An Empty Grave?

The "Gravestone" of Elizabeth
Hutchinson in front of the
Robert Scott Small building.

On a campus centuries of years old you would think that there would be many mysteries yet to be discovered. You would be wrong. In front of the building I'm sitting in now there is a memorial of Elizabeth Hutchinson Jackson which is Andrew Jackson's mother. The stone reads that Hutchinson is buried near the spot of the stone but that couldn't be more wrong. But to know the story behind the burial you have to understand Elizabeth Hutchinson.

Through-out her life Hutchinson was very active in protecting her family and it eventually caused her death from cholera. She arranged a trade to release her two sons from a prisoner of war camp
on one occasion and on another she searched the Charleston harbor to find her nephews which was when she died.

This is a monument where Hutchinson is
believed to be buried in Waxhaw SC.

With such an influential woman you would think that we would know her place of burial or maybe even have a painting of her, you would be wrong. Hutchinson is surrounded by mystery and we know little about her life and even less about her burial. The stone that is at the College of Charleston now originally was about 2 and a half miles away from campus and was moved because it was being neglected in the location where it was according to a 2011 article posted by The Post and Courier. However the location of the monument isn't the strange part; no one knows where she is buried some think it is the original place of the marker others think it is located at College of Charleston and another group she is buried in Waxhaw South Carolina.

Even as her son Andrew Jackson became president he couldn't find her burial location and since then no one knows the true burial place of Elizabeth Hutchinson according to another article by History of American Women. Her burial is a mystery that lives on around the College of Charleston although not very well known it is still an interesting piece of history.