Andrew Jackson's Hermitage

by Mary French Caldwell

The Brick Hermitage—1819

Wings were added in 1831, and the small building was removed. From Harper’s Magazine of January, 1855

On the twenty-third of August, 1804, Jackson paid Nathaniel Hays $3,400 for the 425-acre tract, “with its appurtenances,” which was to be known later as the Hermitage.[1] This reference to appurtenances would indicate that some kind of a building or “improvements” stood on the property when Jackson bought it. This theory is strengthened by the fact that the present study has revealed no records which prove definitely that Andrew Jackson erected a log building at the Hermitage in 1804 or 1805, and by the tradition in the Hays family that one of its members built the Hermitage. Another point which strengthens it is that both of the log houses now standing on the Hermitage estate have in their walls the customary holes for rifles which were made in the days of Indian fighting. This was not necessary at the time Jackson bought the Hermitage, for Indian hostilities were ended by 1795.

There must have been, however, considerable remodeling of the buildings, even though no new house was erected. Account books of the Hunter’s Hill store, which form a valuable part of the collection of historic documents at the Hermitage, show that in November, 1804, “17 window lights” are charged to Jackson’s personal account. It is possible that as time goes by a letter or other record may come to light which will tell something more definite on the building or remodeling of the log Hermitage. These account books are especially important in placing the removal from Hunter’s Hill to the Hermitage. The last entry at the Hunter’s Hill store was made on April 5, 1805, and the first at the Clover Bottom store on April 9. It is interesting to observe in this connection that the first letter in Bassett’s Correspondence of Andrew Jackson, headed at the Hermitage, was dated April 7, 1805. There is a lapse of several months in the letters, however, since the last one Bassett quotes from Hunter’s Hill is dated August 25, 1804. It is probable, although not a definitely established fact, that the removal of the store and residence took place simultaneously.

It is known, of course, that Hunter’s Hill was a commodious, two-story frame building—a marked contrast with the usual log houses of the period. In later years it was burned, and there remains to-day on the site of the Hunter’s Hill residence nothing more than a few scant traces of houses which may, or may not, have been a part of the dwellings, slave quarters, store, or other buildings used while the Jacksons lived there.[2] The spring, of course, remains; the Cumberland flows gently along its distant, tree-lined banks; and fertile fields still yield up their annual tribute to careful husbandry. But marks of Jackson’s occupation of the land are obliterated and, except as the story is pieced together from bits of information gathered here and there, its history is lost in obscurity.

More is known of the log Hermitage, although its history is far from complete. Most of the letters of people who were guests of the Jacksons during this period are tantalizing for their lack of detail. The best and more than likely the most authentic description of the interior of the log Hermitage is that given in Buell’s History of Andrew Jackson. The author, in a series of interviews with Mrs. James K. Polk, wife of President Polk, has preserved much important material relating to the Jackson household. In his preface to Mrs. Polk’s narrative he says:

“In the early seventies of the 19th Century the author of this work visited Nashville more than once in the capacity of a newspaper correspondent. On those occasions he enjoyed the honor and pleasure of calling upon Mrs. Sarah Childress Polk, widow of the President. Mrs. Polk was in her seventy-first year then. Her fund of historical and social reminiscences was exhaustless, and the best efforts to reproduce in print her faculty of relation would be feeble. Born in 1803, about twenty-eight or thirty miles from Nashville and not over twenty miles from the Hermitage, she had known the Jacksons from her earliest childhood. When she grew up and married Mr. Polk, the intimacy became still closer, and the relations between General Jackson and her husband in public life on the most important scale gave her recollections a quality of historical value not equalled by those of any other woman of her time....

“Mrs. Polk said that Mrs. Jackson—or ‘Aunt’ Rachel—was literally the childless mother of the whole neighborhood.... In their vicinage General and Mrs. Jackson were, of course, by far the most important persons. But no one would suspect it from observing the way and manner of their intercourse with the neighbors. In this respect the General was the most democratic of men, while Mrs. Jackson was at once the soul of merry-making and the embodiment of benevolence and charity.

“Their home manners, Mrs. Polk said, were the most charming concert of simplicity with dignity. The General always in their earlier life said ‘Mrs. Jackson,’ both in the second and third persons; though, when their little adopted son began to talk, he got into the habit of addressing her as ‘mother.’ On her part, Mrs. Jackson invariably spoke of and to him as ‘Mr. Jackson,’ until after the War of 1812, she yielded to the universal fashion and began to call him ‘General.’ But no one ever heard either address the other by the first name or by any term of endearment or familiarity whatever. In fact, though more winning kindliness than that which marked the manners of both could not be imagined, there was yet an atmosphere of quiet self-respect and calm dignity about them which gently, though none the less imperatively, commanded scrupulous courtesy in their presence....

“The Hermitage of the period now under consideration, Mrs. Polk said, was not the commodious country house so familiar to devout Democrats in pilgrimages of later years. It was a group of log houses in close proximity to each other. The principal one had been built for a block-house in the days of Indian alarms, afterwards used as a store and, about 1804, converted into a dwelling. It, like all block-houses, was two stories high. Near it were three smaller log houses, one story high with low attics. These were used as lodgings for members of the family or guests. The main building—the former block-house—had on the first floor one very large room with a huge fireplace capable of taking in a good-sized load of wood at a time. A lean-to had been built on at the back containing two rooms, one of which was used as the family sleeping quarters, the other as a pantry—or ‘buttery’ as the phrase was then. But the great room, about twenty-four feet by twenty-six, was at once kitchen, dining-room, sitting-room and parlor, and the large table that stood in the middle of it, capable of seating twelve to fourteen people comfortably, was always ‘set.’

“... General Jackson was a wonderful adept in the art of anecdote, and particularly delighted in incidents having a spice of wit or humor. Mrs. Jackson’s observations and experience were, of course, much more limited, but she, too, was a fluent talker and always entertaining.... She was an insatiable reader and was always far better informed upon current topics than the average woman of her time, even those who had been well educated. She was also a prolific writer, keeping up a close correspondence with her numerous relatives and with the General whenever he was absent from home. Her letters were simply her conversation on paper, with no effort at eloquence. As for grammar and orthography, Mrs. Polk said, neither in those days was the exact science it has since become, and she declared that while in the White House she had received notes from ‘leaders in society’ in Washington that would not compare favorably with the most hurried or careless of Mrs. Jackson’s letters.”

Mrs. Polk was excellently educated for her time. As a very young girl she was sent to the Moravian Female Academy at Salem, North Carolina, and later she was placed in a girls’ school in Nashville. She came, of course, a generation after Mrs. Jackson and enjoyed privileges which were not known in frontier days. Mrs. Polk’s estimate of the Jacksons is especially important, not only because she knew them intimately from her childhood, but also because by training and long contact with the nation’s leaders and the great from other parts of the world, she had a background which qualified her for unbiased judgment.

Another child destined for future greatness visited the Hermitage when the log buildings were the family dwellings. He was Jefferson Davis, future president of the Confederate States of America. What would “Old Hickory” have said, when little “Jeff” Davis raced ponies and played with Andrew Jackson, Jr., and other little boys at the Hermitage, had he been able to foretell the future of his small guest? Fortunately for the children, no shadow crossed their pathway, and even “Old Hickory” had not been forced to declare in thunderous tones: “Our Federal Union—it must be preserved.”