Andrew Jackson was the seventh President of the United States, serving from 1829 to 1837. Born in 1767 in the frontier settlement of Waxhaws in South Carolina, Jackson moved to Salisbury, North Carolina in 1784 and received his license to practice law in 1787, beginning his practice in North Carolina's Western District in Washington County (now a part of Tennessee). In October 1788, he moved to Nashville, where he met his wife Rachel. After serving as the major general of the Tennessee militia for twenty years and earning recognition as a military leader in the War of 1812, Jackson was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1823 and to the presidency in 1828. After serving two terms as president, Jackson returned to the Hermitage, his Nashville home, in early 1837. Eight years later, in 1845, Jackson died at his home at the age of 78.

Edward Livingston was born in Clermont, New York on May 26, 1764, the youngest of the eleven children of Robert R. and Margaret (Beekman) Livingston. He married Mary McEvers on April 10, 1788 and had at least three children with her, Charles (1790-1802), Julia (1794-1813), and Lewis (1798-1821). After his wife died in 1801, he married Louise Moreau de Lassy in June of 1805 and they had Coralie in 1806. Livingston served as a representative from New York (1794-1801), as an assistant to Andrew Jackson during the Battle of New Orleans (1814-1815), as a representative from Louisiana (1823-1828), as a senator from Louisiana (1829), as Secretary of State (1831-1833), and as minster to France (1833-1835). He died on May 23, 1836 on the New York estate he inherited from his sister, Janet Livingston.