The Hermitage, Home of Old Hickory

by Stanley F. Horn

“General Jackson’s house at that time,” wrote Mr. Davis in later years, “was a roomy log house. In front of it was a grove of fine forest trees, and behind it were his cotton and grain fields. I have never forgotten the unaffected and well-bred courtesy which caused him to be remarked by court-trained diplomats when President of the United States, by reason of his very impressive bearing and manner.

“Notwithstanding the many reports that have been made of his profanity, I remember that he always said grace at his table, and I never heard him utter an oath. In this connection although he encouraged his adopted son, Howell Hinds and myself in all contests of activity, pony-riding included, he would not allow us to wrestle; for, he said, to allow hands to be put on one another might lead to a fight. He was always very gentle and considerate.

“Mrs. Jackson’s education, like that of many excellent women of her day, was deficient; but in all the hospitable and womanly functions of wife and hostess she certainly was excelled by none. A child is a keen observer of the characteristics of those under whom he is placed, and I found Mrs. Jackson amiable, unselfish and affectionate to her family and guests and just and mild toward her servants.

“Our stay with General Jackson was enlivened by the visits of his neighbors, and we left the Hermitage with great regret and pursued our journey. In me he inspired reverence and affection that has remained with me through my whole life.”

This account of his memorable visit to the Hermitage was dictated by Mr. Davis 75 years later, during the last year of his life; and the fact that his visit as a child left on his mind such a vivid impression is an eloquent tribute to the glowing personality of Jackson and the kindly manner of his wife.

It was at the old log Hermitage that Jackson received the first visit of Thomas H. Benton, the man who later became his close friend and then his enemy and then his friend again. Young Benton had been admitted to the Tennessee bar in 1804 and was practicing in Franklin, a few miles from Nashville. In 1805 he had a land title case in which were involved some legal points upon which Andrew Jackson had ruled while he was sitting on the Superior Court. These rulings had not been published, however, and so Benton saddled his horse and rode to the Hermitage to ask the ex-justice for an official report of the cases. Upon learning his errand, Jackson courteously offered to write out the opinions for him; so, with Jackson dictating and Benton transcribing, the opinion of the Superior Court was thus tardily reduced to written form. It was typical of the hospitality of the Hermitage that Benton, who had made an instantaneously good impression on Jackson, was prevailed upon to prolong his formal call to a two-days’ visit; and there was the beginning of a friendship which had a lasting and far-reaching effect upon the careers of both of them. For many years Benton was a frequenter of the Hermitage to such an extent as almost to be regarded as a member of the family; and, despite an intervening period of enmity growing out of a bloody, knock-down-and-drag-out fight, Benton’s eulogy of Jackson when he died showed the depth of his affection for the older man.

A visitor of world-wide distinction who was a guest at the Hermitage was the celebrated Marquis de Lafayette. General Jackson had long been an admirer of the patriotic Marquis. Mrs. Jackson herself is authority for the statement that Jackson first saw him at Charleston “on the battlefield” when he was a boy of twelve and the Marquis was at the zenith of his great Revolutionary popularity. When Jackson was in Washington in the latter part of 1824 as a Senator he met Lafayette, in fact lived at the same tavern with him while he was there, and it was probably at that time that the Marquis was invited to visit Nashville and the Hermitage. He had previously written Jackson, soon after his arrival in this country, saying “I will not leave the United States before I have seeked and found the opportunity to express in person my high regard and sincere friendship.”

The Marquis and his party steamed up to the wharf in Nashville on May 4, 1825, and were there greeted tumultuously by the Nashville populace, General Jackson foremost among them. The enthusiastic Nashvillians had prepared a rather elaborate entertainment for the celebrated French nobleman, including a big parade and a formal call on Governor Carroll. The next morning the Marquis reviewed the Tennessee militia (which had been encamped at Nashville a week patiently awaiting his belated arrival) and after the review the party boarded the steamboat again and proceeded up the river to the Hermitage to have dinner with General Jackson. Dinner in those days was a big meal served at about three o’clock in the afternoon.

Fortunately, a record of this visit is preserved in a book written by M. LeVasseur, Lafayette’s secretary, who, after telling of the entertainment in Nashville, says: “At one o’clock we embarked, with a numerous company, to proceed to dine with General Jackson, whose residence is a few miles up the river. We there found numbers of ladies and farmers from the neighborhood whom Mrs. Jackson had invited to partake of the entertainment she had prepared for General Lafayette. The first thing that struck me on arriving at the General’s was the extreme simplicity of his house. Still somewhat influenced by my European habits, I asked myself if this could really be the dwelling of the most popular man in the United States, of him whom the country proclaimed one of her most illustrious defenders; of him, finally, who by the will of the people was on the point of becoming her Chief Magistrate. One of our fellow-passengers, a citizen of Nashville, witnessing my astonishment, asked me whether in France our public men, that is to say the servants of the people, lived very differently from other citizens. ‘Certainly,’ said I, ‘thus, for example, the majority of our generals, all our ministers, and even the greater part of our subaltern administrators, would think themselves dishonored and would not dare to receive anyone at their houses if they possessed such a residence as this of Jackson’s; and the modest dwellings of your illustrious chiefs of the Revolution—Washington, John Adams, Jefferson—would only inspire them with contempt and disgust.’”

Having thus tactfully ingratiated himself with the party, M. LeVasseur accompanied the other guests on a visit of inspection to the farm and garden, and then: