When the fire occurred Andrew, junior, and his family went to live temporarily at the nearby Hunter’s Hill place, but later took a house in Nashville. In November, 1834, Mrs. Jackson and the children went to Washington to spend the winter in the White House, with interspersed trips to Philadelphia to visit her family and buy furniture for the Hermitage, but Andrew stayed in Nashville to look after the rebuilding work. He joined Sarah and the children for a vacation with the President at the Rip Raps in July and August, 1835, but he came back to Nashville in September. III: RESCUE AND RESTORATION Those who believe in special dispensations of Fate affecting human affairs must feel that there has ever been watching over the Hermitage some kindly guardian angel to protect it from the wasting touch of time and especially to frustrate the numerous and varied efforts that have been made to utilize it for some purpose which would have made it impossible to maintain it as a national shrine for patriotic Americans. Andrew Jackson had been dead hardly ten years before it was proposed to convert his old home into a military school. Immediately following the War Between the States, during the Reconstruction period, it was suggested that it would be an ideal location for a home for Federal soldiers. Later it was selected as the proper place for a Confederate veterans’ home. Then some misguided persons wanted to establish a reform school and penal farm there. Still later a movement was started to convert the plantation into a model farm for educational purposes. These were but a few of the plans advanced for making use of the Hermitage; but in every instance a benevolent Providence intervened and helped to preserve it as simply the home of the patriotic old pioneer Tennessean whose burning love for his country transcended every other emotion.