The Hermitage, Home of Old Hickory

by Stanley F. Horn

Colonel Armstrong’s letter is tantalizingly incomplete in details, and there is no other written reference to this “unpleasant affair;” nor is there any inkling as to the identity of the Williams and Shelly mentioned.

Be that as it may, the paper was hung on the walls of the Campbell parlor and is there today, although it is now covered with two layers of modern wall paper put on to satisfy the taste of modern tenants of the old Campbell homestead who objected to the faded grandeur of the old hand-painted paper imported from Paris and wanted something bright and new.

Promptly upon receipt of news of the original paper’s fate, General Jackson wrote to his friend Henry Toland in Philadelphia and ordered a duplicate set. This paper, manufactured by Dufour in France and imported by Toland, is the paper that is on the walls of the downstairs hall today, attracting the admiring glances of all visitors.

This paper depicts the familiar story from mythology of the adventures of Telemachus on the island of Calypso while on his journey in search of Ulysses. There are four scenes in the paper: No. 1, the landing of Telemachus on the island, showing the queen advancing to meet him; No. 2, Telemachus, with Mentor beside him, relating to Calypso the story of his travels; No. 3, the fete given by Calypso in honor of the visitor; No. 4, Telemachus leaping from the cliff after the maidens of the island had burned his boat upon learning of his resolution to escape.

Midway of the downstairs hall, on the right-hand side, is the door to a cross-hall which leads to the side entrance on the east or garden side. On either side of this little hall are doorways leading to the downstairs bedrooms; and the entry hall at the side is flanked on the left by a small room formerly used, first as the overseer’s or steward’s room and later as a nursery, and now serving as the museum. On the right is General Jackson’s library or office which has a door leading to the front bedroom (which was the General’s) and another door opening on the front portico, corresponding to the similar door at the other end of the porch which affords entrance into the dining room.

Perhaps the most interesting room of all is that front bedroom, the old General’s room, just as it was the day he died. There is the high old four-poster bed, with its heavy canopy and with its little steps at its side, the bed on which he breathed his last. There is the couch by the window on which he spent so much of his time during the latter years of his life. There is his chair, his dressing gown, his tobacco box; and there above the mantel is the portrait of his much beloved Rachel, placed where his eyes could see it the first thing in the morning and the last thing at night while he lived and where the last flickering glance of his closing eyes rested the day he died. Two windows look out on the front porch, and it was by these windows that the plantation’s slaves gathered and waited weeping while he gasped out his last few breaths. Also it was through one of these windows that the old man leaped one night when he awoke suddenly and found his room filled with smoke. A spark had popped out of the fireplace and set fire to his big chair, but he thought that the house was afire and fled precipitately, calling for help. Here is a room redolent with memories of the old General; it is no wonder that visitors linger at its doorway longer than at any other spot in the whole house.

The room immediately across the side hall was originally known as “Mrs. Jackson’s room” and was used as a family sitting room, before the wings were added. At that time the present back parlor was used as the dining room, and the front parlor was known as the portrait parlor, being the room in which all the portraits were hung. In 1832 this back bedroom was refurbished to be used by Andrew Jackson, junior, and his wife as their room. “It will be more convenient than upstairs,” the General wrote Andrew when suggesting this use of the room—and perhaps he also looked ahead to the time when the adjoining little room would be useful as a nursery.

The office or library, adjoining General Jackson’s bedroom, might well be said to have been the center of political activity of the United States for thirty years. History was made in this room. Presidents were made and unmade, Cabinet officials and other high dignitaries had their fate decided there. Here are the furnishings—the bookcases, desks and chairs—just as they were in those days. One feature that might strike the visitor is that there are not so many books in evidence as one might expect to find in the library of the President of the United States. Less than 1,000 volumes are in the cases. Andrew Jackson was a man of action rather than reading, but the books he possessed (many of them gifts of admirers and of proud authors) indicate that he had a widely diversified taste for good literature and that he was not a stranger to classical and studious reading.

The Hermitage bookshelves show a library of which nobody need feel ashamed. Here are Shakspeare’s works, the poems of Byron and Burns and Dryden, Pilgrim’s Progress and theological works alongside the novels of Smollett and Fielding. Here is Johnson’s Dictionary, and an early Encyclopedia Americana; the Spectator, the Rambler; early American novels, notably those of William Gilmore Simms and Charles Brockden Brown; here are Horace and Virgil in translation—and a burlesque Iliad. Memories of his war on the Bank are recalled by the numerous treatises on banking and currency; and one is reminded of his military days by a copy of the Infantry Regulations, dated 1812, along with a number of books referring to the War of 1812. There is a complete array of medical books for the home—necessary in those days before the telephone and automobile made doctors so immediately accessible; and his practical knowledge of stock breeding is indicated by the books on the veterinary science and the other aspects of animal husbandry. Here is young Andrew’s copy of Robinson Crusoe, also some of his schoolbooks; and a sentimental touch is provided by a calf-bound copy of Burns’ Poetical Works on the flyleaf of which is inscribed “To Rachel Jackson, from her beloved husband, And^w Jackson.” Also reminiscent of Rachel is a flower gardening guide, with quaint old illustrations. There are bound volumes of Niles’ Weekly Register, there are the Madison Papers and the American State Papers, some law books of the early days—in short, it is the library of a country gentleman and statesman of a century ago.

Here in his office, aside from his books, we find his old walnut desk, used throughout his life from the time he was a practicing attorney; the mahogany tables; candlesticks and lamps. It is the workshop of the statesman, just as he left it nearly a century ago.