Buried: The Hermitage, Hermitage, Tennessee
Seventh President - 1829-1837
Born: March 15, 1767, in Waxhaw, South Carolina
Died: 6:00 p.m. on June 8, 1845, at the Hermitage, Tennessee
Age at death: 78
Cause of death: Heart failure
Final words: “We shall all meet in heaven.”
Admission to the Hermitage: $17.00
Andrew Jackson’s reputation as a man of the people was cemented at his inauguration. After his swearing-in at the Capitol, many citizens returned with the new president to the White House. The celebration lasted throughout the night and went down in history as one of the most raucous parties ever held on the South Lawn.
Two women played prominent roles in Andrew Jackson’s presidency. The first was his beloved wife, Rachel. His election campaign of 1828 was marred by charges of adultery when it became known that Rachel’s divorce from her first husband was not yet final when she and Jackson married. The ensuing publicity devastated the couple. Rachel fell ill and died suddenly in December of 1828, just after the election. Andrew Jackson blamed his political enemies.
His bitterness resurfaced when Washington society snubbed the wife of his secretary of war, John Eaton, who had married Peggy Timberlake only two months after her first husband’s suicide. Gossip swirled. Jackson, reminded of his late wife’s anguish, stubbornly insisted that the other cabinet members and their wives treat Peggy Eaton with respect. Only Secretary of State Martin Van Buren complied. Angered over this point of honor, Jackson forced the resignation of his entire cabinet.
In March of 1837, at the end of his second, more stable term, Jackson returned alone to the Hermitage, his home near Nashville. Enormously popular, he spoke frequently on behalf of his successor, Martin Van Buren, and for a future president, James K. Polk.
Jackson was obsessed with Rachel’s memory. He hung her portrait across from his bed so that it would be the first and last thing he saw each day. Over the next eight years, Jackson’s health declined rapidly; tuberculosis and partial blindness rocked the strong man’s body and outlook. Jackson became bloated as dropsy spread throughout his body. On June 2, 1845, a doctor operated to drain fluid from his midsection. By June 8, he had fallen unconscious. Knowing the end was near, his son Andrew and daughter-in-law Sarah gathered at his bedside. Many of the family slaves congregated outside. In his final moments, Jackson told them not to cry and hoped that they all, black and white, would meet in heaven. He died later that afternoon, at the age of seventy-eight. His friend Sam Houston, the legendary former governor of Tennessee, arrived too late to see his hero’s last moments.
Andrew and Rachel Jackson are buried side-by-side under a cupola in the southeast corner of Rachel’s garden. His tombstone declares him as General Andrew Jackson, not mentioning his service as President. Other members of the Jackson family, and several Jackson family slaves, are buried nearby.
Grave of Uncle Alfred, a Jackson family slave
Touring Andrew Jackson’s Tomb at the Hermitage
The Hermitage is located twelve miles east of Nashville, Tennessee.
From Nashville: Take Interstate 40 East to exit 221A (Old Hickory Boulevard). The Hermitage is located just off Old Hickory Boulevard in Hermitage, Tennessee. Signs for the Hermitage are clearly marked from the Old Hickory Boulevard exit.
Andrew Jackson’s grave is visible from the main house. Look for the garden at the side of the home; Jackson’s grave is located in the garden’s right-hand corner, under a cupola.
The Hermitage is open from 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. April 1 through October 15 and 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. October 16 through March 31, except for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the third week in January. Admission is $17.00 for adults, $14.00 for senior citizens, $11.00 for students ages thirteen to eighteen, and $7.00 for children ages six to twelve. Children under six are admitted free.
For additional information
The Hermitage
4580 Rachel’s Lane
Hermitage, TN 37076
Phone: (615) 889-2941
Fax: (615) 889-9909
www.thehermitage.com
Andrew and Rachel Jackson lie under a stone cupola in the Hermitage garden
“Yet even as his tortured body disintegrated, his iron will remained intact.”
—Richard Norton Smith
That Andrew Jackson survived as long as he did is less a testimony to the vagaries of nineteenth-century medicine—the patient self-medicated himself over the years with vast dosages of lead and mercury—than to Jackson’s indomitable spirit.
Somehow the old man soldiered on, notwithstanding frequent abscesses caused by two bullets lodged in his body from a youthful duel; bleeding in the lungs; malarial fever; chronic dysentery; severe toothache; malnutrition and “dropsical habits” which caused his feet and ankles to swell, and for which he took regular warm salt baths.
“Salts are injurious to all dropsical habits,” Jackson told a fellow sufferer in 1813, “and calomel is the great cleanser of the blood.”
By the spring of 1845, Jackson was, in his own words, “a perfect Jelly from the toes to the upper part of my abdomen, in any part of which a finger can be pressed half-an-inch and the print will remain for minutes.” Due to massive edema, Jackson was literally drowning in his own fluids. Yet even as his tortured body disintegrated, his iron will remained intact. Artist G.P.A. Healy, having already completed two likenesses of the General, wished to beg off a commission to paint Jackson’s beloved granddaughter Sarah because he was late for a session with Henry Clay. On learning this, the dying man’s eyes blazed with indignation.
“Young man,” he snapped, “always do your duty.”
Healy did as he was told, leading Clay to observe, when they belatedly met, “I see that you, like all who approached that man, were fascinated.”
To the end, “that man” remained faithful to his political creed. When a returning naval officer offered the former president an elaborate sarcophagus originally made for the Roman Emperor Severus, Jackson’s refusal was instantaneous. “My republican feelings and principles forbid it,” he wrote; “the simplicity of our system of government forbids it.”
—RNS