 Andrew Jackson Jr. struggled with alcoholism, and unlike his father, he was a terrible money manager. The prospect of Jr. taking over may have been enough to produce the wailing that Normand and others heard that spring day in 1845. If that was the reason for the enslaved people's sorrow, they were right to worry. Over the next 11 years, Jr. not only sold off the hermitage piece by piece, but he also sold many of them as well.