Andrew Jackson's Hermitage

by Mary French Caldwell

In the time which intervened between Robards’ arrival at Mrs. Donelson’s in 1788 and his final departure for Kentucky in May or June, 1790, the old story of the jealous husband was repeated. This time Andrew Jackson was the target of his anger and unjust suspicions, just as another young man—one Peyton Short—had been back in Kentucky. The incidents of this period are well known. As the breach between Robards and his wife widened, Jackson and Overton removed to Mansker’s Station and, finally, Robards set out for Kentucky alone, threatening, however, to return and to force Rachel to go back to Kentucky with him. To escape him she fled to friends in Natchez either late in the year of 1790 or early in 1791, and Andrew Jackson went along to help protect the party against the Indians. Later news came to the Cumberland that a divorce had been granted Robards by the Virginia legislature in an act passed December 20, 1790, and Jackson hastened to Natchez to woo the unhappy Rachel. They were married in Natchez in August, 1791, and returned to Nashville in September. It was not until December, 1793, that Robards revealed the fact that the Virginia legislature had granted him only the right to sue for divorce in the courts of Kentucky. He exercised that right in the Mercer County court, term of September, 1793, and in the following December John Overton brought to the astounded Jackson the news that the Natchez marriage had not been legal. The second marriage took place openly, and though the circumstances which necessitated it were deplored by friends of the Jacksons, the situation was fully understood and no blame was attached to either of them.

About the time of the second marriage the Jacksons were probably living on a tract of land in “Jones’ Bent” known as Poplar Grove. There is little known of this period, but a letter of Jackson’s, dated May 16, 1794, is headed “Poplar Grove, Tenn.” This tract, bought from John Donelson for the sum of one hundred pounds, April 30, 1793, was, according to the deed recorded at the Davidson County Court House, located on “the lower end of a survey of 630 acres granted the said John Donelson by patent.” It is described as being “on the south side of Cumberland River in Jones Bent and bounded as follows—Beginning at sugar tree red oak and elm on the bank of the river, the lower end of the tract running thence north sixty degrees....”

Mrs. Rachel Jackson

Mrs. Jackson’s likeness is from the miniature which General Jackson wore every day until his death.

General Andrew Jackson

His is from the well-known military portrait by Earl.

The next important purchase from the standpoint of Jackson’s homestead was that of the Hunter’s Hill tract from John Shannon on March 7, 1796, “for and in consideration of the sum of seven hundred dollars to him in hand paid by the said Andrew Jackson.” It is impossible to trace definitely the residence of Rachel and Andrew during the years intervening between their marriage in the late summer of 1791 and the acquisition of the Hunter’s Hill tract in 1796. They must, for a period at least, have lived with Mrs. Donelson, or in the household of some member of the family. Rachel had frequently lived at the home of her sister Jane, Mrs. Robert Hays, of Haysborough—once the rival of Nashville. A study of Indian hostilities of the period indicates that permanent residence outside the strongholds of the community was not practical. In 1792 Buchanan’s station was attacked by a party of several hundred Indians, and as late as September, 1794, five men were fired upon by the Indians “near Mr. Andrew Jackson’s, on the south side of Cumberland River.” One was killed and two wounded.

Several things happened in 1794 which indicate that the Jacksons were established in a home of their own—the reference in a communication to the War Department to the Indian depredations “near Mr. Andrew Jackson’s”; the previously mentioned letter, which Jackson himself headed “Poplar Grove, Tenn. May 16, 1794;” and freedom from Indian attacks on outlying settlements. The important Nickajack expedition, which brought an end to all organized Indian hostilities in the section, took place in that year.