The Hermitage Church as it appears today.
Interior of the old Hermitage Church. The Jackson pew was near the front on the left-hand side.
View of Mrs. Jackson’s tomb with its eloquent epitaph.
The tomb of General Jackson and his wife in the Hermitage garden. Members of the adopted son’s family are buried in the plot in the background. In the lower right corner is the headstone of the grave of Uncle Alfred “faithful servant of Andrew Jackson.”
From time to time, as the years went by, various suggestions were advanced with reference to making some use of the Hermitage property, but none of them gained much support or aroused much interest. For two decades after 1865 most of the efforts of the state of Tennessee were in the direction of recuperating from the ravages of four years of war, and no serious consideration was given any plan for doing anything definite with the Hermitage. Things just drifted along, with the old mansion house gradually taking on an increased shabbiness, weeds and sprouts springing up in the once well-kept lawn, and other signs of deterioration increasing.
Finally, however, in 1888 affairs were brought to a head by a proposal that the house and farm be converted into a home for Confederate soldiers. This movement gained instant popularity, and so great was the appeal of the idea that it was generally considered that when the state’s General Assembly met in 1889 some action would be taken to convert the Hermitage into a soldiers’ home.
It was then, as a sort of emergency defensive measure, that the Ladies’ Hermitage Association was hastily organized; and too much can never be said in tribute to the work done by this association in saving Old Hickory’s home from misuse or destruction. The idea of an organization of women to preserve and beautify the old place seems to have originated in the mind of Mrs. Amy Jackson, wife of Colonel Andrew Jackson, III, inspired by the successful experience of the Mount Vernon Association in rescuing Washington’s home on the Potomac; and she quickly enlisted the aid of kindred spirits who worked with a fervor and tenacity worthy of Andrew Jackson himself until they had accomplished the desired end.