The Hermitage

The grand entrance to Andrew Jackson's Hermitage

The final stop before heading home to Las Vegas was Andrew Jackson's Hermitage. This is the home that he built after he retired from the military as the hero of the Battle of New Orleans (the bright spot in the otherwise not-disastrous-but-not-good War of 1812). This is the home to which he retired after completing his two terms as the President of the United States. And this is his permanent home, as he was buried in the garden out back behind the Hermitage.

This being the Year of Our COVID, the Hermitage mansion was closed. This is the back door entrance to the Hermitage. It is much less fancy than classical revival architecture of the front facade.

The grounds were open, however. This is the ice house adjacent to the mansion.

Even though it was locked tight to keep out those nasty COVID germs and the people who may or may not be carrying them, we could take a peek inside the Jackson home. This was an open room at the back entrance. For lack of any other direction, I will call this "the family room":

This was the formal dining room:

Note the portrait of Andrew Jackson above the serving buffet. Vanity of vanities; all is vanity. Of course, he WAS President of the United States. Elected three times, serving once, having been once cheated by a useless scion of the Adams family.

Above is the slave quarters. I am guessing it is the quarters for the house staff, as the field staff (I am purposely using polite terminology) were housed deeper out in the edges of the extensive property.

The front of the house featured a beautiful classical revival facade.

And, as is clear, it was just a facade.

The classical revival style was not carried over to the other three sides of the mansion. And I use the term "mansion" loosely here. The house is about the size of a mid-size house in a typical modern American upscale suburban subdivision. The grounds, however, are extensive. The adjacent garden is only a very small part of the property.

Andrew Jackson and his beloved wife Rachel are buried side-by-side in the garden.

Andrew Jackson's tombstone is actually surprisingly simple. It reads only "General Andrew Jackson",

Jackson's wife Rachel died after Jackson was elected president, but before he assumed office. It is thought that she died from the stress over nasty rumors that were rampant through Washington, D.C., society about her. (I believe the rumors pertained to the question of whether she was legally divorced from her first husband prior to her marriage to Andrew Jackson, but my memory could be wrong on this.)

The huge grounds make for a nice walk. Nowadays.

Back in Andrew Jackson's day, it was a huge cotton plantation, with 200 slaves working the fields. So leisurely walks were out of the question back then.

But the 20-minute nature walk through the property was nice.  This is the "original" hermitage.

Now that is a hermitage. Hermitage is the word for an abode for seclusion, as in the home of a hermit. That log cabin is fit for a hermit. By the time Andrew Jackson's career in the military and planting took off, this little hermitage was abandoned and the "mansion" version of the Hermitage became his home.

The grounds are so huge that even this faun was living there.

The grounds are so large that they can be driven. I drove over to the Hermitage Church, built for the local community. The church was Presbyterian. Jackson's wife Rachel was a devout Presbyterian. Jackson was, I believe, more of a nominal Presbyterian.

And at the end of the road is Tulip Grove, the home of Andrew Jackson's nephew Andrew Jackson Donelson.

Andrew Jackson Donelson, whatever his good qualities may have been, was the vice presidential candidate on Millard Fillmore's 1856 anti-Catholic "Know Nothing" party ticket.

I called on his home.

No one was there. Maybe it was because I am Catholic.

Nashville's Parthenon

Nashville has a Parthenon and, even though it was undergoing renovation, it was open to the public

Nashville used to style itself as "the Athens of the South." In its capacity as a New World Athens, it built itself a Parthenon. And, unlike the one in the Old World Athens, its Parthenon remains standing intact.

(The posting of the second half of yesterday's Nashville tourism was delayed due to the fact that, after 10 years of vacation blogging, I finally used up the 15GB of free photo storage from Google. I had to buy more. Actually, I have to rent more. You buy nothing nowadays when it comes to computer usage. Everything in a rental.)

Unlike just about all of downtown Nashville, and even though the land surrounding it was all torn up, Nashville's Parthenon was open for business.

No need to rest on the dragon/sea serpent shaped bench out front, which I don't believe they have in the original Parthenon in Athens. I could be wrong. Nashville's Parthenon is the only Parthenon which thus far I have visited. I have no plans to rectify that situation as Greece is so far down the list of places I want to visit, it would take the Hubble Telescope to see it. (It is, however, ahead of Ireland. Just for the record.)

The Parthenon was first built for the 1897 Tennessee Centennial and International Exhibition. I am referring to the Nashville Parthenon and not the Athens, Greece, Parthenon. I don't know why they built the Athens, Greece, one, but I know it was not to celebrate the centennial of Tennessee's admission to the Union.

Weirdly enough, the 1897 Tennessee Centennial and International Exhibition was one year after the actual Tennessee centennial. I think it had something to do with not getting the money raised in time. Anyway, the exhibition (the functional equivalent of a world's fair) was a huge success. Many of the buildings, such as the Parthenon, were designed to look like major structures from Old Europe. They had a mock Rialto Bridge just like in Venice, for example. And the structure built by the City of Memphis (named for a city in Egypt) and Shelby County was, as you can see from this photograph inside the Parthenon, was a replica of the Great Pyramid of Cheops:

The Pyramid is long gone, but the Parthenon still stands. Actually, all of the buildings were built to be temporary. Even the Parthenon. This is not the original Parthenon. And by that I mean this is not the original Nashville Parthenon. The Nashville Parthenon was built to be the Fine Arts Building for the exhibition. It was so popular that, after the fair, funds were raised to built a permanent Parthenon out of concrete.

It is now an art museum. The two major "art" exhibits are, first, the James M. Cowan collection of paintings on permanent display. Cowan was a major art collector in the early years of the previous century and he collected the works of major American artists. My favorite was this one:

"The Young Musician" by John George Brown. It was painted in 1878 and purchased by Cowan in 1901. The Cowan collection has far more landscapes than portraits, but I thought this one was exceptional, because (although you can't see it in this picture) "The Young Musician" in the painting has very expressive, very human, eyes.

The other bit of fine art is a replica of a giant statue:

Here she is. Athena Parthenos. The original also inhabited a Parthenon, the one in Athens, Greece. (I feel the need to keep saying "Athens, Greece," as if you will think that the original Parthenon was in Athens, Georgia, or Athens, Ohio. It's not. It's in Greece. Well, at least what's left of it is.)

For some reason, I thought that Athena Parthenos looked like Judy Tenuta

The original Athena Parthenos was sculpted of gold and ivory in the mid 400's B.C. She's Gone. I'd pay the devil to replace her. However, in 1990, a New World Athena Parthenos was erected in the New World Parthenon.

A view of her shield:

There also is a collection of statuary shards, matching what's left of these various statues in the original Old World Parthenon.

Of all the statuary in the Old World Parthenon, only the statue of Dionysus has kept his head when all those about him lost theirs:

Apparently that's a serious comment. Apparently he's the only one with a head in the original Parthenon.

The Parthenon is found in Centennial Park, west of downtown Nashville, where the original 1897 exhibition was held. I believe that Lake Watauga here also was built for the 1897 exhibition:

I could be wrong. Don't quote me.

Duck butts:

Duck derriere in Lake Watauga. After all that, it was time to enjoy something authentically Nashville. Nashville Hot Chicken, at the Party Fowl:

The Nashville Hot Chicken was good. It was an extra crispy fried chicken with cayenne in the batter. And lard, which made it a little greasy, but it was not "greasy tasting," if that makes sense. At least the Parthenon and the Party Fowl were open for business.

Nashville Skyline

State troopers man the barricades blocking off the Tennessee State Capitol

So many wonderful sights to see in Downtown Nashville! The County Music Hall of Fame! The Johnny Cash Museum (with a Patsy Cline Museum on the second floor)! Ryman Auditorium! The Ernest Tubb Record Shop! That pedestrian bridge where you can get those awesome views of the Nashville Skyline. Today I planned to play tourist in downtown Nashville. Except that it was closed. Everything. Even the places that Google said would be open were closed. The city was a ghost town. "The Day the Earth Stood Still" Dead. Parking garages (on a Friday morning) were empty. What the COVID-19 did not close, the protest-riots did.

My first destination was going to be the Tennessee State Capitol. It was barricaded shut. The grounds were open, however! The statuary was not on lockdown. Let's walk the perimeter.

This soldier (the famous Sgt. Alvin York) is useless to guard the Capitol grounds with his rifle pointed in that direction.

Up these stairs is a statue honoring a true American great. In other cities, his statue would not be long for this world.

Andrew Jackson!

Traditionally, if the horse is on two legs, it means the rider being honored by the statue died heroically in battle. Jackson, however, died not in battle, but of heart failure and edema at age 78. Old Hickory did not play by others' rules in life, so why should he play by the rules in equestrian statuary?

Nearby is the permanent resting place for Jackson's premier protege:

This is the grave of Mr. and Mrs. James Knox Polk.  This one is taken from Mrs. Polk's side of the grave, with the shuttered Tennessee State Capitol in the background.

This is an equestrian statue in front of the Cordell Hull State Office Building demonstrating the "four hooves on the ground" pose traditional for riders who did not die or get wounded in battle. (One leg raised on the horse means the rider suffered a battle wound somewhat short of death in severity, when traditional is followed.) (And, as mentioned, tradition does not apply when you're Andrew Jackson.)

This is the Bell Tower on the Capitol grounds.

And this is the view of the State Capitol facing southwest.

I walked a bit through the abandoned streets of downtown Nashville. This is the War Memorial.

This is another statue in front of the War Memorial. From the multi-racial group of soldiers, the watr is definitely post-World War Two. Given the way the soldiers are dressed, I'm guessing Vietnam.

The number of protesters across the street from the State Capitol was small (and seemed to make up a disproportionate number of the total number of people in downtown Nashville), as you can see from this picture.

But with everything closed down, and the place being empty, there was no reason to walk around anymore. I headed off to the Parthenon. Yes, Nashville has one of those.