7. Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson was born on March 15, 1767, in the frontier Waxhaw region along the border between North Carolina and South Carolina. He is popularly recognized as the first of the “log cabin presidents;” however, the exact locale of Jackson’s birth remains a point of controversy as both North Carolina and South Carolina claim him as a native son. Jackson’s Scots-Irish immigrant father died before Jackson was born, and Jackson’s mother raised him on the plantation of relatives. The Crawford plantation locale is now the site of Andrew Jackson State Park in Lancaster, SC. At the age of thirteen, Jackson enlisted with colonial forces and was eventually captured by the British. In the most famous incident of Jackson’s childhood, he refused to shine the boots of the commanding British officer who responded by striking Jackson with his sabre, badly slicing Jackson’s hand and head.
Two sites for Jackson, each with a marker claiming to mark the spot where he was born. Two photo assistants, each with very different ideas about what we should be doing on this trip!