Hermitage (Hermitage, Tenn.); Jackson, Andrew, 1767-1845 -- Homes and haunts -- Tennessee -- Hermitage
“Dear Genl. I send you inclosed a note addressed to me by the Mess.
Yeateman after a conversation I had with them this morning. They have
always been ready and willing to do all in their power to get back the
paper from those who purchased it. When I call’d on Campbell I
expected to get the paper, that night he cut it and put it on the
Walls.
“Williams is not at home. I saw Shelly who will do nothing in it, he
is not disposed to restore it. Williams _dare_ not, as his wife claims
it, so I call’d on the Mess. Yeateman and stated the facts who
willingly proposed to purchase another set....”
There has long been a tradition in Nashville that the old Campbell
house, not far from town, on the Lebanon Pike, had paper like that in
the Hermitage hall, but it was, evidently, destroyed when the walls were
scraped and re-papered. Further details concerning the determined woman
who kept the paper have not, at the present writing, come to light.
A bill dated May 30, 1836, shows that Jackson’s merchant and personal
friend, Henry Toland, of Philadelphia, arranged for another shipment of
paper. This bill includes the items: “3 Views of Telemachus at $29, $87;
7 ps Pannell Paper, at $2.50, $17.50; 7 ps. Bordering, at $3.00; $21; 4
ps. Plain Blue, at .75, $3.” A box cost fifty cents and five per cent
was deducted because of the cash payment, making the final amount
$122.60. The bill is marked “Received payment fr H Toland, October 25th
1836. Robert Golder, per Jas. Cameron Golder.”
Nancy McClelland, in her monumental work, _Historic Wall-Papers_,
(Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, 1924) states that “the complete set
consisted of 25 strips in colours, and the scenes are constructed on the
account of the adventures of Telamachus.” It was manufactured in Paris
by Dufour about 1825 and, though rare, was not an exclusive pattern. It
is still found on the walls of certain historic homes and in a few
private and public collections.
According to the late Mrs. Rachel Jackson Lawrence, daughter of Sarah
York and Andrew Jackson, Jr., the Telemachus paper now on the walls of
_The Hermitage_ hallway is the third set of its kind purchased by
General Jackson. The first, she declared, was put on the walls at the
time of the remodelling in 1831 and was burned in the fire of 1834. The
second was the one acquired by Mrs. Campbell and the third, which, like
the others, is the work of Dufour, was placed on the walls some time
after it was ordered in the late spring of 1836.
Sarah York selected papers for the Hermitage, but, as his letter of
April 14, 1835, (Hermitage MSS. Collection) shows, President Jackson
took a personal interest in the Telemachus paper.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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