Inside the Home of Andrew Jackson | History Traveler Episode 65

well if you've watched any of the episodes on this channel you know that I take an interest in really all different aspects of history but one part of history that that really interests me close to the topper or more than others is presidential history love learning about the different presidents different leadership styles some of their character flaws some of the things that they overcame during the presidencies and today I'm pretty excited because I am right here this is the Hermitage which is the home of our seventh President Andrew Jackson [Music] [Applause] [Music] as I mentioned this is the Hermitage located just outside of Nashville Tennessee and this was the home of the seventh President Andrew Jackson who lived here both before and after his term as president of the United States this place comes highly highly recommended and I'm pretty pumped to get in here and see see the home of one of the more dynamic personalities who ever held the office of President of the United States [Music] now before we go into the Hermitage I did want to show this structure because it's interesting at least to me this is known as Alfred's cabin now if you look you know there's the Hermitage right there so this is pretty much right in the backyard now alfred was a slave of Andrew Jackson we're not going to defend slavery in any way shape or form here it was a moral evil and should have never happened but Jackson did appear to have kind of a special relationship with his slaves as a matter of fact on his deathbed he said that he was going home to see his white family and his his black family so his slaves again not defending slavery but but they appeared to be well treated and Alfred as a matter of fact even after emancipation stayed here at the Hermitage and lived here a well after Jackson's death right now we're getting ready to go in here to the front parlor of the Hermitage one thing to keep in mind as as we're going through this house is of course it wasn't built for you know the the 2000s with modern electricity and things like that so a lot of it just relies on natural light so what we're gonna do it we can as far as you know catching what we can with the lighting that we have but super pumped to be in here one thing about the hermitage that makes it stand apart from any other place is that most of the things that you see in this home are going to be original very few reproductions so pretty pumped to get in here as a history guy all right well this is the entrance hall to the hermitage very very interesting now it's gone through some changes in in the early days I think that he mentioned that there was a fire here at one point and this wallpaper is all original to the house and this is from a depicting a Greek story of the son of Odysseus trying to find his father and having to go kind of on this journey he's got to mentor the kind of guides him along and teaches them how to avoid you know temptations and sirens and different things like that and then at the very end well they burned his ship and you can see the Sun being thrown off of a cliff I think the name was Telemachus was his name and then once he hits the water he kind of awakens from the dream but anyway that's what guests would have seen coming into the hermitage we're gonna take a look at some of the other rooms in this house very very cool so what we are looking at here is Jackson's dining room and what is cool about this is with the exception of the the floor coverings and the chairs everything in this room is original so what kind of get up here so all of the silver all of the China everything that you see here belong to Andrew Jackson alright now this is exceptionally cool this mantle as the story goes is made out of Hickory to kind of go along with jackson's nickname of old hickory and the story goes that one of these soldiers that served with him in the war of 1812 started carving this and would only work on it during the anniversary of the Battle of New Orleans and anyway presented it to Jackson in 1840 very very interesting [Music] so random stuff kind of interests me this is called a ramekin and apparently this was used to serve melted chocolate never heard of one of those before pretty cool though okay so coming out of the dining room now and into the front parlor so this is an area that is definitely a little bit more in my wheelhouse this is where Jackson would set and this was kind of like his military room where he kept military artifacts and would would talk to people about his days in the war of 1812 and there are some artifacts in here that are just extremely interesting one of the gifts that was common during the Jackson era was to give people a cane and there there are several canes in here including this one this is actually a cane that unfolds and you could put a coat over it and make like a little camp chair but we are not going to try it out you know this is something else that's pretty interesting this is a candle that was taken from the tent of Lord Cornwallis it's pretty interesting and then this item right here is a chunk of Plymouth Rock and then if you look back here you can see this bayonet this is a British bayonet that was stuck in a Cypress root and recovered from the battlefield of the Battle of New Orleans okay now this is another item to look for whenever you come to the hermitage this is a cane that was made from a vine that grew over the grave of George Washington and then was presented to Andrew Jackson and then up here also interesting these are Scripture medals so on the front they would depict different stories from the Bible and then I'm not going to touch it but if you were to flip it over and look on the back it would have the the corresponding scripture very interesting okay I just learned something new so this cup is made from something called a should cheveux to free I think is how you say it everybody knows how well I do with French pronunciations but anyway you can kind of think of it like a pike that goes underwater and is used to pierce boats and damage them well somebody made one of those are made this Cup from one of these underwater Pike's from the war of 1812 and then presented it to Jackson so what we are looking at here is the front parlor of the hermitage so this was kind of like the the family parlor you can see some portraits of the family here now this bust of Andrew Jackson Tony told me is probably probably the best likeness of him so this is most likely what what Jackson would have looked like a few other interesting things this piano right here was purchased by Jackson as a gift to his granddaughter and he paid more for this than he did anything else in the house this cost $400 at the time I don't know what that would be today with inflation but I can imagine that was a very very expensive piece and then a few other things these urns here are gifts to Jackson from the Tsar of Russia so we have some evidence of Russian collusion with Andrew Jackson here's something that's kind of interesting in the entire history of the United States there have only been two years where we did not have a national debt in those two years or whenever Andrew Jackson was the president he was really against debt and the way that it got paid off was France owed the u.s. a lot of money and Jackson essentially threatened war if they didn't pay up so anyway a little bit of tension was built up there and afterwards the King of France commissioned a like a wood sculpture and Jackson ended up giving it to his granddaughter and that's right here in her bedroom so here's the sculpture that I was just talking about that King louis-philippe France commissioned to give to Jackson as a gift of goodwill following the tension there and you can see them embracing under like a tree of peace and then Jackson gave it to his granddaughter as a gift so pretty nice gift the gift of the doll is questionable I don't think I'd want that thing staring at me at night okay so this is Jackson's library and again just like with all of the other rooms here in the Hermitage the furniture almost everything here is as original including these bound volumes of newspapers which if we were able to open them up you could see some of Jackson's writing and in the margins where he made some notes pretty interesting now in one of the early videos that we did we talked about Dred Scott and the Dred Scott decision one of the Chief Justice was a guy by the name of Roger Taney which we talked about well this chair was a gift from Roger Thani to Jackson it's called a oh wait a minute the name has escaped me well a Campeche chair so this is a Campeche chair that was a gift to Jackson because Jackson had a point to Tony to the Supreme Court and again all of these books are books that belong to Jax and now if you go to DC to the National Portrait Gallery now here is what you would see for Jackson's portrait except for it's much larger this is a smaller version that was made for for Jackson what we are looking at here is Andrew Jackson's bedroom and this is the bed where Andrew Jackson died now he was preceded in death by his wife Rachel who died really just after his election and if you look right here you can see a portrait of his wife Rachel this was moved to his bedroom so that it would be the very first thing that he would see whenever he woke up in the morning and the very last thing that he would see before he fell asleep at night mm-hmm and also if you come here if you look by the fireplace there's Andrew Jackson's slippers all right now what we're looking at right now is on the second floor of the hermitage coming out on the portico and man look at the view that Jackson would have had coming out here on his front porch something else by the way just as a little side note for people that are like into trees and things like that these two holly trees are probably some of the biggest holly trees in the United States and were planted here whenever Jackson lived here kind of interesting [Music] all right well we just walked out of the Jackson home and we're heading out to to his tomb in in the garden now Jackson is really an interesting figure in my opinion regardless of whether you love him or hate him what opinions you have about him he's one of the more interesting presidents that we've ever had now his stock has kind of gone up and down in recent years largely due to his signing of the Indian Removal Act now there's an interesting I guess alternate perspective on that I'm not going to defend the relocation of the Native Americans at all so please don't hear that but one of his biographers dug back into his writings and basically argues that Jackson had the motivation in signing the Indian Removal Act of actually trying to protect the Native Americans I know it sounds weird but but that he was actually trying to clear them out because he knew that the white settlers would encroach upon their territory and possibly wipe them out now again that doesn't excuse it but it adds a little bit more depth to Jackson and maybe explains a little bit more of his reasoning interesting character though and here is the tomb of Andrew Jackson and his wife Rachel [Music] now on Jackson's grave it might be a little bit hard to see but it doesn't say President Andrew Jackson it says General Andrew Jackson so that's what he wanted to most be known for was his role in the military and his role as president was just something that that he did as what he saw a service to to the people Wow now earlier we saw the quarters of Jackson's slave whom they called uncle Alfred well here is his grave was 98 years old and H and his tombstone says faithful servant of Andrew Jackson not going to defend slavery in any way but it is really cool that he is laid to rest here right next to a President of the United States [Music] all right well that was the Hermitage right here in Nashville Tennessee very very cool place learned a lot about a really interesting controversial and and complex figure a lot of things that I didn't know before it kind of gives me a new view on Jackson and make me want to learn more about him but yeah that was the hermitage come to this place very very cool experience here is the sculpture that I was just talking about that King louis-philippe of France commissioned to give to Jackson as a president you can as a president well [Music] you [Music]

Channel: The History Underground

Views: 324,296

Rating: 4.8936977 out of 5

Keywords: history, history travel, travel, the hermitage, jackson, andrew jackson, old hickory, war of 1812, battle of new orleans, general, indian removal act

Id: Ju9byID1Lo8

Length: 19min 32sec (1172 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 08 2020