The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1885-10-02

guished race. How long the Donaldson
| family lived in Accomac is uncertain, but
| Rachel was at least Is before they crossed the
bay and went to seek home in the South
west. She was at that time fine-looking,
dashing and vivacious, although in her old
age Mrs Andrew Jackson was set down by
the women as possessing a bad figure and no
beauty to speak of. She met Captain Lewis
| Richards, Kentucky planter, few years
after her mother moved West, and married
| him. Richards was a jealous fellow, who
treated her with harshness very near akin
to brutality.
| Robard's bad temper and jealousy had
driven the young wife from his home, and
she was living with her mother, who had
moved out to Tennessee, when Andrew Jack
son, Esq, briefless backwoods lawyer came
there to board. There he met his first and
only defeat. He fell before the fire of the
dark eyes of Rachel Richards. Whether
| Jackson made love then and there to the wife
of another man afterwards became the sub
ject OF political controversy but, however
this may have have been, the two fell in love
with each other, and, what is more interest
| ing, remained in love with each other to the
| end of their lives. Jackson married Mrs.
Richards while she was still the wife of the
Kentucky Captain, and "the most chaste of
| women and one Of the few irreproachable
public men ofhis day are recorded adullerers,
and what is more remarkable, the record is
correct" Rachel Richards ran away from
her husband and lived with Jackson as his
wife for two years before she was divorced.
This is the verdict of history but history has
long since vindcatcd the reputation of the
queerly mated couple. Jackson believed, and
had every reason to believe that Mrs
Richards had been divorced, and both were
deceived by circumstances. When the mis-
take was finally discovered by the publication
of the decree of divorce two years after it was
supposed TO have been granted a second mar
riage ceremony was quietly performed at
Natchez. Thus the Eastern Shore beauty
passes into the pages of history. Her good
looks, however, were not so constant as her
good heart. Mrs. Jackson truth to tell, soon
grew stout and dumpy and homely, but she
never lost her charm for Old Hickory, who
adored her while living and fairly worshiped
her after her death. One can scarcely sup
press smile at the figure this once beautiful
and always good woman cut in the gilded
drawing-room of leader of society in New
Orleans just after "Major" General Jackson
had won his immortal victory and driven
back the most magnificent expedition ever
sent against this country. Society" had
rendered the General grand reception
most elegant city in America, and the ladies
were upon that occasion decked out in the
most splendid of costumes, many of them just
from Paris Presently entered the hero of
the hour, Jackson-tall, commanding, as
gracefully and dignified as French ambassa-
dor; for no man of his time had a grander
air than Old Hickory Upon his arm was
Mrs. jackson, fresh from the backwoods of
Tennessee-short, fat, with no waist; fat,
chubby hands, and red, fat, good-natured,
but by no means, refined face. And yet
Andrew jackson thought that she was the
finest woman in all that assemblage. One
beauty, indeed, this homely wife of Jackson
retained. She still had the bright black eyes
of Rachel Donaldson but the dark swarthy
skin also remained, and added nothing to her
personal appearance.
But if Rachel Donaldson had lost her vani.
ty and sometimes smoked a clay pipe with
the General, she was none the less good and
wise woman, and exercised salutary influ-
enCe upon the hot-headed and sometimes
pig-headed man who never found an obstacle
in his path which he did not remove. Mrs.
jackson died in 1928, just as her husband was
about to start from the Hermitage for Wash
ington, to be sworn in as President of the
United States. The concluding sentences
upon her tomb, written by Jackson himself
are these: "A being so gentle and SO virtu-
Gus, SANDER might wound but could not dis
honor. Even death, when he tore her from
the arms of her husband, could but transport
her to the bosom of her God"
SANDER had indeed often wounded her, for
the circumstances of her marriage were made
use of in the many political contests in
which jackson was involved. jackson re-
sented this bitterly, and Chas. Dickinson
would not have been the only victim of his
deadly pistol could the personal responsible
ty have been fixed. What might have been,
or rather what might not have been,
had this woman lived a few years longer?
Did not Martin Van Buren, win the everlast-
ing friendship of Jackson and the succession
to the Presidency by adhering to the cause
of Mrs. Eaton? Had Mrs. jackson lived
there would in all probability have been no
Eaton issue. Martin Van Buren, would not
have been President and the course of politics
for many years might have been changed
All this by few more years of life to the girl
baby who was born one morning in June in
the old mill on the Eastern Shore of Virgil
MIA
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