Chapter V: The Garden and Grounds

Much of the sentimental interest attached to the Hermitage centers around the garden, that fenced-in acre to the east of the mansion house which was set aside by General Jackson for that purpose when the Hermitage was built in 1819. We know that the exact site of the house was carefully selected by his wife, and it is safe to assume that it was she also who picked out this particular spot for the garden.

A short time before the Hermitage was built the General, accompanied by Rachel, visited in Washington on official business; and on this occasion they made the pilgrimage to Mount Vernon. Jackson was obviously much impressed by his visit to the old home of George Washington, so much so that he left in his papers a written memorandum of his impressions aroused by his journey to what he described as "the venerable dwelling of the patriarch of our liberties."

It is only a speculation, of course, but it is interesting to entertain the fancy that it was perhaps as a result of this visit that the old General, upon his return to Tennessee, decided to build for himself a home more in keeping with the dignity of the position he had attained as a national hero. Perhaps Rachel herself suggested it to him. She was proud of the General and the distinctions he had gained; maybe she put the thought in his head that the Hero of New Orleans ought not to be receiving his guests in a log house, that he should live in a little more style--something approaching the quiet dignity of Mount Vernon, which they both admired. A new house they should have--and, of course, by all means, a garden.

At any rate, we find in the old General's memorandum of his Mount Vernon trip the following reference: "A neat little flower garden, laid out and trimmed with the utmost exactness, ornamented with green and hot houses in which flourish the most beautiful of the tropical plants, affords a happy relief to the solemn impressions produced by a view of the antique structure it adjoins, and leads you insensibly into the most delightful reverie, in which you review in imagination the manner in which the greatest and the best of men, after the most busy and eventful life, retired into privacy and amused the evening of his days." And so, when the Hermitage mansion house was built in 1819, we find close by its side "a neat little flower garden, laid out and trimmed with the utmost exactness;" and, although it is difficult to picture the tempestuous old warrior puttering about a flower garden, his correspondence reveals that thoughts of it occupied a part of his attention throughout his lifetime, and contemporaries have recalled that he had more than the average man's interest in the flowers, particularly admiring the roses and the pinks.

That the garden was no mere afterthought or casual incidental to the building of the house is shown by the fact that in 1819 he engaged, evidently for the task of laying it out and planting it, an English professional gardener named William Frost, reputed at that time to be one of the best gardeners in the metropolis of Philadelphia. The best was none too good for Rachel in those days.

During his long absence from home during his two terms as President, Jackson's correspondence is liberally sprinkled with references to his garden. In all the great difficulty he experienced in obtaining the services of competent or satisfactory overseers, one of his criticisms of them was that they were derelict in their care of the garden--Rachel's garden. And in May, 1835, when his son wrote him relative to the good conduct of the new overseer most recently engaged he replied: "How I am delighted to hear that the garden has regained its former appearance that it always possessed whilst your dear mother was living, and that just attention is now paid to her monument. This is truly pleasing to me, and precisely as it ought to be."

In May, 1832, in a letter to his son's young wife General Jackson wrote: "I sincerely regret the ravages made by the frost in the garden, and particularly that the willow by the gate is destroyed. This I wish you to replace. The willows around the tomb I hope are living, and a branch from one of these might replace the dead one at the garden gate. It will grow if well watered and planted on receipt of this." But it didn't grow--or else the youthful Sarah neglected to plant it; and it was not until 1925 that a member of the Ladies' Hermitage Association ran across this letter of the General's and decided that, better late than never, his wishes should be carried out. The willows at the tomb--the willows General Jackson had himself planted nearly a century before--are now dead and gone, probably crowded and shaded to death by the stately old magnolias that now guard the plot of graves. But a scion was taken from another willow on the place and today the young willow may be seen there at the garden gate, belatedly replacing the one destroyed by the late frost in the spring of 1832.

The garden plot occupies an acre of ground, surrounded by a high picket fence built of enduring Tennessee red cedar. The fence is of the old substantial type, constructed of pointed pickets mortised with precision into the horizontal sustaining members, and entrance is gained through an old-fashioned wooden gate, reached by a short brick walk from the door on the eastern side of the house.

Inside the garden, eight feet from the fence, the plot is encircled by a gravel walk about six feet wide, and similar bisecting walks cut the garden into four plots. In the center the walks converge on a geometrically designed system of concentric circular beds in which annuals bloom from year to year. Roses climb on the fence, and shrubbery is planted along the sides of the walks, the central portion of each of the four plots now being kept in grass. In the middle of the north side is the original brick tool house, the path to which is shaded by an old rustic rose arbor; and peeping out between the box bushes and crape myrtles may be seen an occasional moss rose or other old-fashioned plant.

We do not find here the hothouses with their tropical plants which the General and Rachel so much admired at Mount Vernon; but evidently an effort was made to introduce unusual shrubbery into the garden, for in addition to the customary plants found in a Southern garden of the period there are to be seen some of the more rare and exotic shrubs--fig trees brought from the far South, a pink magnolia from Japan, etc.

The planning and arrangement of the planting is such that it provides attractions the whole year round. There are flowers throughout the blooming season from early spring to late fall; then there are the brightly colored leaves of the bushes and trees; and during the winter there is the glossy green foliage of magnolias and the faintly scented box bushes beside the garden paths, the barrenness of the flower beds at that season being relieved by the sweet-scented winter honeysuckle which defies the seasons and blooms in December and January as though it were mid-summer. The Hermitage garden is never without its attractive features.

In early spring there is first the brilliant bloom of the English hawthorn, then the narcissi and tulips and hyacinths making the air heavy with their fragrance, also the jonquils and old-fashioned blue-bottles and purple shades. Crocuses and butter-and-eggs and, later, iris and peonies all combine to make the garden a springtime riot of bloom. So spectacularly do the peonies bloom that they always attract large crowds of visitors while they are in full flower, more than a thousand visitors having gone to the Hermitage garden in one day to witness the rare floral spectacle.

Interspersed with all the conventional plants and shrubs are some of the native wild flowers that bloom in the fields and along the river banks near by; for when the Hermitage garden was first planted the florist's art had not reached its present peak of perfection, and although the thoughtful General sent home flower seeds from Philadelphia and Washington, Rachel took pleasure in augmenting the garden's finery by selections from the surrounding country. Visitors may still see in the beds there the nodding Jacob's ladder, the columbine and other such homely blossoms. The wild yucca, with its semi-tropical appearance, was brought in from some of the near-by cedar glades, along with prickly pear cacti and rock roses; and a graceful fringe tree was planted near the entrance gate.

In the beds in the center of the garden there have always grown tulips in the springtime and then some kind of annuals to sustain the succession of blooms through the summer. Early in June the great collection of ascension lilies begin to bloom, filling the garden with their perfume; and throughout the summer there are the roses, both in bush and climbing form, mostly of the old-fashioned varieties--moss roses, the yellow briar, maiden's blush, Louis Phillippe, macrophylla, pink musk, etc.

The shrubbery also contributes its share of blossoms, from the golden bells, bridal wreath, snowballs and calacanthus of the spring through the altheas or Rose of Sharon of the summer, to the pink and red crape myrtles of the late summer which cap off their showy mass of blooms with a brilliantly colored array of scarlet leaves in the fall months.

The Hermitage garden offers some form of attraction at any season of the year.

During the early days of the Ladies' Hermitage Association the wealth of bloom in the garden was turned to good account, especially in the spring. Then cuttings of jonquils and peonies, literally by the wagonload, were sent into Nashville and sold on the street; and there were also sales of seeds and cuttings and surplus bulbs, so that visitors might take away with them living mementoes of the Hermitage garden. From this source the association was able to derive a considerable and much-needed revenue at a time when funds were scarce and every dollar of income was welcome.

During his lifetime Uncle Alfred, who acted as a guide to visitors, always took especial interest in the garden and beamed with proprietary pride when visitors gave expression to their appreciation of its beauties. "Please do not pluck the flowers" says a conspicuous sign by the side of the gate; but if a visitor really seemed interested in the garden's attractions the old retainer would slyly say: "Now if you like dat rosebud, I won't see you if you gets it."

Some idea of what the Hermitage garden looked like in the old days may be gathered from a description of it which was given in an interview printed in one of the Nashville papers several years ago with an old lady who had visited there with her father when she was a girl. Looking back down the vista of the years, she said:

The flower beds about the middle of the garden were there when the
General lived there. He had an old negro, Alfred, to attend to the
garden. They had a regular vegetable garden combined with the flower
garden. The vegetable garden was not with the flower part of the
garden, but you could see the vegetable garden when you stood in the
flower garden or where the flowers were. They had cabbages, potatoes,
beets, beans and squash and other vegetables in the vegetable part of
the garden. They had sage and thyme around on the edge of the flower
beds. They had in the flower beds hollyhocks, beds of pinks of all
colors, rose bushes, tea roses, macrophylla and cinnamon roses, moss
roses, white lilacs, tiger lilies, heliotrope (white and purple). Some
of the beds were edged with sweet violets. There were poppies in some
of the beds, and hyacinths and tulips. The Washington bower was on the
side--on the fence and climbing up the trees in the garden--they were
trees with long white flowers, locust trees I think. The garden was
larger then than it is now--it was larger east and west than now and
was fenced with a plank fence. There was a weeping willow there but I
can't locate it now. There was a large rope swing near the house and
near to the entrance to the garden. It was tied to the limb of a
hickory tree.

Continuing with her description of the garden this old lady spoke of two magnolia trees "about the middle of the garden near the tomb--good big trees" and in speaking further of the weeping willows stated that they were "just over the fence, near and opposite the tomb." She also named more of the flowers that grew in the old garden: Several big bushes of crape myrtle; verbenas, all colors; sunflowers; all-colored flags--red, white and purple; snowballs; red, pink and white peonies; old-fashioned honeysuckle--coral, white and yellow, lilacs, white and purple. The "Washington bower" she describes as having a purple flower, so it was probably the large-flowering variety of clematis which was also known as the virgin bower. She also mentioned, in enumerating the shrubbery, "japonica bushes" which, she said, "has red blossoms and comes early and late;" and this, we may presume, was the flowering shrub known now as the English hawthorn and also called the fire-bush.

The garden as it stands today is just about as it was in the days when it bloomed and blossomed under Rachel's tender care, except that the flowering shrubs and bushes have now attained the size and beauty gained only with the passing of the years. But it was not in any such condition as this that the Ladies' Hermitage Association found it when they took charge. During the wartime occupation of the premises by the guard of Federal troops the garden was almost obliterated. Being fenced in and convenient to the house, it appealed to the cavalrymen as an ideal corral for their horses, and it was so used during the three years the Federal troops remained on the grounds. It is easy to imagine the damage done--and it is also easy to imagine Old Hickory's devastating wrath if he had known that his government's troops were so heedlessly desecrating Rachel's flower garden.

After the war but little was done to repair the damage done by the soldiers' horses. The fence was restored, and this kept out wandering stock and permitted the hardy shrubs to grow again; but the paths were overgrown with weeds, washed by the recurring rains, and in 1889 little trace of the old walkways remained except for the marginal brick borders. (These bricks, by the way, were especially designed and made for the purpose, being longer and thicker than ordinary bricks and also beveled at the top. They were manufactured on the place when the bricks were burned for the building of the big house, the depression in the ground where the clay was dug out for all the bricks being still visible in the extreme northwestern corner of the big wooded lot directly across the road from the front entrance to the Hermitage.)

In spite of the discouraging aspect of affairs in the garden when the ladies took over the property, however, the work of restoring it to its original beauty was valiantly attacked, and one of their very first activities was to engage a man to clear away the weeds and blackberry bushes and the volunteer elms and hickories, rebuild the paths and restore the garden to some semblance of its former appearance. The work of restoration has been carefully done, with a full appreciation of the importance of retaining the spirit and form of the original design and planting. A competent garden authority was retained to plan the work in later years, and there has been no effort to modernize or improve the garden--only a faithful determination to repair the ravages of time and present it to the visitor today just as it was when the General and Rachel were alive and wandered up and down its broad paths in admiration of its beauty.

The focal point of interest in the garden, of course, is the tomb in the southeast corner. When his beloved Rachel died in December, 1828, just on the eve of their departure for his first Presidential inauguration, the old General laid her away in the corner of the garden and, heavy-hearted, started off for Washington alone.

During the subsequent eight years, as the bitterly fought battles of partisan politics raged and surged about him in the nation's capital, his heart remained buried in the garden at the Hermitage. In May, 1829, he wrote to the Rev. Hardy M. Cryer (that bizarre combination of devout Methodist preacher and horseman) saying: "In the day I am laboriously employed, and it is only when late in the night I retire to my chamber that I have time to think of or write to my friends. It is then that I feel the great weight of the late affliction of Providence in the bereavement I have been visited with in the loss of my dear wife; I find myself a solitary man, deprived of all hope of happiness this side the grave, and often with myself at the Hermitage, there to spend the remnant of my days and daily drop a tear on the tomb of my beloved wife and be prepared, when Providence wills it, to unite with her in the realm above."

Due to the need for his immediate departure for Washington after the death of his wife, it was necessary that she be buried in a plain grave over which a temporary shelter was built. But it was never the General's idea that her resting-place should go without a more elaborate monument; and even before he left the Hermitage in January, 1829, he began negotiations looking to the design and construction of what he described as a "monumental tomb." A contract for the building of the tomb was given a Nashville contractor, D. Morrison; and Mr. Morrison designed a simple but impressive structure of classic Greek lines. It is built of stone, its dome-like top being supported by fluted stone columns and covered with copper. The structure is surrounded by a simple iron fence.

The inscription on Mrs. Jackson's tomb is popularly supposed to have been written by the General himself. Mrs. Rachel Jackson Lawrence stated that it was written by Major Henry Lee, the talented though scapegrace Virginian who was Jackson's secretary and a resident of the Hermitage at the time of Mrs. Jackson's death. It has even been attributed to Major John M. Eaton. Whoever wrote it, it is a beautiful and moving tribute to the pioneer woman who occupied the central place in Andrew Jackson's heart throughout his life:

_Here lie the remains of Mrs. Rachel Jackson, wife of President
Jackson, who died the 22nd of December, 1828, aged sixty-one years.
Her face was fair, her person pleasing, her temper amiable, her heart
kind. She delighted in relieving the wants of her fellow creatures and
cultivated that divine pleasure by the most liberal and unpretending
methods. To the poor she was a benefactor; to the rich an example; to
the wretched a comforter; to the prosperous an ornament. Her piety
went hand in hand with her benevolence, and she thanked her Creator
for being permitted to do good. A being so gentle and so virtuous
slander might wound but could not dishonor; even death, when he bore
her from the arms of her husband, could but transport her to the bosom
of her God._

In strong contrast to this eloquent eulogy is the Spartan simplicity of the old General's own epitaph, certainly written by himself:

GENERAL ANDREW JACKSON
Born March 15, 1767
Died June 8, 1845

There would have been no such simplicity as this about Old Hickory's final resting place, however, if some of his admirers had had their way. Early in 1845, only a few months before Jackson died, Commodore J. D. Elliott of the United States Navy, commander of the old _Constitution_, brought home from Palestine the marble sarcophagus in which had rested the remains of the Roman emperor, Alexander Severus. Commodore Elliott wrote to General Jackson, advising him that he had brought home this handsome relic and deposited it with the National Institute with the suggestion that it be tendered Jackson for his own tomb. "I pray you, General," wrote Elliott, "to live on in the fear of the Lord; dying the death of a Roman soldier, an emperor's coffin awaits you."

But General Jackson, as might have been expected, while courteously expressing his appreciation of the spirit of veneration that prompted the proffer, firmly declared that: "I can not consent that my mortal remains shall be laid in a repository prepared for an emperor or king."

"My republican feelings and principles forbid it;" Jackson's letter continues, "the simplicity of our system of government forbids it. Every monument erected to perpetuate the memory of our heroes and statesmen ought to bear evidence of the economy and simplicity of our republican institutions and of the plainness of our republican citizens, who are the sovereigns of our glorious Union and whose virtue is to perpetuate it. True virtue can not exist where pomp and parade are the governing passions. It can only dwell with the people--the great laboring and producing classes--that form the bone and sinew of our confederacy.... I have prepared an humble depository for my mortal body beside that wherein lies my beloved wife where, without any pomp or parade, I have requested, when my God calls me to sleep with my fathers, to be laid; for both of us there to remain until the last trumpet sounds to call the dead to judgment when we, I hope, shall rise together clothed with that heavenly body promised to all who believe in our glorious Redeemer who died for us that we might live, and by whose atonement I hope for a blessed immortality."

When the new Hermitage was built in 1819 and the garden was laid out, one of General Jackson's first acts was to walk out into the garden with Rachel and select the spot where their remains would rest side by side when life had passed. At this time the General's health was precarious, racked as he was by eight years of almost continuous campaigning while in a debilitated physical condition, and he frankly expressed the belief that he would not live long. At that time it seemed highly improbable that he would outlive the blooming Rachel by nearly seventeen years.

This burying ground in the corner of the garden is not, legally speaking, now a part of the Hermitage property. To insure its permanent care, General Jackson on September 17, 1832, executed a formal indenture with John H. Eaton, John Coffee, and Andrew Jackson, junior, "and their heirs forever," whereby he "bargained, sold, conveyed and delivered" to them in trust "one-fourth part of an acre of ground, out of the Hermitage tract, to be laid off and run out so as to include the tomb or monument placed on the remains of his dear departed wife, Rachel Jackson, and designed as the deposit of the remains of the said Andrew Jackson when it pleases God to take him hence, and the family of Andrew Jackson, junior, and his heirs." It is provided that the trustees and their heirs shall preserve the sacred deposit made upon said ground and let the tomb or monument remain undisturbed and "hold the ground subject to the use and purpose mentioned, forever." This conveyance is duly registered in the courthouse at Nashville, and was taken into consideration when the Hermitage property was transferred to the state in 1857.

Here in this quiet corner, sheltered by the heavy green foliage of the old magnolias that guard the tomb of the General and Rachel, are the graves of the adopted son and his family connections. Here lie Andrew Jackson, junior (the adopted son), and his wife, Sarah York Jackson; Colonel Andrew Jackson (the adopted son's son), his wife Amy A. Jackson and his younger brother Captain Samuel Jackson, who was killed at Chickamauga; also the two other sons of Andrew Jackson, junior, who died in infancy; Rachel Jackson Lawrence, daughter of Andrew Jackson, junior, her husband, Dr. J. M. Lawrence and their son and daughter, John Marshall Lawrence and Sazie Lawrence Winn; Mrs. Marion Adams, sister of Sarah York Jackson; and R. E. W. Earle, the artist.

On the other side of the General's monumental tomb, just across the graveled walk, is a single mound with a plain, low marble headstone on which is carved: "Uncle Alfred. Died September 4,1901, aged 98 years. Faithful servant of Andrew Jackson." It was Uncle Alfred's fondest wish in his old days that his mortal remains might be laid to rest as closely as possible by the side of his old master, the General; and the promise that he would be so buried lent solace to his declining years. So long as "the Gin'ral" lived, Alfred kept as closely by his side as possible; and close by his side he remains as master and servant sleep their long sleep in the dark magnolias' shade.

When General Jackson in his letters spoke of returning to the Hermitage to cast a tear on the tomb of his departed wife it was no mere figure of speech. After his retirement from public life in 1837 he went back to the home place and spent the rest of his days on the farm in pleasant association with the family of his adopted son. Here a part of his daily routine consisted in a long walk in the afternoon which invariably wound up at the side of Rachel's tomb, where he was wont to sit in contemplative reflection. His little granddaughter, Rachel, was his customary companion on these walks; but she soon learned that when his steps turned toward the tomb he wished to be alone, and when they reached the garden gate she always withdrew her hand from his and ran away about her childish diversions, leaving him to his thoughts. Even after he became bedridden in the last year of his life, on pleasant days he required that his chair be carried to the garden and placed by the side of the tomb; and there he sat through the hours, dreaming of the stormy and pleasant days of the past.

Just to the east of the tomb the visitor to the garden today sees a group of hickory trees closely together in a straight row; and concerning these trees there is an interesting little story. On December 18, 1830, President Jackson received from an admirer in Ulster, New York, Colonel Charles E. Dudley, a parcel of hickory nuts ("nutts" in Jackson's free-and-easy orthography) from a tree in Ulster said to be the only one of its kind known in New York. Colonel Dudley doubtless felt that he was the author of a delicate compliment in sending these unique hickory nuts to Old Hickory himself; and the President in his formal note of thanks, seemed duly appreciative of the honor intended. "To perpetuate this memento of the kind regard of Mr. and Mrs. Dudley," he wrote in the formal official third person of the period, "he has sent one dozen of these nutts to be planted in his garden at the Hermitage, to encircle the tomb of his departed wife, and to have the following inscription engraved on the marble. 'The Dudley hickory of Ulster, New York, presented by Mr. and Mrs. Dudley to the President.'"

Further reference to the nuts is seen in a letter written by President Jackson in the spring of 1831 to his adopted son, who was about to return to Tennessee: "I sent to Mr. Daniel Donelson some hickory nutts with a request that he would hand them to the overseer with a letter directing Steele to plant them around your mother's tomb." That they were duly planted is attested by the attention-attracting row of tall, straight trees seen there today; but there is no sign of the inscription mentioned in General Jackson's letter to Colonel Dudley. No one now living remembers whether the trees were planted in strict accordance with the General's expressed wish that they encircle the tomb, although one of Jackson's biographers does mention that "some fine hickory trees that grew in the garden" were at one time removed in a mistaken effort to improve the appearance of the place.

Despite the careful and painstaking preparations made by General Jackson to insure that the last resting place of his mortal remains would be by the side of his beloved wife in the tomb in the Hermitage garden, it was only by the interposition of the governor of the state that there was frustrated an effort to nullify this last wish of the old General.

When the state purchased the property in 1856 and then began to make plans to tender it to the Federal government as a suitable site for a military academy in the South, somebody had the bright idea of digging up the bodies of the General and Mrs. Jackson and removing them from the Hermitage to Capitol Hill in Nashville. Accordingly a bill was introduced in the General Assembly in 1860 providing for such removal, and it was promptly passed by the Senate. Before the lower house could act on it, however, Andrew Jackson, junior, heard of the plan and immediately raised a loud and well-justified protest. Directly to Governor Harris he went to remonstrate against the enactment of the bill, pointing out that upon his death-bed General Jackson had expressed the hope that the remains of himself and his wife should under no circumstances be removed from the Hermitage. Governor Harris thereupon sent a special message to the Senate and House of Representatives "respectfully recommending" that the bill be rejected and that Old Hickory's wishes be respected. In those days a respectful recommendation from Governor Harris was just about equivalent to an edict, and nothing more was heard about disturbing the Jackson remains.

But, although this plan for the official removal of the remains was defeated, there was another mysterious and criminal attempt on General Jackson's body several years later. It was late in the summer of 1894 that a visitor appeared at the Hermitage one morning and, as was the customary procedure with visitors, was courteously conducted through the house and about the grounds. It was noted at the time that he displayed an unusual interest in the Jackson family and home life and talked with Uncle Alfred at great length about his old master. He showed particular interest in the tomb; although, at the time, no sinister intent was attached to his interest. After spending the morning on the place he went to a near-by country store for a bite to eat during the middle of the day and then returned and loitered about the premises throughout the afternoon until nearly dark. At length, to the relief of the custodian who was growing vaguely apprehensive, the stranger departed; and it was thought he had gone for good.

It is easy to imagine the custodian's horrified astonishment, on visiting the garden next morning, to find a large and gaping hole in the ground on the west side of the tomb near the head of General Jackson's grave. The hole was deep enough to expose the stone foundations of the tomb; but fortunately the burial vaults were enclosed in a solid wall of masonry, and the grave-robber's felonious intentions were defeated. It developed, upon inquiry, that the mysterious stranger had borrowed a spade from the near-by Donelson home at Tulip Grove the preceding afternoon and that it had been carefully returned and left at the door of the house in the early morning hours. The ghoul had evidently, from the extent of his operations, worked all night in opening the big excavation; and he was doubtless exasperated to discover that the careful and substantial work of the builder of the tomb in 1831 had made the General's last home impregnable to such assaults.

The Ladies' Hermitage Association made every effort to ferret out the mystery; but, with the limited means at their disposal, they were able to learn nothing at the time. But several months later a man died in a hospital in New York who confessed that he was a professional body-snatcher (a practice not uncommon at that time) and that among other exploits of his infamous career he had made the ineffectual attempt on the Jackson tomb. Just what he intended to do with the body if his efforts had been successful was not revealed; and today it is hard to imagine how the body of an ex-President would command any premium even in the grave-robbers' underworld; but the fact remains that the attempt was made, and it was only because of the staunch construction of the tomb that the body of the General remained undisturbed.

The Grounds

The most attractive feature of the Hermitage grounds, aside from the mansion house itself and the garden, is the guitar-shaped driveway leading up to the front door from the entrance gate. All along both sides of the drive the General planted cedar seedlings, brought in from the near-by glades, and most of these original cedars, now grown into stately trees, still remain. The few that have succumbed to the stress of the years and the storms have been replaced with younger brothers, thus preserving the General's original plan. The wood of the old trees uprooted by storms has been carefully preserved and is used for the manufacture of souvenirs and novelties which are sold to visitors.

Until very recently the front drive was still used as the visitors' approach to the house; but it was feared that the continued every-day use of the drive might shorten the life of the old cedar trees, and so entrance and exit are now afforded by a modernly built driveway on the western edge of the front lawn. This drive is lined with young hardwood trees of historical significance, they having been transplanted from the historic battlefields of New Orleans and Alabama where Jackson made himself a world figure. There are thrifty young oaks here from Chalmette Plain, and from The Horseshoe, Fort Jackson, and Talladega--names indelibly associated in history with General Jackson's ever-victorious combats with the British and with the Creek Indians. This step in the beautification of the grounds was made possible through the liberality of Mrs. B. F. Wilson of Nashville, when she was regent of the association.

Just to the rear of the dining-room wing of the house is the semi-detached brick kitchen, with its big open fireplace, where all the family's meals were prepared during the years of the old house's occupancy. The kitchen separate from the house served to eliminate the noise and heat and odors of cooking, so far as the family and guests were concerned. It multiplied the task of serving the meals, but of what importance was that when labor was so plentiful? In the kitchen may be seen the cooking appliances used in the early days when there were fowls and huge roasts on the spits in front of the fire, potatoes boiling in the big pot on the crane, and doubtless hoecakes on the griddle and hot biscuits in the oven. Aunt Betty was the cook during the early days and up until the time she died in 1852; and in those days the cook ruled the kitchen with an iron hand. There were swarms of little black girls to keep the fire going and turn the spits and sweep the ashes and bring water from the springhouse and carry dishes to the dining room--and Aunt Betty was their boss. Housewives of today, accustomed to the culinary conveniences afforded by electric ranges and other modern trappings, wonder how Aunt Betty, cooking on an open fireplace, could prepare the food for a big family and a house generally full of guests. But those were the days of simple fare, simply prepared; and Aunt Betty was a master of that art.

Behind the kitchen is the big brick smokehouse--empty now, but a century ago filled with the great supply of hams and bacon needed for the feeding of a large household and a hundred slaves--not to mention the numerous guests. A normal supply of meat when hogs were killed and the hams and sides salted down and smoked was from 20,000 to 25,000 pounds. Today only its dark, smoke-stained rafters remain to tell of all the succulent country hams that once hung there, but there still clings about it an elusive and entrancing aroma reminiscent of the days when it was stocked with the plantation's supply of meat. At hog-killing time--the first freezing weather in the early winter--a big fireplace in the cellar of the big house was used to heat water to scald the hogs and also for rendering the lard in the big black iron kettles.

The carriage house, to the rear of the smokehouse, is not the original building used for this purpose. It was put there during comparatively recent years for the purpose of conveniently displaying the old Jackson family carriage. This old family carriage looks rusty and faded now, but a century ago it was the vehicular equivalent of the finest eight-cylindered limousine available today. Nothing but the best was good enough for General Jackson, whether he was buying a broadcloth suit or a horse or a carriage. Even before he was President he had an eye for style and a modest display of pomp. Old residents of Nashville used to tell of how the General would drive into town "in a carriage drawn by four handsome iron-gray horses, attended by servants in blue livery with brass buttons, glazed hats and silver bands." These carriage horses were the apple of the old man's eye, and whenever he referred to "my grays" it was with a note of real pride.

In the carriage house is also to be seen the framework, all that now remains of the handsome phaeton presented to General Jackson by the admiring citizens of New York. Unfortunately this vehicle was burned while Colonel Andrew Jackson, III, was living in Cincinnati, before he had sold all the family relics to the association. The wooden parts of this phaeton were made from timbers taken from the historic old ship _Constitution_, and it was very highly cherished by the General. It was in this phaeton that he and Martin Van Buren rode to the Capitol together for the inauguration March 4, 1837; and when he left Washington for Nashville he took the most elaborate pains to see that it was properly crated and shipped to him at home. It was carried across the river to Alexandria and thence by boat to Philadelphia. There it was shipped on a coastwise vessel to New Orleans, and thence by river boats to the Hermitage.

A good description of this historic vehicle is embraced in the account of the Van Buren inauguration written for the _New York Mirror_ by Nathaniel P. Willis. Mr. Willis, who speaks of it as "the elegant phaeton made of the wood of the old frigate _Constitution_," describes it in these words: "it has a seat for two, with a driver's box, covered with a superb hammercloth, and set up rather high in front; the wheels and body are low, and there are bars for baggage behind; altogether, for lightness and elegance, it would be a creditable turn-out for Long Acre. The material is excessively beautiful--a fine-grained oak, polished to a very high degree, with its colours delicately brought out by a coat of varnish. The wheels are very slender and light, but strong; and, with all its finish, it looks a vehicle capable of a great deal of service. A portrait of the _Constitution_, under full sail, is painted on the pannels." In this article Mr. Willis refers to another vehicle presented to the retiring President by "an eccentrick mechanick"--a sulky made entirely of rough-cut hickory with the bark on, with some curiously twisted and gnarled branches ingeniously turned into handles and whip-box. It must have been a vehicular monstrosity. At any rate, Old Hickory avoided bringing such an outlandish rig back to the Hermitage by generously presenting it to his successor, Mr. Van Buren.

Behind the present carriage house is the brick house in which the caretaker lives, this also being of modern construction. The stable standing back of the caretaker's house was built a few years ago when the log and frame stable burned. This building had replaced the original old brick stable which was built in 1832 and which stood much nearer to the house, about where the carriage house is now located. The old driveway leading back to the stable may still be seen in the lawn to the west of the mansion house. The brick house where souvenirs are now sold is a replica of the original carriage house, being built on its old foundations.

Just to the right of the back door of the house is a deep, rock-lined well, with an old-fashioned cedar windlass and oak bucket. In the early days, however, the water supply was obtained from a never-failing spring which is reached by the long brick walk now leading from the Hermitage's back door. This gushing spring helped fix the location of the original log Hermitage near by, as a convenient water supply was a primary essential in the pioneer days. One of Jackson's first acts, after building the log house to live in when he moved from Hunter's Hill, was to enclose the spring in a stone springhouse which Mrs. Jackson could use for keeping her milk and butter cold. Mrs. Jackson, who took a lively interest in the farm affairs, was especially proud of this spring which was and is an exceptionally good one.

The brick walk down to the springhouse is now shaded by a grove of trees; but originally this was the "colt lot," the trees having been planted after the house was reclaimed. On the way down to the spring there may be seen close on the other side of the fence to the left the sole remaining relic of Hunter's Hill--a log cabin which stood there after the old house was burned, and which was in recent years taken down and removed to this location on the Hermitage property where it might be preserved.

There are no slave quarters to be seen at the Hermitage, for in Jackson's day the slaves who worked in the fields were scattered in their cabins about the plantation and did not all live in one long row of houses as was the prevailing custom in the South generally. There remains, however, a two-roomed log cabin just to the north of the garden which was the home of Uncle Alfred to the day of his death.

Uncle Alfred was born on the Hermitage plantation just about the time Jackson moved there from Hunter's Hill and lived there all of his days. Living a long lifetime of almost a complete century, the span of his existence covered the years of Andrew Jackson's whole life after his rise to distinction. He saw the building of the Hermitage, he saw it burned and rebuilt, he witnessed its decline and its rescue and its development into a magnet for visitors from all over the country. As a shiny-eyed boy of twelve he stood with the other slaves, young and old, at the big gate that never-to-be-forgotten day in 1815 when the General returned triumphant from his great victory at New Orleans; and thirty years later it was his strong arms that helped support the emaciated body of the old statesman as he sat up in his bed and gasped out his dying breath.

Born and living sixty years a slave, he was too old to change his ways when the state of Tennessee enacted the emancipation amendment to its Constitution in January, 1865. Freedom meant nothing to him then; he just went on living with the Jacksons until he could get his bearings--and then, in a few weeks, his master died and he stayed on with his old mistress because he felt that she needed him. When the state turned the property over to the Ladies' Hermitage Association and the next generation of Jacksons moved out, he still went on living there in his same old cabin. Nobody ever seemed to consider the possibility of his moving away. Through the years he seemed to have become an integral part of the property, just as much a fixture as the stout log cabin in which he lived.

Alfred's mother was Betty the cook; and in his youth his duties were those of a hostler and attendant at the stables. In the caste system of slavery he was undeniably of a higher stratum than the field hands; but the house servants, the real elite, always referred to him contemptuously as being from "across the yard"--their aloof designation of the stable area. At times Alfred rode the General's horses in some of their important races, drove teams on the farm when needed for that duty, and occasionally served as driver of the family carriage. In all these duties he was noted for the way he had with horses and for his careful manner of handling them. When little Andrew, the adopted son, grew too old to be tied to the apron strings of his black mammy-nurse, Aunt Hannah, he was turned over to the tender care of Alfred--six years his senior--who served him faithfully in the complex rôle of nurse, companion, bodyguard, mentor, valet, and chum--that indescribable relationship known now only as a memory lingering in the recollections of those old men whose youthful days were spent in the loving care and companionship of slaves who were not merely servants but guardians and tutors--and friends.

When Andrew reached young manhood and was old enough to travel about the country, Alfred sometimes was called upon to go with him as his body servant; and the members of the family for years enjoyed telling of how Alfred saw to it that the young master had the best of the available accommodations whenever they went together.

On the occasion of Alfred's first service in the unfamiliar rôle of valet, young Andrew was setting out on a steamboat trip to New Orleans. His body servant was taken sick just on the eve of their departure, so Alfred was called in from the fields to take his place--not, however, without some misgiving on the master's part. Alfred was given some superficial coaching in his new duties and off they started. The next morning young Jackson was aroused from his slumbers by the noise of a disturbance on deck, and emerged from his stateroom to find Alfred in bellicose possession of the washbasin, soap, and towels, defying the early-rising passengers who desired to make use of the steamboat's primitive toilet facilities. "Can't nobody wash hisself till Massa Andrew's used these things," he was declaring stoutly. "Reckon I knows my business better'n dat."

When Andrew, junior, married in 1831 and brought his bride to the White House, President Jackson presented to his new daughter-in-law a young slave woman named Gracey to act as her personal maid. When the young couple came on to the Hermitage in the spring of 1832 Gracey came with them, and the young maid from Virginia soon attracted Alfred's favorable attention. The master and mistress looked with favor on the match, and so they were married in the fall of 1837. Mrs. Jackson made a gala affair of the wedding, having the ceremony performed in the large central hall of the Hermitage and giving the couple a handsome wedding supper.

The story of the fidelity of Alfred and Gracey to their white folk is the familiar idyl of the Old South--the faithful slaves' devotion to their former masters in the time of the latter's adversities. Gracey and Alfred had been with the Jacksons when they were in the White House, the first family of the land, they had enjoyed the flush days of the old General's successes and popularity. And when the evil days came--when Alfred's young master, now no longer young, cast off the burden of life and was laid to rest in the corner of the garden, and Gracey's mistress faced life lonely and impoverished, with no farm left to work and no slaves left to work it--then Alfred and Gracey did not go off to set up homes of their own, in their new-found freedom, as did all of the other Hermitage black folks, but stayed there in their cabin to serve the mistress they loved as long as she lived.

Gracey died in 1887, shortly before the death of Mrs. Sarah York Jackson; but Alfred lived until 1901, and played no small part in making the Hermitage a place of interest to visitors. As long as he was physically able he served as a guide, and those who came from afar to visit the Jackson shrine deemed it a rare privilege--as indeed it was--to be shown through the house and garden by one who had been there when the spark of his old master's vibrant personality made the Hermitage a place alive with his presence.

Alfred was fully conscious of the fact that he was a living connecting link between the departed great man and his living admirers, and he never tired of telling visitors stories illustrative of the greatness of the old General. To Uncle Alfred there was no flaw or blemish in his old master's character or fame. His idolatrous veneration was well illustrated by his often quoted reply to a visitor who asked him if he thought General Jackson went to Heaven. "Co'se he went to Heaven," Uncle Alfred answered with vigor, "if he want to. If he want to go dere, who gwine stop him?"

After he grew too feeble to act as a guide he kept to his cabin, and though the ills of his accumulating years bore heavily on him he always enjoyed chatting with visitors who stopped to talk with him as he sat on his doorstep in the summer or by the blazing logs in his big fireplace in the winter. Although never bedridden, his strength slowly faded away and at last he died quietly on September 4, 1901.

Not only was he given the boon of being buried in the garden, near the tomb of his deeply venerated old master, but the added honor was given him of having his funeral held in the hall of the Hermitage, his casket resting on the same spot where he and Gracey had stood to be married more than sixty years before. His funeral was attended by large numbers of his friends, both black and white, and ministers of both races participated in the burial services. Both Alfred and Gracey had originally been members of the little Hermitage church, but after Gracey's death, Alfred transferred his membership to a near-by church of his own people.

In typically weird cadences Uncle Alfred's black-skinned friends raised their quavering voices to sing his old favorite:

On Jordan's stormy banks I stand and cast a wistful eye;
On Canaan's bright and happy shore where my possessions lie.

And so he was borne through the broad front door of the Hermitage and laid to rest in his long home in the garden. "Faithful servant of Andrew Jackson" it says on his modest tombstone; and all those who read the Scripture know of the reward in Heaven promised to the good and faithful servant.