He was especially anxious to get back to the Hermitage in the summer of 1836 to see his new house, but it took him 25 days to get there via the Virginia route. He left Washington on July 10th, but seven days later had only reached Salem, Virginia, from which point he wrote his son: “I am thus far on my way to the Hermitage, but from the state of the roads there can be no calculation made when we may reach there. It took us 7 hours today to travel 10 miles, and in the streets of Salem broke a singletree and the fore akle of the carriage,” It was not until August 4th that he reached the Hermitage “exhausted with bad roads and continued rains and my horses broke down.”
This time he left the coach at the Hermitage and returned to Washington by steamboat early in September. He and Major Donelson had an engagement to meet Mr. Van Buren in Washington and make an excursion to Niagara Falls to wind up the vacation season; but on account of his wife’s illness Major Donelson did not return with the General and the trip to the Falls was abandoned.
When in March, 1837, Jackson surrendered to Martin Van Buren what he had come to regard as “a dignified office of abject slavery,” he rode on the new Baltimore & Ohio Railroad from Washington to the end of the road at Ellicott’s Mills, Maryland, where he took the stagecoach to Wheeling and there embarked on the steamboat for Nashville. There was a public demonstration at Cincinnati when the boat landed there, another at Louisville and another when he reached home. But at last he was back in the quietude of the Hermitage he loved so well; and from then until his death his traveling was confined to occasional trips to Nashville, a few visits to Tyree Springs, and a brief campaign tour he took with his protege, James K. Polk, when he was a candidate for governor in 1839.
APPENDIX D
The regents and members of the governing boards who have had control of the Ladies Hermitage Association since its organization:
ELECTED MAY 15, 1889. Mrs. Mary L. Baxter, Regent. Mrs. A. S. Colyar, First Vice-Regent. Mrs. J. M. Dickinson, Second Vice-Regent. Mrs. Mary C. Dorris, Secretary. Mrs. William Morrow. Mrs. John Ruhm. Mrs. Bettie M. Donelson. Mrs. Duncan B. Cooper. Mrs. Felix Demoville. L. F. Benson, Treasurer.
ELECTED MAY 20, 1891. Mrs. Mary L. Baxter, Regent. Mrs. Albert S. Marks, Acting Regent. Mrs. J. Berrien Lindsley, Sec. Vice-Regent. Mrs. Mary C. Dorris, Secretary. Mrs. William Morrow. Mrs. John Ruhm. Mrs. Bettie M. Donelson. Mrs. John C. Gaut. Mrs. Maggie L. Hicks. Dr. William Morrow, Treasurer.
ELECTED JUNE 7, 1893. Mrs. Mary L. Baxter, Regent. Mrs. Albert S. Marks, First Vice-Regent. Mrs. J. Berrien Lindsley, Sec. Vice-Regent. Mrs. Mary C. Dorris, Secretary. Mrs. John Ruhm, Auditor. Mrs. John C. Gaut. Mrs. Bettie M. Donelson. Mrs. Isabel M. Clark. Mrs. J. M. Dickinson. Mr. Edgar Jones, Treasurer.
ELECTED OCTOBER 30, 1895. Mrs. Mary L. Baxter, Regent. Mrs. Albert S. Marks, Acting Regent. Mrs. J. Berrien Lindsley, Sec. Vice-Regent. Mrs. Mary C. Dorris, Secretary. Mrs. John Ruhm, Auditor. Mrs. Hugh Craighead. Mrs. Bettie M. Donelson. Mrs. John C. Gaut. Mrs. Isabel Clark. Mrs. P. H. Manlove, Treasurer.
ELECTED MAY 19, 1897. Mrs. Mary L. Baxter, Regent. Mrs. Albert S. Marks, Acting Regent. Mrs. J. Berrien Lindsley, Sec. Vice-Regent. Mrs. Mary C. Dorris, Secretary. Mrs. R. G. Thorne. Mrs. J. M. Dickinson. Mrs. M. S. Cockrill. Mrs. A. M. Shook. Mrs. John C. Gaut. Mrs. P. H. Manlove, Treasurer.