Andrew Jackson Jr.

Andrew Jackson Jr. was the adopted son of seventh U.S. president Andrew Jackson. Andrew Jackson Jr., a biological child of Rachel Jackson's brother Severn Donelson and Elizabeth Rucker, was the one child among the more than three dozen wards of Andrew Jackson that they considered to be their own child. As presented in an 1878 newspaper feature on the surviving Jackson descendants still resident at the Hermitage, "In after years Gen. Jackson had other nephews, to whom he gave a hearty welcome into his home, but to none other did he ever give his name or make heir to his fortune. One of these other nephews was the distinguished Andrew Jackson Donelson, who ran for Vice President on the Fillmore ticket, and who was always associated with the General, but who was not the bona fide adopted son, as many suppose." According to historian Robert V. Remini, Andrew Jackson Jr. was "irresponsible and ambitionless, a considerable disappointment to his father." Junior was sued 13 times in the last seven years of Andrew Jackson's life. When former president Jackson died in 1845, Junior inherited real and enslaved human property valued at roughly $150,000. Within a decade, he had turned this fortune into roughly $100,000 in debt. Jackson Jr. died of tetanus in 1865 after he accidentally shot himself while hunting.