After a long day of travel and an uneventful night (relatively speaking), my wife and I were trying to decide what we wanted to do on our second day in Nashville. The friends we were with had some family stuff planned that they were taking their kids to. We agreed to meet for lunch, so that left the morning open for 
After doing a little bit of bugging around online, my wife finally said "what about this place?". She handed her phone to me and I found that she had the webpage open for The Hermitage. I like historical stuff, so I was sold pretty much right away. I went on the site with my laptop and in a matter of minutes I had our tickets purchased to visit the former home of Andrew Jackson.
The Hermitage has a couple of different options as far as tickets go. The first is simply a grounds pass. This gets you access to the 1120 acres that make up what is known as The Hermitage. Many people think the term Hermitage only refers to the mansion, but in fact it applies to the entire estate. With the grounds pass you do not gain access to the mansion.
There is a mansion tour ticket that gives you access to the grounds and the mansion. That is what my wife and I selected for $24 per person. Beyond that, they have some guided tours, but
I am going to warn you right now, this will be a picture heavy post. I took a ton of them here (though not as many as I would have liked... more on that in a bit). This is the entrance to the visitors center. They have a gift shop of course and a place where you can buy concessions. This is also the staging area for "certain events". Apparently, you can rent out the facility for weddings and stuff like that. I have a feeling it probably costs a decent sum of money to do that.
Inside the building they have a small display area where they talk about the life of Andrew Jackson. There is a small cabin at the back of the property where Jackson actually lived before he built the main mansion. The pictures above show a replica of that.
They also had a small theater where you watched a short 15 to 20 minute film about the life of Andrew Jackson. It was an interesting film to be sure. Even before he became the 7th President of the United States, he was a very interesting man. He did own slaves and they made a point of saying that he treated them very well although he never freed any of them.
Take that as you will I guess. Being down south as we were, you could tell they were trying to walk a thin line between being proud of Jackson and trying not to offend those who might take offense to slavery. It wasn't hard to notice most of the scholars talking in the film were all white men with the sole exception of a black female professor. The "token-ness" of it wasn't lost on me anyway.
Inside the visitors center there was a pretty large emphasis on the slaves who worked The Hermitage. They have pretty thorough records of how long each of them lived and how their families grew.
I guess in the grand scheme of things they likely were treated better than others, but slavery is still slavery you can't really sugar coat that and it never makes it right.
Stepping aside from that hot topic, Andrew Jackson actually was a pretty interesting man. From some of the information we got about how he opposed the federal banks back in the day, I have a feeling he would have been a very pro-crypto politician if he were alive today. He believed very much that the power and control of the government belonged in the hands of the people.
I encourage you to visit the web page and read more about him if you are interested.
The remainder of this post is going to mostly be pictures. I hope that is okay with you. I can't imagine you are too disappointed about me rambling on less.
Leaving the visitors center, you follow a path that takes you towards the mansion. It's basically straight ahead in the second photo above. You can't really see it because of all the trees though. They actually have a large variety of trees and plants on the grounds with each of them being labeled.
This was the newer carriage road that they built after the advent of automobiles I think.
It was a beautiful Sunday out, so we decided a selfie was in order.
These are just some more pictures of the grounds. It would be cool to see some of these trees later in the summer with all of the leaves on them. I bet it is really beautiful.
After continuing down the path a bit more, you eventually come to the old carriage road that led right up to the mansion as you can see in the first picture above.
Just some more photos of the estate grounds. In the one picture above you can see the tomb of Andrew Jackson in the background. I have some better pictures of that coming up.
The mansion at the Hermitage actually went through a number of renovations while Jackson was alive. It also suffered a fire that destroyed most of the upper level which prompted further renovations. The home was actually opened as museum even while Jackson was still alive and it is considered one of the oldest and most well preserved presidential homes still in existence.
Just to the right of the mansion entrance is a garden and cemetery area. We had some extra time, so we walked through it and I took some really nice pictures.
While the family has a very specific plot in the gardens for their graves, it is interesting to note that some of the slaves also shared a space in other parts of the garden. I took some photos of those graves as well.
Leaving the garden, they have an area behind the mansion where you can see the old slave quarters. I was able to take a couple of pictures as you can see above.
Finally, we came to the old original home of Jackson on the estate that I mentioned earlier.
Finally, we came to the old springhouse. There are nature trails past this little hut that we would have loved to explore, but we were running out of time. I can see why people would maybe come back and just purchase the grounds pass. Heck, I might even do it again on a return trip. 1200 acres is a lot of grounds to explore.
Unfortunately, this is where things took a turn south. After walking the grounds, it was our turn to take a tour of the mansion. Much to our disappointment, they made it pretty clear that no photos were allowed to be taken inside the mansion. I don't know if they just don't want people lolly gagging or if it truly can damage the historic artifacts, but it was kind of a bummer not to be able to get some interior shots for you.
If you really want to see some, you can check some out on the webpage. According to the person working that day, the mansion is pretty much in the same condition it was when Jackson returned home from the Whitehouse after his presidency. They even have the original wallpaper and carpet in many of the rooms. Talk about immersing yourself in history!
It's really too bad, because in one of the side areas of the house there was an old wooden hand rail for the stairs that I wanted to take a picture of. The handrail seemed pretty intact, but the spindles that ran up to it seemed to have a decorative angle at the top. I soon realized that what I thought was a decorative "flange" was actually just wear from centuries of fingertips rubbing across the spindles as a hand rested on the rail.
Call me crazy, but it was a really humbling feeling and probably one of the coolest features that I noticed while in the mansion. One that they didn't even bother to point out.
If you get the chance, I highly recommend a trip to The Hermitage. It is a beautiful estate to walk around and the historical significance is well worth the visit.
All pictures/screenshots taken by myself or
