In April, 1865, Andrew Jackson, junior, stepped finally from the stage where he had played such a sad and ineffectual rôle. Just a few days after the news of Lee’s surrender reached the Hermitage he accidentally shot himself while hunting, and died the next day. Perhaps the summons of death was not entirely unwelcome to this saddened and impoverished old man, who had spent his last days as a guest in the decaying old home amid whose pristine splendor he had been the petted and pampered son of its distinguished and honored master. Again the words of the funeral service were heard in the Hermitage parlors, and friends bore his remains to the little graveyard in the corner of the garden. Here he sleeps, with his sons at his side, close in the shadow of the monumental tomb of the great man who adopted him, who gave him his name and who strove so earnestly to make another Andrew Jackson of one in whose veins flowed none of the red Jackson blood. Mrs. Sarah York Jackson, with her son Andrew, and her sister Mrs. Adams, remained at the Hermitage in the combined position of custodian and guest of the State. The daughter, Rachel, had married Dr. John M. Lawrence and removed to a nearby farm. The state, apparently, forgot that it owned the historic old mansion; and, as the occupants’ means were limited, it gradually deteriorated. Soon after her husband’s death Mrs. Jackson held an auction at which were sold the furnishings of the dining room. These were bought, for the most part, by neighbors and residents of Nashville; and when the Hermitage was rescued and reclaimed most of this furniture was restored to its original place either by purchase or by gift. Mrs. Jackson died in 1887 and she was succeeded as custodian by her son who, in the same year, married Miss Amy Rich, a native of Ohio who was teaching school in the neighborhood. [Illustration: The Hermitage Church as it appears today.] [Illustration: Interior of the old Hermitage Church. The Jackson pew was near the front on the left-hand side.] [Illustration: View of Mrs. Jackson’s tomb with its eloquent epitaph.] [Illustration: The tomb of General Jackson and his wife in the Hermitage garden. Members of the adopted son’s family are buried in the plot in the background. In the lower right corner is the headstone of the grave of Uncle Alfred “faithful servant of Andrew Jackson.”]