church.
Parton says that from this time to the end of his life "General
Jackson spent most of his leisure hours in reading the Bible,
Biblical commentaries, and the hymn-book, which last he always
pronounced in the old-fashioned way, _hime_-book. The work known as
'Scott's Bible' was his chief delight; he read it through twice before
he died. Nightly he read prayers in the presence of his family and
household servants."
Soon after he united with the Church, the congregation wished to
choose him to the office of elder. "No," he said, "I am too young in
the Church for such an office. My countrymen have given me high
honors, but I should esteem the office of ruling elder in the Church
of Christ a far higher honor than any I have ever received."
For six years he continued to be an unofficial member of the church.
Then, on June 8, 1845, he said to those who had gathered about his
death-bed: "I am my God's. I belong to Him. I go but a short time
before you, and I want to meet you all, white and black, in heaven."
Less than two months before his death, when the President and
Directors of the National Institute proposed that an imported
sarcophagus in their possession be set apart for his last
resting-place, he declined, because he wished to lie by the side of
his wife, in the garden of The Hermitage.
Until 1888 Andrew Jackson, Jr., and after his death, his widow
occupied the house, during the last thirty-two years of this period as
caretakers for the State, which had bought the property for $48,000.
Since 1889 the mansion and twenty-five acres of ground have been cared
for by the Ladies' Hermitage Association.
[Illustration: ASHLAND, LEXINGTON, KY.
_Photo by E. C. Hall_
See page 355]
LXXXI
ASHLAND, LEXINGTON, KENTUCKY
THE HOME OF HENRY CLAY FOR FORTY-SIX YEARS
Henry Clay's mother, having married Captain Henry Watkins, moved from
Hanover, Virginia, to Woodford County, Kentucky, in 1792. As soon as
the future statesman was admitted to practice in the Virginia Court of
Appeals, he decided to follow her. Accordingly, in November, 1797, he
became a resident of Lexington. Three years later the _Kentucke
Gazette_, the first paper published west of the mountains, told of "an
eloquent oration" that was "delivered by Henry Clay, Esquire."
The year before the young lawyer received this flattering notice he
married Lavinia Hart, of Lexington. Seven years were spent in rented
quarters, but in 1806 he purchased an estate about a mile and a half
from town.
Clay took the keenest pleasure in the estate. Once he wrote to a
friend:
"I am in one respect better off than Moses. He died in sight
of and without reaching the Promised Land. I occupy as good a
farm as any he would have found had he reached it, and
'Ashland' has been acquired not by hereditary descent but by
my own labor."
However, it was only at intervals that the proud owner was able to
enjoy Ashland. After 1803 the longest period of residence was six
years, and this was toward the close of his life.
The management of the property was largely in the hands of Mrs. Clay,
and the prosperity of the plantation was proof of her capability. From
Washington he wrote frequently of things he would like to see done. He
was especially interested in blooded stock which he secured in the
East and abroad. Once he wrote proudly of the fact that there were on
the estate specimens of "the Maltese ass, the Arabian horse, the
Merino and Saxe Merino sheep, the English Hereford and Durham cattle,
the goat, the mule and the hog." His race horses were famous, and he
delighted to handle them himself. He also liked to feed the pigs, even
when he was an old man.
There were many slaves at Ashland, and they were all attached to their
master. His will provided for their emancipation, under wise
conditions. Once, when a friend bequeathed him twenty-five slaves, he
sent them to Liberia, by way of New Orleans.
Harriet Martineau, who visited Ashland in 1835, told of her pleasant
impression of the place and its owner:
"I stayed some weeks in the house of a wealthy landowner in
Kentucky. Our days were passed in great luxury, and the
hottest of them very idly. The house was in the midst of
grounds gay with verdure and flowers, in the opening month of
June, and our favorite seats were the steps of the hall, and
chairs under the trees. From there we could watch the play of
the children on the grass plot, and some of the drolleries of
the little negroes.... There were thirty-three horses in the
stables, and we roved about the neighboring country
accordingly...."
As the years passed visitors flocked to Ashland in ever-increasing
numbers. Many of them were politicians, but more were plain people
who were devoted to Clay and could not understand why the country
refused to elect him President. In 1844, during his longest period of
continuous residence at Ashland, he received word of the disappointing
result of the election. After a few days, when he was walking on the
turnpike near the house, he was startled by a woman who, on passing
him, burst into tears. When he asked her why she wept, she said:
"I have lost my father, my husband, and my children, and
passed through other painful trials; but all of them together
have not given me so much sorrow as the late disappointment
of your friends."
A story is also told of a bride and groom who visited Ashland on the
day the news of defeat was received. The journey was continued down
the Mississippi River. On the boat the groom was taken seriously ill.
The physician who was called to attend him was puzzled to define the
ailment until the bride said that the cause was the defeat of Henry
Clay. The old doctor threw his arms about the patient's neck and
cried, "There is no cure for a complaint like that."
The sting of defeat was forgotten one day in 1845. Mr. Clay was in his
bank in Lexington, prepared to pay a part of the indebtedness that had
all but swamped him, so that he felt he might have to sacrifice
Ashland. The bank told him that about $50,000 had been deposited in
the bank by his friends from all parts of the country, enough to pay
all his debts. He never knew the names of the generous friends who had
made possible the retention of the property.
He thought he was to spend the remainder of his days at home, and
that he would die there in peace. One day he said, in an address in
Lexington, "I felt like an old stag which has been long coursed by the
hunters and the hounds, through brakes and briars, and over distant
plains, and has at last returned to his ancient lair to lay himself
down and die."
Again in 1848 he tasted defeat, though on this occasion it was in the
nominating convention, not in the election. In the trying days that
followed he was sustained by his Christian faith. He had been baptized
in the parlor at Ashland on June 22, 1847. The reality of his
religious convictions was seen one day by what he said to a company of
friends who had been talking in a despairing manner of the future of
the country. Pointing to the Bible on the table, he said, "Gentlemen,
I do not know anything but that Book which can reconcile us to such
events."
In 1849 Clay was sent to the United States Senate because the
legislature of Kentucky felt that he was needed to help in the
solution of questions raised by the Mexican War. He spent three years
in Washington, then died in the midst of his work. After a journey
that showed what a place he had won in the hearts of the people, his
body was taken to Lexington. The catafalque lay in state in Ashland
over one night. Next day the body was buried near Lexington.
His son, James B. Clay, who purchased the estate at auction, tore down
the house because of its weakened foundations, but rebuilt it of the
same materials, on the old site, and on almost the identical plans.
Both outside and inside the mansion has practically the appearance of
the original.
Before the Civil War Ashland was purchased by the State College, but
in 1882 it became the property of Major Henry Clay McDowell, whose
widow lived there for many years. She was the daughter of Henry Clay,
Jr., whose death at the Battle of Buena Vista was a sore blow to one
who was always a fond father.
[Illustration: SPORTSMAN'S HALL, WHITLEY'S STATION, KY
_Photo by Miss M. E. Sacre, Stanford, Ky._
See page 359]
LXXXII
SPORTSMAN'S HALL, WHITLEY'S STATION, KENTUCKY
THE HOME OF THE MAN WHO KILLED TECUMSEH
"Then, Billy, if I was you, I would go and see!"
Thus replied Esther Whitley of Augusta, Virginia, to her husband
William Whitley, when, early in 1775, he had told her that he had a
fine report of Kentucky, and that he thought they could get their
living in the frontier settlements with less hard work than was
required in Virginia.
Whitley took his wife at her word. Two days later, with axe and plow
and gun and kettle, he was on his way over the mountains. Daniel Boone
had not yet marked out the Wilderness Road that was to become the
great highway of emigration from Virginia to Kentucky. At first his
only companion was his brother-in-law, George Clark, but on the way
seven others joined the party.
During the next six years he was one of the trusted pioneers at
Boonesborough and Harrod's Fort, two stations on the Wilderness Road.
When he had a house ready for his wife, he returned to Virginia, and
brought her to Kentucky. It is said that she was the third white woman
to cross the Cumberland Mountains, Mrs. Daniel Boone and her daughter
being the first and second. The claim has been made that their
daughter, Louisa, who was born in Boonesborough, was the first white
child born in the present limits of Kentucky.
Louisa was perhaps four years old when Whitley removed to the vicinity
of Crab Orchard, the famous assembling place for parties about to take
the dangerous journey back to Virginia. Two miles from the settlement
he built Whitley's Fort. In 1788 he felt able to build for his growing
family the first brick house in Kentucky. The brick were brought from
Virginia, and the man who laid the brick was given a farm of five
hundred acres for his services. The windows were placed high above the
ground to prevent the Indians from shooting in at the occupants. The
window-glass was carried across the mountains in pack-saddles. The
stairway had twenty-one steps, and on these steps were carved the
heads of thirteen eagles to represent the original thirteen Colonies.
The doors were made of wood, elaborately carved, and were in two
layers, a heavy sheet of iron being placed between these. The old-time
leather hinges are still in use.
The owner laid out on his property the first race track in Kentucky,
and he called his house Sportsman's Hall. In its walls scores of
settlers found refuge in time of danger. Famous men sat with Mr. and
Mrs. Whitley at their hospitable table, among these being Daniel
Boone, George Rogers Clark, and General Harrison.
Until his death at the battle of the Thames in 1813 Whitley was one of
the chief defenders of the settlers against the Indians. On his
powder horn he cut the lines:
William Whitley, I am your horne,
The truth I love, a lie I scorne,
Fill me with the best of powder,
I'll make your rifle crack the louder.
See how the dread, terrifick ball
Makes Indians blench at Toreys fall,
You with powder I'll supply
For to defend your liberty.
One day in 1785 a messenger came to Whitley's Fort with the tidings
that Indians had captured a mother and her babe, after killing three
older children. Mr. Whitley was not at home, but Mrs. Whitley sent for
him. In the meantime she collected a company of twenty rescuers. On
his return Whitley placed himself at their head, pursued the Indians,
and rescued the prisoners.
The title Colonel was given to Whitley in 1794, when he commanded the
Nickerjack expedition against the Tennessee Indians, who had been
conducting foraging expeditions into Kentucky. The march was conducted
with such secrecy and despatch that the enemy were taken by surprise,
and were completely routed.
The last of his campaigns took place in Canada against the British,
French, and Indians in 1813. Many claim that before he received his
mortal wound in the battle of the Thames, he fired the shot that
killed Tecumseh, the chief who had given so much trouble to the
settlers of Kentucky and Indiana. Others say that the shot was fired
by a Colonel Johnson.
The body of the Indian fighter rests in an unknown grave hundreds of
miles from the territory he helped to wrest from the Indians, but the
brick house he built near Crab Orchard is still one of the historic
buildings of Kentucky.
[Illustration: WHITE HAVEN, ST. LOUIS
_Photo furnished by Albert Wenzlick_
See page 362]
LXXXIII
WHITE HAVEN, NEAR ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI
WHERE ULYSSES S. GRANT COURTED JULIA DENT
Immediately after Ulysses Simpson Grant graduated from West Point, he
was sent to Jefferson Barracks, at St. Louis. His military duties were
not so arduous that he was unable to accept the invitation of Fred
Dent, a former roommate at West Point, to go with him to the Dent
homestead on the Gravois Road, four miles from the Barracks.
The young second lieutenant did not have to be urged to repeat his
visit. In fact he went so often that the road between the Barracks and
the Dent farm became as familiar to him as his old haunts on the banks
of the Hudson. He did not meet Julia Dent at first, for she was absent
at school, but he found enough attraction in a sister to make him a
frequent visitor.
Then came the eventful day when he met seventeen-year-old Julia. The
courtship was by no means a long-drawn-out affair; the young people
were engaged before Grant was ordered to the Mexican border, though
the fact was not announced until his return to St. Louis in May, 1845.
The marriage took place in August, 1848, after the close of the
Mexican War.
For some years Mrs. Grant was a soldier's wife. Grant took her with
him to Detroit, but he left her at her old home in St. Louis when he
was transferred to the Pacific Coast. In 1853 he accepted a commission
as captain, which he soon resigned, determining to return to the East.
Several unfortunate speculations had left him without funds, and he
was indebted to a friend in San Francisco for transportation.
"I rejoined my family to find in it a son whom I had never seen, born
while I was on the Isthmus of Panama," Grant said in his "Personal
Memoirs." "I was now to commence, at the age of thirty-two, a new
struggle for our support. My wife had a farm near St. Louis, to which
we went, but I had no means to stock it. A house had to be built also.
I worked very hard, never losing a day because of bad weather, and
accomplished the object in a moderate way."
After working as a farm laborer for a time, he built a cabin on sixty
acres given to Mrs. Grant by her father. "Hardscrabble," as he called
the four-room log house, was the home of the Grant family for several
years. This cabin, which was on the grounds of the Louisiana Purchase
Exposition at St. Louis, and White Haven, must both be counted homes
of the family at this period. Fred, Nellie, and Jesse Grant were all
born in White Haven.
Ready money was scarce, but the father of a growing family felt the
necessity of providing for their wants. "If nothing else could be done
I would load a cord of wood on a wagon and take it to the city for
sale," he wrote in his Memoirs. "I managed to keep along very well
until 1858, when I was attacked by fever and ague. I had suffered very
severely and for a long time from the disease while a boy in Ohio. It
lasted now over a year, and, while it did not keep me in the house,
it did interfere greatly with the amount of work I was able to
perform. In the fall of 1858 I sold out my stock, crops and farming
utensils at auction, and gave up farming."
The family remained at White Haven for a time, and Grant tried to make
a living in the real estate business. His partner was a cousin of Mrs.
Grant. The income of the business was not sufficient for two families,
so he soon gave up the attempt. "He doesn't seem to be just calculated
for business, but an honester, more generous man never lived," was the
remark of one who knew him at this time.
In the meantime he had taken his family to St. Louis. He made one
further attempt to support them there. Learning that there was a
vacancy in the office of county engineer, he applied for the position,
but the appointment was to be made by the members of the county court,
and he did not have sufficient influence to secure it. So the move to
Galena, Illinois, in May, 1860, became necessary. There, in the
leather business, he earned but eight hundred dollars a year. And he
had a family of six to feed.
A year later he responded to the call of President Lincoln, and began
the army service that made him famous.
White Haven was built in 1808 by Captain John Long, who had won his
title during the Revolution. Later the house and three hundred acres
of the original farm were sold to Frederick Dent, who, at one period,
had ninety slaves in the slave quarters still to be seen at the rear
of the house.
Through Mrs. Grant the entire property came into the possession of
General Grant. At the time of the failure of Grant & Ward, the farm
was pledged to William H. Vanderbilt, who sold it to Captain Fuller H.
Conn of St. Louis. Captain Conn disposed of it in a number of parcels.
One of these, containing fifteen acres and the old homestead, was
purchased by Albert Wenzlick, who makes his summer home in the house
where Ulysses S. Grant met Julia Dent.
EIGHT: ALL THE WAY BACK TO NEW ENGLAND
_In verdurous tumult far away
The prairie billows gleam,
Upon their crests in blessing rests
The noontide's gracious beam.
Low quivering vapors steaming dim
The level splendors break
Where languid lilies deck the rim
Of some land-circled lake._
_Far in the east like low-hung clouds
The waving woodlands lie;
Far in the west the glowing plain
Melts warmly in the sky.
No accent wounds the reverent air,
No footprint dints the sod,--
Lone in the light the prairie lies,
Wrapt in a dream of God._
JOHN HAY.
EIGHT: ALL THE WAY BACK TO NEW ENGLAND
[Illustration: ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S HOUSE, SPRINGFIELD, ILL.
_Photo by E. C. Hall_
See page 369]
LXXXIV
THE ABRAHAM LINCOLN HOUSE, SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS
FROM WHICH PRESIDENT-ELECT LINCOLN WENT TO WASHINGTON IN 1861
When Abraham Lincoln entered Springfield, in 1837, he did not own a
house; in fact he did not own much of anything. Joshua Speed is quoted
by Ida Tarbell thus:
"He had ridden into town on a borrowed horse, with no earthly
property save a pair of saddle-bags containing a few
clothes.... Lincoln came into the store with his saddle-bags
on his arm. He said he wanted to buy the furniture for a
single bed. The mattress, blankets, sheets, coverlid, and
pillow ... would cost seventeen dollars. He said that perhaps
was cheap enough; but small as the price was, he was unable
to pay it. But if I would credit him till Christmas, and his
experiment as a lawyer was a success, he would pay then,
saying in the saddest tone, 'If I fail in this I do not know
that I can ever pay you.'"
The storekeeper thereupon proposed that the young lawyer should share
his own room above the store. Lincoln promptly accepted, went
upstairs, and in a moment was down again. With dry humor he said:
"Well, Speed, I am moved."
Lincoln longed for better quarters, however, because he wanted to be
married. He watched with interest the new buildings that were going
up, probably reflecting sadly that none of them were for him. In his
discouragement he wrote to Miss Mary Owen of New Salem, to whom he had
said something about coming to live with him in Springfield:
"You would have to be poor, without the means of hiding your
poverty. Do you believe you could bear that patiently?
Whatever woman may cast her lot with mine, should any ever do
so, it is my intention to do all in my power to make her
happy and contented. And there is nothing I can imagine that
would make me more unhappy than to fail in the effort. I know
I should be much happier with you than the way I am, provided
I saw no sign of discontent in you."
Miss Owen declined to go to Springfield, because she felt that Lincoln
was "deficient in those little links which make up the chain of a
woman's happiness."