Hans
Cite this Page
"Hans," White House Workers History Project, White House Historical Association, 2026, https://whha.whirlihost.com/Detail/workers/227.
- Position
- Gardener
- Years in President's House
- circa 1835
- Legal Status
- Free Person
- Gender
- Male
- Race/Ethnicity
- White
- Presidency
- Andrew Jackson
- Biography
- Hans was a German gardener that worked in Andrew Jackson’s White House. His name appears in only one known source about Jackson’s household. A recollection of Christmas at the White House in 1835 by Mary Emily Donelson Wilcox, the daughter of President Jackson’s niece and nephew Andrew and Emily Donelson, states: “Hans, the German gardener, whose stories about Rhine castles and Black Forest witches and fairies were even more relished than the fruit and flowers he brought upstairs every morning, said: ‘I’m sure Kris Kringle will come; he might forget some children, but not White House ones, though I think it strange he does not hang his pretty things on a green tree instead of stuffing them in ugly stockings. How I wish you could see the beautiful trees which the boys and girls in Germany trim and light on Christmas Eve, and where they gather to sing songs, play games and exchange presents. Heaven seems very near at those times.’ (1)
Beyond this recollection that was published decades later, Hans does not appear by name in any other known White House records or Jackson’s correspondence, and it is unclear how long he worked at the White House. - (1) This recollection was published by Mary Emily Donelson Wilcox in 1900, when she was an adult. She was born in 1829, and would have been about six years old in 1835. Therefore, her recollections may not be entirely accurate. Mary Emily Donelson Wilcox, Christmas Under Three Flags, (Washington, D.C.: The Neale Company, 1900), 20, 43.
- Birthplace
- Germany