President Jackson Born Here, Maybe

Waxhaw, North Carolina

In 1910 North Carolina seized the initiative in the President Andrew Jackson birthplace battle when it unveiled a monument on what it said was the spot where he was born on March 15, 1767. This gave North Carolina three presidential birthplaces in all, including James K. Polk (just up the road) and Andrew Johnson.

And then North Carolina, perhaps smug with its three Presidents, did nothing. It stood by in 1928 when South Carolina unveiled a rival Andrew Jackson birthplace monument, just across the state line. It looked the other way in 1952 when South Carolina surrounded its monument with a state park. It turned a blind eye in 1967 when South Carolina unveiled a statue of Jackson in the park. After all these years, North Carolina still hasn't even cut a road to its monument from North Carolina; the only way to get to it is by driving from a highway in South Carolina. This embarrassing fact is exploited by South Carolina, which has a big sign at the turnoff pointing you away from it, and toward its park further south. There are no directional signs for the North Carolina monument at all.

In fact, the only improvement to the monument since 1910 is a solitary bench, added in 1986 as an Eagle Scout project. It does not appear as if many people have sat on it.

The monument stands at the dead-end of an infrequently traveled road. It is engraved with a picture of the frontier cabin in which Jackson was born. Someone (probably not from North Carolina) has tried to chisel out the inscribed name of Andrew Jackson and the word "Here."