Today we had booked to go on an organised tour that would take us to Belle Meade Plantation as well as the Hermitage which was the home to Andrew Jackson the 7th President. We were scheduled to be picked up at 9am but the bus was running a little late so about 9.10 we were finally collected and taken downtown to get on another coach that actually was the same as the one we had been picked up on so I am not sure why we weren’t picked up by the coach we spent the day on! Anyway we finally set off and our first stop was the Belle Meade Plantation, this was home to the Harding family who actually turned it into a major stud farm. They purchased 250 acres 1797 which also had a log cabin on the land which they lived in until the mansion was built. Originally the family earn their living through boarding horses and subsistence farming but eventually shifted the focus of the farm to be a Stud farm. His son took over the farm in 1838 and he built the mansion in 1853, but as a confederate sympathiser he spent six months as a political prisoner, he was released when he paid a $20,000 fine and agreed not to work against the Union. He maintained the farm throughout the war and reconstruction and in 1872 he purchased a champion steed called Bonnie Scotland and established one of America’s most prominent thoroughbred bloodlines. At the end of the war the horse farming continued although the recession of 1893 meant that his customer base significantly reduced. In addition of the 136 slaves who had lived on the plantation prior to the war only 72 chose to work for pay with Harding. Most lived in houses off the property, those who remained in the former slave cabins as part of their compensation had to sign a contract consisting of 18 rules and regulation that, if broken, meant that pay was reduced. In the early 1900’s the estate passed to the 4th generation but unfortunately the recipient was a 2 year old boy, the estate had large dept’s and this coupled with the evangelical reformists pressure against horse racing and associated gambling along with the increase in popularity of baseball many that the only option for the trustees was to sell the Plantation in 1906, it was sold to a developer who luckily didn’t do anything with the land, the plan had been to pull the house down and build on it and it was eventually purchased by the trust that now owns it. After a guided tour around the house we were left to walk around the grounds. There are a number of outbuildings that still remain through the estate including the original log cabin which was built in 1790. There is also a smokehouse which was said to be the largest in the South and as much as 20,000 pounds of pork was recorded as being smoked annually. Other buildings include a dairy that supplied fresh milk, cream, cheese and approximately 240 pounds of butter each week. The carriage house alone covers just over an acre. The plantation also made wine and they have a wine tasting included in the tour of the house, the first one was really nice, but they went downhill from there, the last one actually tasted like Ribbena to me! However they also had a fudge and ice cream shop, we managed to resist the fudge but did have a really nice ice cream! Before long it was time to get back on the bus and go to the next house, on the way we were taken to a restaurant for lunch which was an all you can eat buffet, not really what we needed in but we ate it anyway then we went round to the Hermitage. This was home to the man that would become the 7th President of the United States, he purchased the property in 1804 and lived there when he died in 1845 although he only lived at the property occasionally until he retired from public life in 1837. Despite being President of the Union, the plantation had 9 enslaved men, women and children when he purchased the property and at the time of his death there were 110 principally involved in growing cotton which was the major cash crop although this was only grown on about 50 percent of the land, the remainder was used for farming, they had cattle and grew food to feed the family and slaves as well as hay for the cattle. At its peak Jackson held 161 slaves in total, 110 at the Hermitage and 51 at Halcyon plantation in Mississippi, this meant this was a very large plantation as the 1850 census stated that only 24 estates in Tennessee included more than 100 slaves. Chris and I decided to head straight for the house to join a tour of that then wonder around the grounds after, the house is very nice but not as grand as you would expect, although 90% of the fixtures, fittings and furniture is original to the house, it was nice that all the rooms were furnished and it was interesting that both Andrew Jackson and his son had bedrooms on the ground floor whereas the upper floor was reserved for guests and the children’s bedrooms! After we finished walking round the house we set off round the grounds. Quite close to the house is the home of Uncle Alfred, he was born into slavery in around 1812 and continued to work there as a freeman after emancipation and stayed on as a caretaker following the purchase of the estate in 1889 by the Ladies Hermitage Association. He died in 1901 and was buried near the tomb of the President and Mrs Jackson. Also in the grounds are some of the original slave cabins as well as the spring house. Throughout his life Jackson expanded the plantation to an operation of 1,000 acres with 200 acres used for cotton and the remainder for food production, Jackson was also a keen horse breeder, trainer and by all accounts gambler! So as we were walking round there was an ‘enactment’ of a race between one of Jackson’s horses and one of his rivals, we took part in this then headed back to the house to have a walk around the formal gardens and finally return to the coach to head back to downtown Nashville. We got back to the hotel just before 5pm so we went up to the room then headed downstairs to have a drink before we pack up tomorrow and head off to Memphis.