2 Nov. 2018 The Hermitage

Near where we are staying is the home of Former President Andrew Jackson. The last of the revolutionary war presidents (He was only 13 when he served in the Revolutionary army in South Carolina). His plantation, Hermitage, is over 1000 acres in size. The mansion on the plantation was built while he was serving his term as President (1829-1833). It was the third house on the site. The first house was built shortly after he bought the initial plot of land (425 acres) (this was his third farm) and was replaced when he was elected president in 1829. It burned while he was in Washington so his adopted son, Andrew Jackson Jr.,  rebuilt the home and expanded it. President elect Jackson’s wife, Rachel, died before they could move to Washington following his election. Following his term of office, he retired to The Hermitage where he died in 1845. Both he and his beloved Rachel are buried on the property as well as three more generations since then.  Andrew Jackson met Rachel when he was a border at her mother’s house. Rachel had come home to her mother’s to escape her bad marriage.  They were both immediately smitten and eventually eloped together before Rachel’s first marriage was ended in divorce.  The scandal would follow them for the rest of Jackson’s career. In fact Jackson believed the gossip and political maneuvers of his opponents were responsible for her early death at the age of 61, just months after Jackson won his run for the Presidency and they were scheduled to move into the White House in D.C.   President Jackson was known as the people’s president. But he was a slave owner (he owned several hundreds over the years) and was responsible for “removing” native American Indians out of the east and forcing them west of the Mississippi river. He is also known for the defense of New Orleans from British Invasion in the war of 1812 as well as the Creek Indian War. Interestingly, Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay, whose house we toured in Lexington, were political enemies. But it was Henry Clay that negotiated the great compromise in 1832 that helped President Jackson keep Alabama in the Union. 

The carriage road approach to the mansion

The back of the mansion

President Jackson and his Wife's Graves