The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1885-10-10

fluential public men of this century.
She died upon the threshold of the White
House, the mistress of which had she
lived few months longer she would
have become. One of the most famous
duels that ever occurred in this country
was fought to the death for a breath
upon her honor. Although she became
a famous woman, and the fact that she
loved to smoked clay pipe with the
/ great man who became her husband has
not lessened the regard in which pos
terity will ever hold her.
Rachel Donaldson was born eleven
years before the Declaration of Inde-
pendence, and in the very year when
Andrew Jackson first saw the light in
North Carolina wilderness. She passed
her girlhood days within sound of the
murmuring pines about the old Acco-
mac mill, and there was living twenty
years ago near the Atlantic coast an old
CSlored woman who was the daughter
of a nurse of the little black-eyed,
swarthy -complexioned child who died
at the Hermitage from the effects of a
transport of JOY at hearing the news of
the election of her husband as President
of the United States. Tradition only
and some descriptions of this old nurses S
daughter are all that are left of this old
! nurses story-the wife of "Old Hick-
ory," the hero of New Orleans and the
destroyer of the United States Bank.
There is an Eastern Shore story that
the great-grandmother of Rachel DON
aldson was an Indian girl who married
a Donaldson two centuries or more ago.
This would account for her very black
hair and exceedingly dark complexion,
which led visitor to "The Hermitage"
in 1898, when she was Mrs. Andrew
Jackson, and about to become mistress
of the White House, to hint in letters,
since become historical, that the min
Cling of blood had been of another and
less distinguished 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 Southwest. She
was at that time fne-looking, dashing
and vivacious, although in her old age
Mrs. Andrew Jackson was set down by
the women as possessing bad figure
and no beauty to speak of. She met
Captain Lewis Robards, a Kentucky
planter, few years after her mother
moved West, and married him. Robards
was jealous fellow, who treated her
with harshness very near akin to bru-
tality.
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 An
drew Jackson, Esq, a briefess back
woods lawyer, came there to board.
There he met his first and only defeat.
He fell before the fire of the dark eyes
of Rachel Robards. Whether Jackson
made love then and there to the wife of
another man afterward became the SUBJ
! >iect of angry political controversy; but,
however this may have been, the two
| fell in love with each other, and, what
is more interesting, remained in love
with each other to the end of their lives.
Jackson married Mrs. Robards while
she was still the wife of the Kentucky
Captain, and "the most chaste of women
and one of the few irreproachable pub
lie men of his day are recorded adulter-
ers, and, what is more remarkable, the
record is correct" Rachel Robards
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 vindicated the reputation of the
queerly mated couple. Jackson believ-
ed, and had every reason to believe,
that Mrs. Robards had been divorced.
and both were deceived by circum-
stances. When the mistake was finally
discovered by the publication of the
decree of divorce two years after it was
supposed to have been granted, second
marriage ceremony was quietly perform
| ed at Natchez. Thus the Eastern Shore
beauty passes into the pages of history
Her good looks, however, were not sc
constant as her good heart. Mrs. Jack
son, truth to tell, soon grew stout ano
dumpy and homely, but she never LOST
her charm for Old Hickory, who ador
ed her while living and fairly worshipeo
her after her death. One can scarcely
suppress smile at the figure this once
beautiful and always good woman cut II
the gilded drawing-room of leader o.
society in New Orleans just after major
General Jackson had won his immorta
victory and driven back the most mag
nifcent expedition ever sent against
this country. "Society" had rendered
the General a grand reception. New
Orleans was at that time socially the
most elegant city in America, and the
ladies were upon that occasion deckeo
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 anc
dignifed as French ambassador; fol
no man of his time had grander ali
than Old Hickory. Upon his arm wa
Mrs. Jackson, fresh from the backwood
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 tha
she was the finest woman in all that as
semblage. One beauty, indeed, thi
homely wife of Jackson retained. Sh'
!: still had the bright black eyes of Rache
Donaldson, but the dark swarthy skin
also remained, and added nothing tt
her personal appearance.
But if Rachel Donaldson had lost he
, vanity and sometimes smoked ella.
pipe with the General, she was none tn
less a good and wise woman, and exer
cised salutary influence upon the hot
headed and sometimes pig-headed maj
who never found any obstacle in hi
path which he did not remove. Mrs
Jackson died in 1928, just as her hus
band was about to start from the Her
mitage for Washington, to be sworn il
as President of the United States. Thu
concluding sentences upon her tomb
written bv Jackson himself, are these