During the civil war, whose earliest tocsin was sounded near her, and whose dying echoes reverberated along the banks of the Cumberland, she remained in the lonely home of her happier youth, amid scenes which continually recall the unreturning past. In the quiet of a winter’s night, or even amid the beauty of a midsummer’s day, she looks upon the tomb in the garden, and hallowed recollections fill her heart. Through the triumphs of life she has passed, and now in the eventide sits beside her graves.[[15]]

[15]. The State of Tennessee owns the Hermitage, and Mrs. Jackson resides there as its guest.

Now, as in early youth, she evinces her submission to the will of God, and the little church adjoining the Hermitage is as sacred to her as it was dear to her adopted mother.

In her present retirement with her children, of whom two remain to bless her evening of life, and grandchildren to cheer her with their innocent gayety, let us hope that further trials may be spared her, and that even to the end she may enjoy the sweet security of a promise made to those like her, who have finished their course, and are called to enter into the joys of their Lord.

Mrs. MARTIN VAN BUREN.

X.
HANNAH VAN BUREN.

The wife of President Van Buren was born at Kinderhook, on the Hudson, in the year 1782, a few months after the birth of her future husband, whose schoolmate and companion she was during their early years. She was of Dutch descent, and the original name Goes, but pronounced by her ancestors Hoes, and since so called by all the members of the family in this country, is familiar to those who are acquainted with the history of the Netherlands.

If the charms of nature—grand scenery, magnificent views, and the ever-varying harmony of beautiful skies—could add to the growth and development of childhood, Hannah Hoes was incomparably blest. The years of her life were spent in a happy home circle in the most beautiful section of her native State—a State remarkable for the grandeur of its mountain scenery, and the number of its romantic rivers. Chief among these, and surpassed by none in the world, is the Hudson, in sight of whose classic waters she lived and died.

Her ancestors were sturdy, enterprising Dutch, whose homes for many generations had been along the banks of the stream discovered by their renowned countryman, and not one of the rosy urchins of their households but knew of the adventures of Hendrick Hudson, and reverenced him not only as the hero of their race and the discoverer of their river, but the founder of their prosperity. Nor could the tales of the old dames who resided nearest the lofty Catskills—that he and his followers still haunted the mountains and were the direct cause of calamities—divest their minds of his wondrous exploits. In each ripple of the dancing waves, in the denseness of the gray fog, or perchance in the quiet stillness of eventide, they recognized some similarity, and recalled a parallel of his experiences.