The Hermitage (Nashville, Tennessee)

The Hermitage is a National Historic Landmark and museum located in Davidson County, Tennessee, United States, east of downtown Nashville in the neighborhood of Hermitage. The + site was owned by President Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the United States, from 1804 until his death there in 1845. It also serves as his final resting place. Jackson lived at the property intermittently until he retired from public life in 1837.

The Hermitage enslaved men, women, and children, numbering nine at the plantation's purchase in 1804 and 110 at Jackson's death. They were principally involved in growing cotton, the plantation's major cash crop.

Mansion and grounds

Architecture

thumb|left|Side view of the house

left|thumb|Rear of the mansion in 2022

The Hermitage is built in a secluded meadow that was chosen as a house site by Jackson's wife, Rachel. From 1804 to 1821 the couple lived there in a log cabin. Together the home and the West, East, and Southeast cabins formed the First Hermitage.

Interior

The layout of the main block of the house consists of four large rooms separated by a center hall. The entry hall with plank flooring painted dark is decorated with block-printed wallpaper by Joseph Dufour et Cie of Paris, depicting scenes from Telemachus' visit to the island of Calypso.

After Rachel Jackson died in 1828, Jackson had her buried in the garden she loved. When he had the house remodeled in 1831, Jackson also had a Classicizing "temple & monument" constructed for Rachel's grave. Craftsmen completed the domed limestone tomb with a copper roof in 1832.

Behind the mansion, the property includes a smokehouse that dates to the early 19th century. The large brick smokehouse at the rear of the kitchen was built in 1831 and cured of pork per year. Nearby is a log cabin known as Alfred's Cabin. Alfred Jackson was born enslaved to Andrew Jackson at the Hermitage around 1812 and worked there in various positions. After the Civil War, he stayed as a tenant farmer and later worked as caretaker and guide following the purchase of the estate in 1889 by the Ladies' Hermitage Association. Jackson died in 1901 and was buried near the tomb of the President and Mrs. Jackson.

From 1988 to 2005, teams conducted extensive archaeological investigations at the site. Their work revealed the location of an ice house behind the smokehouse and hundreds of thousands of artifacts. A brick triplex of cabins that was likely used by workers and artisans was discovered near the mansion yard. Archaeologists have identified 13 dwellings used by workers. Remains of three foundation pits suggest there were at least two log houses and four brick duplexes. The cotton gin and cotton press (used for baling) were located in one of the cotton fields just beyond the First Hermitage.

History

The site that Jackson named Hermitage was located from the Cumberland and Stones Rivers after settlers of European descent ethnically cleansed the region of Native Americans. The land was originally settled in 1780 by Robert Hays, who was the grand uncle of Texas Ranger John Coffee Hays and Confederate General Harry Thompson Hays. Hays sold the farm to Jackson in 1804.

Cotton plantation

{| class="wikitable floatright"

|+ Enslaved population of The Hermitage plantation

!Year

!Enslaved population

!Characteristics

!Data recorded in

|1804

|(Time of purchase of the land)

|1820

|44

|1820 U.S. Census

|1825

|80

|Davidson County tax list

|1829

|95

|17 women, 19 men, 59 children (age 19 and under)

|Hermitage Farm Journal; The Papers of Andrew Jackson: 1829

|1830

|94

|1830 U.S. Census

|1840

|105

|1840 U.S. Census

|1845

|110

|Andrew Jackson probate inventory

|1850

|137

|29 women, 19 men, 51 children (age 19 and under)

|1850 U.S. Census

| colspan="4" |Sources: 1804. 1829. 1820, 1825, 1829, 1830, 1840, 1845, 1850.

Jackson and his wife moved into the existing two-story log blockhouse, built to resist Indian attacks. A lean-to was added on the back of the cabin and to the rear, a group of log outbuildings were erected, including slave cabins, store rooms, and a smokehouse. This complex is known historically as the First Hermitage. At the peak of operations, Jackson held 161 slaves in total: 110 at the Hermitage and 51 at Halcyon plantation in Coahoma County, Mississippi. Due to debt and bad investments, Jackson Jr. began selling off portions of the estate. In 1856, he sold the remaining , the mansion, and the outbuildings to the State of Tennessee, with a provision that the Jackson family could remain in residence as caretakers of the estate. The state intended to turn over the property to the federal government for use as a southern branch of the United States Military Academy, but the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861 disrupted this plan.

Civil War and afterwards

thumb|right|upright|The tomb of Andrew and Rachel Jackson is located in the Hermitage garden.

On May 5, 1863, units of the Union Army from Indiana approached the Hermitage. Pvt. Joseph C. Taylor wrote an account in his diary:

Museum

thumb|Museum displays in 2022

thumb|right|The Hermitage, 1998 tornado damageAndrew Jackson's grandson, Andrew Jackson III, and his family were the last to occupy the Hermitage. The family moved out in 1893, and it ceased being a family residence. The Hermitage was opened to the public by the Ladies' Hermitage Association, who had been deeded the property by the state of Tennessee for use as a museum of both Jackson's life and the antebellum South in general. The Association restored the mansion to its 1837 appearance. Over time, the organization bought back all the land that had been sold, taking ownership of the last parcel that restored the site boundaries in 2003. The trees once hid the house from passers-by on U.S. Route 70, but their loss left the mansion in plain sight.

Using wood from the fallen trees, Gibson Guitar Corporation produced 200 limited-edition "Old Hickory" guitars. The first guitar produced was presented to the Smithsonian, although , it was not on display.

The mansion is the most accurately preserved early presidential home in the country. Each year, the home receives more than a quarter million visitors, making it the fourth-most-visited presidential residence in the country (after the White House, Mount Vernon, and Monticello). The property was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1960.

Based on archaeological excavations and other research, the Hermitage mounted an exhibition on slave life at the plantation in 2005. It is installed in the Visitor Center and provides much more focus on the lives of enslaved African American families at the plantation, ranging from the domestic staff to field laborers.

Enslaved Memorial

thumb|Participants in a memorial ceremony to the people enslaved at the Hermitage lay flowers in remembrance of each upon the stones of the Monument to the Enslaved

In 2006, the remains of 61 enslaved people who had been the legal property of Rachel Jackson's nephews were discovered near the Hermitage. Their burials were unmarked, but they were arranged in family groups and were estimated to range in age from 1 to 45. The Ladies Hermitage Association took charge of their burials in a new common grave on the Hermitage site. Atop their reburial, a memorial was built in 2009 in remembrance of the enslaved people of the area. The site design, "Our Peace: Follow the Drinking Gourd—A Monument to the Enslaved," proposed by Aaron Lee Benson, includes an unmarked stone wall over the burial site and seven trees arranged in the shape of the Little Dipper. Both the constellation and "follow the drinking gourd" refer to the practice of navigating by the North Star to escape from slavery.

Hermitage slave cemetery

In 2024, researchers found a burial ground believed to hold the graves of 28 enslaved people. Researchers had been looking for the slave burial ground for well over 20 years. Some historians have speculated that Lyncoya Jackson may have been buried in the slave cemetery.

Confederate Soldiers Home Cemetery

thumb|Veterans at the Confederate Soldiers Home, circa 1908

Part of the Hermitage estate that passed in to public hands became the site of the state-funded Confederate Soldiers Home, a residential facility that housed poor and disabled Confederate veterans beginning in 1892. More than 480 veterans who died there were buried in an onsite cemetery, each marked with a white, military-style gravestone and arrayed in circles around a monumental stone.

Legacy

The city in Davidson County where the Hermitage is located is known as Hermitage, Tennessee. A hotel named the Hermitage Hotel, located in downtown Nashville, opened in 1910 and is still operating. Many celebrities and U.S. presidents have spent time there.

In popular culture

The Hermitage is prominently featured in one of the opening scenes of F. Scott Fitzgerald's unfinished novel The Last Tycoon (1941), when the narrator, Celia, visits it with two other characters.
The Hermitage was one of the filming locations and settings for the 1955 Disney film Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier.

Notes

References

External links

The Hermitage website
"Tocqueville in Nashville", broadcast from the Hermitage, from C-SPAN's Alexis de Tocqueville tour.
"Life Portrait of Andrew Jackson", broadcast from the Hermitage, from C-SPAN's American Presidents: Life Portraits, April 26, 1999