As soon as she was able to travel, the widow Jackson left the McCamie home and went to live with James Crawford, her brother-in-law.
Mrs. Crawford was an invalid, and Mrs. Jackson took charge of the Crawford housekeeping. Thus she and two of her boys lived for several years, the oldest son, Hugh, remaining with George McCamie.
ANDREW JACKSON.
The family name of Andrew Jackson’s mother was Hutchinson. She had, at least, a primary English education, for it was she who taught Andrew to read. That she was a woman of strong, lovable traits, is proven by the sound advice she impressed upon the mind of her great son, and by the passionate attachment to her which he carried throughout his life.
After the battle of New Orleans, when the victor had been crowned with laurel in the Cathedral and acclaimed like a demi-god through the streets, it was of his mother that he spoke to the officers whom he was about to disband—their glorious work being done.
“Gentlemen, if only SHE could have lived to see this day!”
As you follow the narrative of Andrew Jackson’s career, you will hear him say many things that you will not approve, will see him do many things which you cannot applaud, but when you recall that at the very top-notch of his success and his pride, his heart stayed in the right place, and was sore because his mother could not be there to gladden her old eyes with the glory of her son—you will forgive him much in his life that was harsh and cruel and utterly wrong.
During each Winter, for two or three years, after he had reached the age of seven, Andrew Jackson was sent to the old-field school of a Mr. Branch. After this, he attended the select school which a Presbyterian preacher, Dr. David Humphreys, taught in the Waxhaw settlement. He appears to have been going to this higher school in the spring of 1780, when the inroad of Tarleton created a panic in that portion of the Carolinas. At some later period of his youth, he is said to have attended the old Queen College or Seminary at Charlotte a couple of terms, but the time is not definitely known.
As to education, therefore, it may be safely stated that Andrew Jackson enjoyed much more than the ordinary advantage of a back-woods boy of his time. At the age of ten, he had become so good a reader that he was often chosen to read the newspaper to the assembled neighbors; and he remembered with pride, in after years, that he had thus had the honor of “reading out loud” the Declaration of Independence upon its arrival in the Waxhaws. For a lad of ten this was, indeed, something to remember with honest pride.