The Hermitage (Nashville, Tennessee)


The Hermitage is a historical plantation and museum located in Davidson County, Tennessee, United States, east of downtown Nashville. The plantation was owned by Andrew Jackson, the seventh President of the United States, from 1804 until his death at the Hermitage in 1845. Jackson only lived at the property occasionally until he retired from public life in 1837. It is a National Historic Landmark.

Mansion and grounds

Architecture

The Hermitage is built in a secluded meadow that was chosen as a house site by Rachel Jackson, wife of Andrew Jackson. From 1804 to 1821, Jackson and his wife lived in a log cabin, with slaves occupying two additional log structures. Together, the complex formed the First Hermitage, with the structures known as the West, East, and Southeast cabins.
Jackson commissioned construction of a more refined house, and the original mansion was a two-story, Federal-style building built with bricks manufactured onsite using skilled slave labor. Construction took place between 1819 and 1821. The house had four rooms on the ground floor and four rooms on the second level, each with a fireplace and chimney. The large central hallways opened in warm weather from front to back to form a breezeway. A simple portico was added later. In 1831, while Jackson was residing in the White House, he had the mansion remodeled under the direction of architect David Morrison. The new structure included flanking one-story wings, a one-story entrance portico with 10 columns, and a small rear portico that gave the house a Classical appearance.
In 1834, a chimney fire seriously damaged the house, with the exception of the dining room wing. This led to Jackson having the current 13-room, Greek Revival structure built on the same foundation as the former house. It was completed two years later. The architects for the house were Joseph Reiff and William C. Hume, who also built Tulip Grove across the road.
The mansion has a rectangular layout, approximately from east to west and from north to south. The south front is the location of the main entrance and includes a central block with a five-bay, two-story structure with a portico supported by six modified Corinthian style, wooden columns with a simple entablature resting on the capitals. Within the portico is a second-story balcony with simple square balusters. One-story wings with single fenestrations flank the mansion and extend beyond it to the front of the portico, enclosing it on three sides. While the southern façade gives the appearance of a flat roof, the three other elevations show that the tin-covered roof is pitched. The front façade was painted a light tan, and a sand coating was added to the columns and trim to simulate the appearance of stone. A near replica of the front portico is found on the north end of the house, although it features Doric-style columns and is capped with a pediment.

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. At the far end of the hall is the elliptical cantilevered staircase with mahogany handrail that leads to the second level. To the left of the hall are the front and back parlors, featuring crystal chandeliers and Italian marble mantels. Leading from the front parlor is the dining room in the east wing.
Decorated with a high-gloss paint to reflect as much light as possible, the fireplace features a rustic mantelpiece called the "Eighth of January". It was carved by a veteran of the Battle of New Orleans, who worked on the mantelpiece on each anniversary of the battle until he finished on January 8, 1839. Jackson installed the piece on the next anniversary a year later on January 8, 1840. Adjacent to the dining room is a pantry and storage room that leads to an open passageway to the kitchen. This was built separate from the house to reduce the risk of fire to the main house as well as eliminate the noise, heat, and odors of cooking. To the right of the entrance hall, accessible via a side hall, are two bedrooms that were occupied by President Jackson and his son, Andrew Jackson, Jr. A spacious library and office used by Jackson and others to manage the plantation are located in the west wing.
On the second level are four bedrooms used by family members and guests, including Sam Houston, and Presidents James K. Polk and Martin Van Buren.

Grounds

The site today covers, which includes the original tract of Jackson's plantation. It is overseen and managed by The Andrew Jackson Foundation, formerly called the Ladies' Hermitage Association. The mansion is approached by a cedar-lined, wide, guitar-shaped carriage drive designed by Ralph E. W. Earl. The design made it easier to maneuver carriages in the narrow space. To the east of the house was a formal garden designed by Philadelphia-based gardener William Frost in 1819. Laid out in the English four-square kitchen garden style, it consists of four quadrants and a circular center bed contained by unusually long, beveled bricks and pebbled pathways. Originally, the garden was primarily used to produce food for the mansion and secondarily as an ornamental pleasure garden. It is surrounded by a white picket fence. On the north perimeter stands a brick privy that served as a status symbol as well as a garden feature.
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 date to the early 19th century. The large brick smokehouse at the rear of the kitchen was built in 1831 and cured of pork a year. Nearby is a cabin known as Uncle Alfred's Cabin. Alfred Jackson was born at the Hermitage around 1812. He worked there as a freedman after Emancipation and stayed on as caretaker 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.
Two other cabins were built from materials of the First Hermitage. After Jackson built the main house, the two-story log structure he had lived in for 15 years was disassembled, and the materials were used to build two one-story buildings used as quarters.
From 1988 to 2005, teams conducted extensive archaeological work at the plantation. 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 domestics and artisans was discovered near the mansion yard. Remains of three dug-in-ground pits suggest there were at least two log houses and four brick duplexes. The cotton gin and press were located in one of the cotton fields just beyond the First Hermitage.

History

The plantation that Jackson named Hermitage was located from the Cumberland and Stones Rivers after Native Americans had been pushed out of the region. 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

Jackson and his wife moved into the existing two-story log blockhouse, built to resist Indian attacks. He added a lean-to on the back of the cabin and to the rear erected a group of log outbuildings, including cabins, store rooms, and a smokehouse. This complex is known historically as the First Hermitage. This scale of operation ranked him as a major planterin middle Tennessee,
In 1818–19, prior to his appointment as provisional Governor of the Florida Territory, Jackson built a brick house to replace the log structure he had lived in after purchasing the plantation. He also added six brick structures, containing a total of 13 dwelling units for his slaves. These included a three-unit building known as the Triplex, built behind the mansion. A two-unit duplex known as the South Cabin was built at the First Hermitage. Four brick duplexes were built at the Field Quarter and were known as Cabins 1, 2, 3, and 4. At least one Field Cabin was still standing as late as the 1920s.
Elected President in 1828, Jackson enlarged the Hermitage during his first term. After an 1834 fire destroyed much of the interior of the house, he rebuilt and refurnished it. At the end of his second term in 1837, Jackson retired to the Hermitage, where he died in 1845. Andrew Jackson was buried in the garden next to his wife.
Throughout his life, Jackson expanded the plantation to an operation of, with used for cotton, the commodity crop, and the remainder for food production and breeding and training racehorses.
Jackson's adopted son, Andrew Jackson, Jr., inherited the estate. 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

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

Andrew 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 appearance in 1837. Over time, the organization bought back all the land that had been sold, taking ownership of the last parcel that restored the plantation boundaries in 2003.
The Hermitage escaped a near-disaster during the 1998 Nashville tornado outbreak. An F-3 tornado crossed the property at approximately 4:00 p.m. CDT on April 16, 1998, missing the house and grave site but toppling 1,000 trees on the estate, many that were reportedly planted by Jackson himself nearly 200 years earlier. The abundance of trees once hid the house from view of passers-by on U.S. Route 70, but the loss of so many trees in the tornado left the mansion in plain sight.
Using wood from the fallen trees, Gibson Guitar Corporation was authorized to produce 200 limited edition "Old Hickory" guitars. The first guitar produced was presented to the Smithsonian, although as of 2018, 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. The property was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1960.

Confederate Soldiers Home Cemetery

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.

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