Hermitage (Hermitage, Tenn.)

The Hermitage is a historical museum located in Davidson County, Tennessee, United States, 10 miles (16 km) east of downtown Nashville. The 1,000-acre (400 ha)+ site was owned by Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the United States, from 1804 until his death at the Hermitage in 1845. It also serves as his final resting place.[3] Jackson lived at the property intermittently until he retired from public life in 1837.

Enslaved men, women, and children, numbering nine at the plantation's purchase in 1804[4] and 110 at Jackson's death,[5] worked at the Hermitage and were principally involved in growing cotton, its major cash crop. It is a National Historic Landmark. 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. Together, the complex formed the First Hermitage, with the structures known as the West, East, and Southeast cabins.[6]

Jackson commissioned construction of a more refined house, and the original mansion was a two-story, Federal-style building built with bricks manufactured onsite by skilled people. 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.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.[6] Jackson started operations on his cotton farm with nine African slaves, but he continued to buy more laborers and owned 44 slaves by 1820. This scale of operation ranked him as a major planter and slaveholder in middle Tennessee, where most farmers owned zero or fewer than 10 slaves and 20 slaves marked a major planter. Some slave cabins for domestic servants and artisans were located near the main house. The majority, occupied by laborers, were located closer to the fields in an area known as the Field Quarter.[18] Throughout his life, Jackson expanded the site to an operation of 1,000 acres (400 ha), with 200 acres (81 ha) used for cotton, the commodity crop, and the remainder for food production and breeding and training racehorses. By 1840, more than 100 enslaved men, women, and children lived on the estate.[5] This made the estate among the largest in the region; only 24 Tennessee estates in the 1850 census included more than 100 slaves.[19] At the peak of operations, Jackson held 161 slaves in total: 110 at the Hermitage and 51 at Halcyon plantation in Coahoma County, Mississippi.[20][19]

Jackson's adopted son, Andrew Jackson, Jr., inherited the estate, and Jackson's will also gave his son all slaves, except two boys (given to his grandchildren) and four women (given to Andrew Jr.'s wife, Sarah).[21] Due to debt and bad investments, Jackson Jr. began selling off portions of the estate. In 1856, he sold the remaining 500 acres (200 ha), 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.[22]