A Visit to the Home of One of America's Greatest Presidents

Across the street from the James K. Polk Home & Museum in Columbia, Tennessee

Naming America's greatest president is difficult. I would argue in favor of George Washington, but if you believed it has been Abraham Lincoln, or even Thomas Jefferson, you would be on very solid ground. So let's qualify this. Who was America's Greatest President, before my lifetime, who is not on Mount Rushmore or U.S. coins or currency?

James Knox Polk.

When the convention I was going to attend in Philadelphia was cancelled, and I had some open time in schedule, I decided to take a trip to somewhere in the USA I had not yet visited: Nashville, Tennessee. And what was my top priority to see in Nashville? The James Knox Polk Home & Museum, 50 miles to the south, in Columbia, Tennessee.

That meant I had to rent a car:

A red Camaro convertible. It actually was the cheapest car available on the Hertz lot (which might explain why they went bankrupt). It will be a lot more fun once I figure out how to get the top down.

Polk is my favorite president. He was elected promising to do three things (settle the western border disputes north and south, establish an independent treasury, and settle the tariff issue). He accomplished all three. He retired after one term. He promptly died. He was a role model for all future presidents, all of whom fell short.

This is the house in which the future President Polk grew up.

Polk's wife, Sarah, lived here with his mother during times in his political career. The tour started with a 10-minute film filled to the brim with political correctness, castigating Polk for owning slaves on a plantation in Mississippi (he was an absentee landowner) and for starting the Mexican War which the film insinuated was unpopular (so unpopular that Polk's elected successor was the leading general of the Mexican War, Zachary Taylor). Political correctness is as compatible with Polk as dancing and booze is with his strict Presbyterianism. So let's tour the home.

This is the entrance. You can't go up those stairs. Those are the Polk's private bedrooms, I guess.

This is the front parlor:

Let's take a close look at the portrait of a younger Polk:

As you can see from the presidential portrait that is the second photo on this post, workaholic Polk aged in office significantly. Worse than Jimmy Carter.

This table was made in Tunisia (from marble from ancient Carthage!) specifically as a gift for President Polk. It was his pride and joy.

Note, however, that the bird that is part of the presidential seal design is not a bald eagle. It might be a very young bald eagle (they are not born bald) (they turn white when they get older) (sound familiar?). It might be a different species of eagle that they have on the African coast. Polk loved it, regardless.

A wide angle view of the Polk parlor:

We next move to the formal dining area:

That is a portrait of Polk's mother above the hearth. Polk's father died when Polk was a young man.

And here are portraits of James and Sarah Polk, which look nothing like James or Sarah Polk:

They were painted by Andrew Jackson's portraitist. So either that's all the artist knew how to paint. Or his "style" was to make people look like Andrew Jackson (sort of like the Colombian artist Botero painted everybody to look morbidly obese). My take? The artist is making a statement about how much of Andrew Jackson, "Old Hickory," was in Jackson's protegee, "Young Hickory" Polk.

Apparently this portrait of Sarah was Polk's favorite portrait of his wife. Again, she looks very Andrew Jackson-y here. I don't want to psychoanalyze that dynamic.

Above is the interior grounds of the property. This is the home of someone of some wealth (Polk's father was a surveyor, a lucrative trade back in the day), but not someone fabulously wealthy.

And here is the view down Seventh Street to the Maury County Courthouse.

The Polk home has been on my "before they chop off my feet" list (also known as my "before they chop my feet off" list) for some time, It is so fitting to visit the home of our only president to die of infectious disease in this year, the year of the global pandemic. I brought my mask along just to be safe, but apparently they've not had the cholera in the Polk home since his passing less than two months after his presidency ended. (Still on record for the shortest ex-presidency in American history.)