When General Jackson in his letters spoke of returning to the Hermitage to cast a tear on the tomb of his departed wife it was no mere figure of speech. After his retirement from public life in 1837 he went back to the home place and spent the rest of his days on the farm in pleasant association with the family of his adopted son. Here a part of his daily routine consisted in a long walk in the afternoon which invariably wound up at the side of Rachel’s tomb, where he was wont to sit in contemplative reflection. His little granddaughter, Rachel, was his customary companion on these walks; but she soon learned that when his steps turned toward the tomb he wished to be alone, and when they reached the garden gate she always withdrew her hand from his and ran away about her childish diversions, leaving him to his thoughts. Even after he became bedridden in the last year of his life, on pleasant days he required that his chair be carried to the garden and placed by the side of the tomb; and there he sat through the hours, dreaming of the stormy and pleasant days of the past. Just to the east of the tomb the visitor to the garden today sees a group of hickory trees closely together in a straight row; and concerning these trees there is an interesting little story. On December 18, 1830, President Jackson received from an admirer in Ulster, New York, Colonel Charles E. Dudley, a parcel of hickory nuts (“nutts” in Jackson’s free-and-easy orthography) from a tree in Ulster said to be the only one of its kind known in New York. Colonel Dudley doubtless felt that he was the author of a delicate compliment in sending these unique hickory nuts to Old Hickory himself; and the President in his formal note of thanks, seemed duly appreciative of the honor intended. “To perpetuate this memento of the kind regard of Mr. and Mrs. Dudley,” he wrote in the formal official third person of the period, “he has sent one dozen of these nutts to be planted in his garden at the Hermitage, to encircle the tomb of his departed wife, and to have the following inscription engraved on the marble. ‘The Dudley hickory of Ulster, New York, presented by Mr. and Mrs. Dudley to the President.’”