The Heart of the Household

While living in the house in front of you, Andrew Johnson purchased his first slave, fourteen-year-old Dolly, in 1842 after she was scheduled to be sold at auction and, according to her son William Johnson, asked him to buy her. The bill of sale is for Dolly’s twelve-year-old brother Sam, whom Johnson also bought. Dolly, her brother Sam, and Johnson’s other slaves worked in and around the house doing the family’s cooking, cleaning, and other domestic chores, and William Johnson recalled rising at four in the morning to make fires, shine boots, wait at the table, and wash dishes. Johnson believed in gradual freedom for slaves, and according to local tradition he freed his slaves, including Dolly and her family, on August 8, 1863. In 1864, as Tennessee’s Military Governor, he proclaimed freedom for all enslaved men in Tennessee a year before slavery was formerly abolished by the 14th amendment to the constitution.

Greeneville, Tennessee · United States