Who is Buried at C of C!?

Elizabeth Jackson's monument in Cougar Mall

Today my Beyond the Grave class was told that we would be going down the center of campus to look at something interesting. Used to walking around graveyards, this shocked me as I was pretty sure there were no graveyards on campus. I was right, there are no graveyards, but there is a monument dedicated to none other than Elizabeth Hutchinson Jackson.

If this name seems familiar, it's because Elizabeth Jackson was the mother of Andrew Jackson; the 7th President of the United States. Andrew Jackson's death could be seen as a crazy coincidence. While living near the border of the Carolinas, Elizabeth's husband, Andrew Jackson, fell ill and died. Astonishingly, Elizabeth gave birth shortly after the death of her husband to the Andrew Jackson we all know today.

Jackson had two brothers named Hugh and Robert. Together, Elizabeth and her sons moved to the upstate of South Carolina to live with family members. It was her that Elizabeth would become a housekeeper and nurse to her sister and her sister's husband. This house would be Andrew Jackson's home for the first thirteen years of his life, and throughout those years, he would live in a guest in his own home. His mother's love was evident, however, as she kept the family spirit alive through telling wildly adventurous tales of her family's fight for freedom against the British in Ireland. Later, she would find that these stories inspired Jackson and the rest of her sons more than she ever could have imagined.

Several years later, the Revolutionary War began. In 1780, British forces invaded Charleston and captured the port city on March 12th. Not stopping there, the soldiers began to pillage Charleston while massacring the American patriots, leaving more than a hundred dead. The Jackson found themselves tending wounds of their neighbors in a local church. Outraged by what the British had done and calling upon their ancestors legacy, Jackson and his brother's joined a patriot regiment. Unfortunately, one of Jackson's brother would die shortly after.

The fighting continued and Jackson ended up trapped by British forces in a family house with his brother Robert. The two were struck hard by swords and faced severe lacerations that led to them developing smallpox. Still infected with smallpox, they were held in a prison in Camden, SC. Robert would pass due to smallpox, but Jackson survived. After seeing he would live, Elizabeth went to Charleston to tend to wounded soldiers. While working with soldiers coming off of ships, Elizabeth contracted cholera and died. Andrew Jackson never knew where his mother was buried as she was buried by a friend who simply said she buried Elizabeth on a hill.

In 1942, a marker dedicated to Elizabeth Jackson was placed in Charleston near King Street Extension and Hariot Street. However, the monument received no care and eventually started to lean from the amount of people leaning on it while waiting for their bus to arrive. In 1967, it was moved to the College of Charleston where it can now be seen on Cougar Mall.

So, to answer the question, 'Who is Buried on C of C's Campus,' Elizabeth Jackson is not, but we still don't know exactly where she is buried.