_Here lie the remains of Mrs. Rachel Jackson, wife of President Jackson, who died the 22nd of December, 1828, aged sixty-one years. Her face was fair, her person pleasing, her temper amiable, her heart kind. She delighted in relieving the wants of her fellow creatures and cultivated that divine pleasure by the most liberal and unpretending methods. To the poor she was a benefactor; to the rich an example; to the wretched a comforter; to the prosperous an ornament. Her piety went hand in hand with her benevolence, and she thanked her Creator for being permitted to do good. A being so gentle and so virtuous slander might wound but could not dishonor; even death, when he bore her from the arms of her husband, could but transport her to the bosom of her God._ In strong contrast to this eloquent eulogy is the Spartan simplicity of the old General’s own epitaph, certainly written by himself: GENERAL ANDREW JACKSON Born March 15, 1767 Died June 8, 1845 There would have been no such simplicity as this about Old Hickory’s final resting place, however, if some of his admirers had had their way. Early in 1845, only a few months before Jackson died, Commodore J. D. Elliott of the United States Navy, commander of the old _Constitution_, brought home from Palestine the marble sarcophagus in which had rested the remains of the Roman emperor, Alexander Severus. Commodore Elliott wrote to General Jackson, advising him that he had brought home this handsome relic and deposited it with the National Institute with the suggestion that it be tendered Jackson for his own tomb. “I pray you, General,” wrote Elliott, “to live on in the fear of the Lord; dying the death of a Roman soldier, an emperor’s coffin awaits you.” But General Jackson, as might have been expected, while courteously expressing his appreciation of the spirit of veneration that prompted the proffer, firmly declared that: “I can not consent that my mortal remains shall be laid in a repository prepared for an emperor or king.”