The Hermitage, Home of Old Hickory

Front view of the Hermitage, home of Old Hickory.
By STANLEY F. HORN
New York GREENBERG : PUBLISHER
Copyright, 1950, by Stanley F. Horn MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TO MY WIFE WITHOUT WHOSE INTEREST AND ENCOURAGEMENT THIS BOOK WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN WRITTEN
The preservation of the Hermitage as one of America’s most cherished historic shrines is due to the vision and patriotic enthusiasm of the women composing the Ladies’ Hermitage Association, to whom all possible credit should be given for the work they have done.
Acknowledgment is made to the association for their permission to use the photographs of the interior of the Hermitage, to which they have the exclusive right. Other photographs are used by permission of Marvin Wiles, photographer, of Nashville, to whom the copyright belongs. The architectural drawings were furnished by the Library of Congress, Washington, having been prepared by the Historic American Buildings Survey.
The Author.
“Put down in your book,” said one of Andrew Jackson’s old neighbors to James Parton when that eminent biographer was in Tennessee gathering material for his famous life of Jackson, “that the General was the prince of hospitality; not only because he entertained a great many people but because the poor, belated peddler was as welcome at the Hermitage as the President of the United States and made so much at his ease that he felt as though he had got home.”
And Parton put it down in his book, and so preserved to posterity that sincere and revealing tribute, eloquent in its simplicity, from a neighboring farmer. There spoke a man who knew Andrew Jackson not merely as the conqueror of the hostile Indians, the Hero of New Orleans or the President of the United States, but as the country gentleman who kept open house, who was known and admired by his fellow farmers and who was celebrated for his hospitality in a country where hospitality was a common virtue.
If an old house has emotions of its own, as some of the poets would have us believe, it is easy to think of the Hermitage blushing with pride at that tribute. There are many stately mansions, there are numerous great homes of famous men; but of how many of these may it be truthfully said that within its walls the poorest peddler with his pack found just as warm a welcome as the most distinguished visitor?