As early as 1795 we find Andrew Jackson in partnership with David Allison in a shipment of goods from Philadelphia to Nashville. Five years earlier Allison, Jackson, Overton, and others were licensed to practice law in the new territory by Governor William Blount, and various records show Allison’s activities in Davidson County, as well as in Philadelphia, where he was a well-known merchant. From this connection and subsequent associations in both land and mercantile deals developed a relationship which was finally to force Jackson to sell his handsome Hunter’s Hill tract in order to meet his obligations. It is a long and complicated story, and its chief importance in the present connection is that responsibility for Jackson’s loss of Hunter’s Hill and his removal to more humble quarters on the Hermitage estate is usually attributed to the Allison deal. It is a significant fact, however, that Allison’s failure, which occurred about 1795, did not result in the sale of Hunter’s Hill until July 6, 1804. It is reasonable, then, to suppose that it by no means crippled Jackson, as most writers contend; although it undoubtedly marked the beginning of a long struggle through a period of financial unrest and depression which resulted finally in a plan of retrenchment and reorganization. [Illustration: The Log Hermitage—1805 The building in the foreground was once a two-story block-house.] [Illustration: The Brick Hermitage—1819 Wings were added in 1831, and the small building was removed. _From Harper’s Magazine of January, 1855_] On the twenty-third of August, 1804, Jackson paid Nathaniel Hays $3,400 for the 425-acre tract, “with its appurtenances,” which was to be known later as the Hermitage.[1] This reference to appurtenances would indicate that some kind of a building or “improvements” stood on the property when Jackson bought it. This theory is strengthened by the fact that the present study has revealed no records which prove definitely that Andrew Jackson erected a log building at the Hermitage in 1804 or 1805, and by the tradition in the Hays family that one of its members built the Hermitage. Another point which strengthens it is that both of the log houses now standing on the Hermitage estate have in their walls the customary holes for rifles which were made in the days of Indian fighting. This was not necessary at the time Jackson bought the Hermitage, for Indian hostilities were ended by 1795.