Stone-cutters, masons and bricklayers, $491.00
Carpenters and joiners, 678.00
Painters and glazers, 187.00
Plasterers, 168.00
Coppersmith and tinner, 350.00
Lumber and shingles, 468.50
Hardware, glass, etc., 110.00
Turner’s bill, 25.00
Hauling lumber from Nashville, 11.00
$2,488.50

General Coffee, Jackson’s old friend and fellow veteran of the Battle of New Orleans and the Indian wars, drove over to the Hermitage from time to time while the remodeling work was in progress and kept an eye on it. On April 28, 1831, he wrote the President at Washington: “Your mechanics were at work on the improvements making on the mansion house. I took the liberty of suggesting some immaterial alterations in the addition, which was approved of by the projector of the building, who said he would consult you about it.” This alteration in the plan, it is revealed in one of Mr. Morrison’s letters to President Jackson, consisted in extending the eastern or library wing back twenty feet further than called for in the original plan, the additional space thus gained being used for the covered passage and overseer’s room. This overseer’s room, also called the steward’s room, was in later years used as the nursery for the children of Andrew, junior, and later the covered passage was bricked in and the side entrance hall thus created as it is today.

Accurate and dependable pictures of the brick Hermitage as it appeared in 1819 are singularly scarce, and the few available efforts at its picturization differ considerably in appearance.

In one of Earl’s early portraits of General Jackson the General is shown standing on a slight eminence, with the Hermitage at a distance in the background. This picture of the house, a veritable portrait from life, is doubtless a trustworthy representation of the original brick house; and there is presented herewith a reproduction of this picture, obtained by successive enlargements of the background of the Earl portrait. It ought to give a reliable idea of the appearance of the place before the wings were added.

Similar in appearance is an undated engraving (“Drawn and engraved by H. B. Hall”) which was reproduced in Bassett’s Life of Andrew Jackson and also in Marquis James’ Border Captain. Presumably this was drawn by Mr. Hall on the spot, as it is quite similar to the Earl picture showing the gabled roof and double chimneys at each side of the house.

The most amusing and least accurate of all the available pictures of the early Hermitage is to be found in The Jackson Wreath, or National Souvenir, a laudatory book about Jackson, the President elect, published in Philadelphia in January, 1829. In this book is an attractive engraving of a suspiciously conventional house which bears the descriptive entitlement: “The Hermitage;” but faith in the accuracy of the picture is shaken by a naive footnote (in microscopic type) which says with engaging candor: “On the commencement of this work, proper steps were taken to procure a drawing of the Hermitage from the spot, by addressing a prominent establishment at Nashville; whether the several requests were ever received by them is not known, but the drawing never came to hand here. A gentleman at Washington, intimate with the grounds, politely furnished a description from which a drawing was made. Anyone who is acquainted with the difficulty of producing a correct drawing from description will overlook any difference that may appear in the likeness to the place it is intended to represent.”

This imaginative engraving shows a square house, with the gable end in front, and with two single chimneys—one at the left and one in the rear. There is also a neat little portico at the front door, and an out-house close by the left-hand side of the house. Despite its confessed inaccuracy it was obviously the source of at least two other popular engravings of that day which reproduced with fidelity its improperly placed gable and chimneys; and even as late as 1855 as reliable a monthly magazine as Harper’s illustrated an article about Jackson with an alleged picture of the Hermitage which was plainly but a copy of the engraving in the “Jackson Wreath” with merely a few slight changes in the arrangement of the conventionalized trees and horses in the foreground.

Fortunately there is preserved a contemporaneous picture, reproduced in this book, which is generally accepted as a fairly accurate representation of the house as it appeared after the wings were added and before the fire. After the fire the front portico was rebuilt two stories high all the way across; and the six large columns as now seen replaced the smaller posts formerly used. This picture, judging from the location of the tomb so close to the house, is not free from the imaginative latitude the artists sometimes allow themselves; but it is said to give a good idea of the way the house looked before the fire.

In October, 1834, occurred the burning of the Hermitage, an event that attracted widespread attention. Jackson was at that time at the White House in Washington, but his adopted son and his wife were occupying the Hermitage.

An account of the fire in a Nashville newspaper of October 14th announced the event in the following words: “Yesterday evening about 4 o’clock the roof of the Hermitage was discovered to be on fire, and all attempts to arrest the progress of the flames proving unavailing, the entire edifice with the exception of the room attached to the northern end and used as a dining room was in a few hours consumed. The valuable furniture in the lower story was fortunately saved, though much broken and otherwise injured in getting it out. That in the second story, we understand, was chiefly destroyed. The fire is supposed to have been communicated to the roof by the falling of a spark from one of the chimneys, and there being at the time a light breeze from the northwest the progress of the flames was proportionately rapid. The numerous and valuable private papers of the President were probably all preserved. We need not add that the event has occasioned to this community deep and universal regret.”