The Hermitage, Tennessee

Andrew Jackson, the 7^th President of the USA, lived for much of his life in a Greek Revival mansion he called the Hermitage, outside Nashville. It is now an established tourist attraction complete with his museum, and tomb. He purchased the acreage for the Hermitage in 1804, living initially in a log house which has been reconstructed at the site. When the Jacksons moved to the main house, completed in 1819, the two-story log structure was converted into two single-story log buildings, and used to house his slaves. During his two terms as president, from 1829-1837, he had the Hermitage expanded and improved, and returned to it in retirement, dying there in 1845. Two years later, an organization of prominent Nashville women were granted ownership of the plantation in order to preserve it, and open it to the public. This group, the Ladies Hermitage Association, was modeled after the Mount Vernon Ladies Association, who had successfully taken over George Washington’s home in 1858. The Ladies Hermitage Association still owns and operates the Hermitage plantation, and manages the local legacy of the nation’s first “log cabin” president.