The picture of Rachel Jackson on the cover is areplica of the miniature which General Jacksonwore daily, and only removed at night,placing it with his Bible and spectacleson a table beside his bed.
Rachel Jackson
By
NELLIE TREANOR STOKES
(Mrs. Walter Stokes)
Copyright 1942
FOREWORD
Historians and biographers who have immortalizedAndrew Jackson as a statesman and military genius, haveinvariably touched on the vital influence exerted on oneof the greatest figures in American history by his belovedwife, Rachel.
In the belief that only close readers of history or biographyare aware of the full beauty of her personality andcharacter, the Board of Directors of the Ladies’ HermitageAssociation offers this short biography of RachelJackson, by Nellie Treanor Stokes.
Residing in early girlhood at Tulip Grove, a plantationadjacent to the Hermitage, the author was a frequentvisitor in the Hermitage mansion during those years, andhas since continued an intimate association with membersof the Jackson family. Thus, her biography incorporatesfirst-hand knowledge of family traditions along with carefulhistorical research concerning the life of RachelJackson.
Serving as Regent of the Ladies’ Hermitage Associationfrom 1923 to 1927, and as a member of the Board ofDirectors continuously since 1921, Mrs. Stokes throughout these many years has remained in constant touch withall matters pertaining to the Jackson family and home,and the work of maintaining the Hermitage shrine, towhich she has devoted much of her time, has always beenone of her chief interests.
Ladies Hermitage Association
Nashville, Tennessee,
1942.
Rachel Jackson
Rachel Jackson was born at the Virginiahome of her parents in June, 1767. Thus herdistinguished husband preceded her into theworld by only a few months in the same year. Shewas the tenth child and fourth daughter of Col. JohnDonelson and Rachel Stockley, his wife. She wasgiven the name of her mother. There was anotherson born after Rachel, making four daughters andseven sons, eleven children in all.
Rachel’s parentage was not only substantial butalso distinguished. On the paternal side she was thegranddaughter of Catherine Davies who was thesister of Rev. Samuel Davies, the eminent PresbyterianMinister who succeeded Jonathan Edwardsas President of Princeton University. “Her mother,”quoting from Mary French Caldwell, “camefrom Accomac County on the Eastern shore of Virginiaand the story of her people goes back to theearliest days of the colony.”
For thirty-five years the family of Rachel livedon the Bannister River in Pittsylvania County, Virginia.Col. Donelson was a surveyor, the owner andmaster of a large plantation, and the owner of aniron furnace in the vicinity. He was a vestryman inthe Church, and an important member of the VirginiaHouse of Burgesses, Where he held membershipin the Trade Committee which dealt with manyof the serious and delicate questions of the day betweenthe Colony and the Mother Country. Hehelped frame and sign the “treasonable protest”adopted in adjourned sessions following dissolutionof the Burgesses by order of the Crown. By doingso he may h