Andrew Jackson

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Andrew Jackson : biography

15 March 1767 – 08 June 1845

Memorials

  • Jackson’s portrait appears on the United States twenty-dollar bill. He has appeared on $5, $10, $50, and $10,000 bills in the past, as well as a Confederate $1,000 bill.
  • Jackson’s image is on the Black Jack and many other postage stamps. These include the Prominent Americans series (1965–1978) 10¢ stamp.
  • Numerous counties and cities are named after him, including Jacksonville, Florida and North Carolina; Jackson, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, and Tennessee; Jackson County, Florida, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, and Oregon; and Jackson Parish, Louisiana.
  • Memorials to Jackson include a set of four identical equestrian statues by the sculptor Clark Mills: in Jackson Square in New Orleans; in Nashville on the grounds of the Tennessee State Capitol; in Washington, D.C. near the White House; and in Jacksonville, Florida. Other equestrian statues of Jackson have been erected elsewhere, as in the State Capitol grounds in Raleigh, North Carolina.
  • Andrew Jackson State Park is located on the site of his birthplace in Lancaster County, South Carolina.
  • Old Hickory Boulevard in Nashville is named for him.
  • Two suburbs in the eastern part of Nashville, are named in honor of Jackson and his home: Old Hickory and Hermitage.
  • A main thoroughfare in Hermitage is named Andrew Jackson Parkway. Several roads in the same area have names associated with Jackson, such as Andrew Jackson Way, Andrew Jackson Place, Rachel Donelson Pass, Rachel’s Square Drive, Rachel’s Way, Rachel’s Court, Rachel’s Trail, and Andrew Donelson Drive.
  • Old Hickory Lake. is in Middle Tennessee.
  • Andrew Jackson High School, in Lancaster County, South Carolina, is named after him and uses the title of "Hickory Log" for its Annual photo book.
  • The section of U.S. Route 74 between Charlotte, North Carolina and Wilmington, North Carolina is named the Andrew Jackson Highway.
  • Fort Jackson in Columbia, South Carolina, is named in his honor.
  • Fort Jackson, built before the Civil War on the Mississippi River for the defense of New Orleans, was named in his honor.
  • USS Andrew Jackson (SSBN-619), a Lafayette-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine, which served from 1963 to 1989.
  • Jackson Park, the third-largest park in Chicago, is named for him.
  • Jackson Park, a public golf course in Seattle, Washington, is named for him.
  • Andrew Jackson Centre, the Andrew Jackson Cottage and US Rangers Centre in Northern Ireland, is a "traditional thatched Ulster–Scots farmhouse built in 1750s" and includes the home of Jackson’s parents", which has been restored.
  • Andrew Jackson Masonic Lodge No. 120, in the Jurisdiction of Virginia, is named for him.

Early life and education

Jackson was born on March 15, 1767. His parents were Scots-Irish colonists Andrew and Elizabeth Hutchinson Jackson, Presbyterians who had emigrated from Ireland two years earlier. Jackson’s father was born in Carrickfergus, County Antrim, in current-day Northern Ireland, around 1738. Jackson’s parents lived in the village of Boneybefore, also in County Antrim. Their former house is preserved as the Andrew Jackson Centre and is open to the public.

When they emigrated to America in 1765, Jackson’s parents probably landed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They would have traveled overland down through the Appalachian Mountains to the Scots-Irish community in the Waxhaws region, straddling the border between North and South Carolina.Booraem, Hendrik (2001) Young Hickory : The Making of Andrew Jackson p.9 They brought two children from Ireland, Hugh (born 1763) and Robert (born 1764).

Jackson’s father died in an accident in February 1767, at the age of 29, three weeks before his son Andrew was born in the Waxhaws area. His exact birth site is unclear because he was born about the time his mother was making a difficult trip home from burying Jackson’s father. The area was so remote that the border between North and South Carolina had not officially been surveyed.