Qualla: The Hermitage https://qualla.com/the-hermitage-nashville-tennessee en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:14 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/6/q/the-hermitage-nashville-tennessee-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: The Hermitage https://qualla.com/the-hermitage-nashville-tennessee The Hermitage: Introduction https://qualla.com/the-hermitage-nashville-tennessee/ Photo credit Antony-22, CC BY-SA 4.0. The wallpaper in the entry hall tells a story no one was meant to question. Imported from Paris, printed by Joseph Dufour et Cie, it depicts the mythological hero Telemachus visiting the island of Calypso -- a tale of adventure, civilization, and homecoming. Andrew Jackson installed it in the 1830s, the same decade he forcibly removed tens of thousands of Native Americans from their homelands and held more than a hundred enslaved people on the grounds outside those papered walls. The Hermitage, Jackson's plantation east of Nashville, is the most accurately preserved early presidential home in the country. More than a quarter million visitors walk through it each year, making it the fourth-most-visited presidential residence after the White House, Mount Vernon, and Monticello. But what makes it remarkable today is not the preservation of Jackson's domestic taste. It is the decision, decades in the making, to tell the full story -- the mansion and the slave quarters, the president and the people he owned.

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Image: Antony-22 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/6/q/the-hermitage-nashville-tennessee-wp/dn6q-the-hermitage-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full The Hermitage: From Log Cabin to Greek Revival https://qualla.com/the-hermitage-nashville-tennessee/ Photo credit Rennett Stowe from USA, CC BY 2.0. Jackson purchased the property in 1804 from Robert Hays, who had settled the land in 1780 on territory from which Native Americans had been displaced. Jackson and his wife Rachel moved into a two-story log blockhouse originally built to resist attacks. A lean-to was added to the ...

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Image: Rennett Stowe from USA | CC BY 2.0

]]> Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/6/q/the-hermitage-nashville-tennessee-wp/dn6q-the-hermitage-from-log-cabin-to-greek-revival.mp3 0:06 2 full The Hermitage: Cotton, Scrip, and Human Property https://qualla.com/the-hermitage-nashville-tennessee/ Photo credit Rennett Stowe from USA, CC BY 2.0. The Hermitage was a working cotton plantation. When Jackson bought it, nine enslaved people came with the land. By the time he died in 1845, that number had grown to 110, with another 51 held at Halcyon plantation in Coahoma County, Mississippi -- 161 people in total at the peak ...

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Image: Rennett Stowe from USA | CC BY 2.0

]]> Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/6/q/the-hermitage-nashville-tennessee-wp/dn6q-the-hermitage-cotton-scrip-and-human-property.mp3 0:06 3 full The Hermitage: The War and the Unraveling https://qualla.com/the-hermitage-nashville-tennessee/ Photo credit Ralph Eleaser Whiteside Earl, Public domain. Jackson died at the Hermitage in 1845. His son, Andrew Jackson Jr., inherited crushing debt and began selling off portions of the estate. In 1856, he sold the remaining land, mansion, and outbuildings to the State of Tennessee, retaining a provision that the family could stay as ...

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Image: Ralph Eleaser Whiteside Earl | Public domain

]]> Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/6/q/the-hermitage-nashville-tennessee-wp/dn6q-the-hermitage-the-war-and-the-unraveling.mp3 0:06 4 full The Hermitage: The Ground Speaks Back https://qualla.com/the-hermitage-nashville-tennessee/ Photo credit Antony-22, CC BY-SA 4.0. From 1988 to 2005, archaeological teams excavated the Hermitage grounds and uncovered what the curated mansion could not show: the material reality of enslaved life. They found an ice house behind the smokehouse. They identified 13 dwellings used by enslaved workers -- at least t...

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Image: Antony-22 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/6/q/the-hermitage-nashville-tennessee-wp/dn6q-the-hermitage-the-ground-speaks-back.mp3 0:06 5 full The Hermitage: A Plantation That Kept Its Secrets https://qualla.com/the-hermitage-nashville-tennessee/ Photo credit Carwil Bjork-James, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 2024, researchers found yet another burial ground on the property, believed to hold the graves of 28 enslaved people. The search had taken more than 20 years. Some historians speculate that Lyncoya Jackson, a Creek orphan Andrew Jackson adopted from a battlefield and raised at...

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Image: Carwil Bjork-James | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/6/q/the-hermitage-nashville-tennessee-wp/dn6q-the-hermitage-a-plantation-that-kept-its-secrets.mp3 0:06 6 full