The estate
contained at that time somewhat more than a thousand acres, of which
four hundred were under cultivation and the remainder luxuriant
forest. Negro cabins stood here and there, and in one corner was a
little brick church which the proprietor had built for the solace of
his wife. In the center of a well-kept lawn, flanked with cedars and
oaks, stood the family mansion, the Hermitage, whose construction had
been begun at the close of the Seminole War in 1819. The building was
of brick, two stories high, with a double wooden piazza in both front
and rear. The rooms were small and simply furnished, the chief
adornment being portraits of the General and his friends, though later
was added the familiar painting of Mrs. Jackson. Lavasseur, who as
private secretary of La Fayette visited the place in 1825, was greatly
surprised to find a person of Jackson's renown living in a structure
which in France would hardly suffice for the porter's lodge at the
chateau of a man of similar standing. But western Tennessee afforded
nothing finer, and Jackson considered himself palatially housed.
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