In the dining room is to be seen the massive mahogany sideboard purchased by Mrs. Jackson in New Orleans when she and the General were returning from Florida, together with the table, chairs and other original furnishings of this room. Here also is displayed most of the Hermitage silverware, including the silver formerly belonging to Commodore Decatur, engraved with his coat of arms, which was purchased from his widow by Jackson in 1833 when she was in reduced circumstances. The General bought from Mrs. Decatur for $350 her china and silverware, but he presented the china and two silver fruit baskets to Mrs. Emily Donelson, giving the remainder of the silver to “my daughter, Sarah Jackson.” When Commodore Decatur was killed in his duel with Captain Barron it left his wife in financial distress. One of her impatient creditors brought suit against her which, to use her own words, “frightened all the trades people with whom I have any little dealing and makes them more pressing for payment;” and the General’s check for $350 gave her very welcome relief. The dining-room fireplace is featured by the celebrated Eighth of January mantelpiece, a rustic affair built of pieces of rough hickory by one of Jackson’s veterans of the Battle of New Orleans who made it as a monumental labor of love, working on it all by himself and working only on successive anniversaries of the battle until he got it finished on January 8, 1839. The General entered into the spirit of the thing and installed it in this room, with suitable ceremonies, on January 8, 1840. It is now in a rather dilapidated condition, thanks to the depradations of souvenir hunters in the early days before the present iron railing was built. The floor in the dining room is a reproduction, the only floor in the house not original. This room, however, had been used for years as a storeroom when the association took over the property and the flooring was ruined. An oak floor was laid to replace it; but in 1931 this was removed and a floor of wide poplar boards was built to correspond with the original. All the floors in the house are made of poplar, except the porch floors which are native Tennessee red cedar and which constitute a striking tribute to the durability of this wood.