Continued from December 30, 2020.
Fort Wool has a little-known association with U.S. presidents.
President Andrew Jackson, broken-hearted after the death of his wife and in ill-health, came to Fort Wool in the late 1820s and 1830s and, in effect, made the fort into his "White House." He built a hut on the island and spent time watching ships pass by.
He even made key policy decisions from there. Ironically, his Secretary of War, John C. Calhoun, had become the president's arch rival at this time, by threatening to pull South Carolina out of the Union. This was a move that Jackson effectively squelched, at least for the time being.
In the mid-1840s, President John Tyler took sanctuary on the island after the death of his first wife.
President Abraham Lincoln also visited the island.
--Old Secesh
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