Traditional Hand Ground Paint in the Stair Passage

We are on the home stretch in the Northwest Stair Passage. Each time I visit the project it looks a little closer to completion and its final designation as a functioning staircase. One of the most recent exciting activities that occured was the application of traditional hand ground linseed oil paint.

This paint was made by Erica Sanchez Goodwillie of Clinton, NY. Erica also spent a week here at Stratford Hall applying this special paint with the help of Jack Fisher of Plains, VA. The hand ground paint was made by hand grinding the pigments in the linseed oil. The pure pigments were then mixed with more linseed oil until a color match was achieved. At this point more linseed oil and chalk were added to extend the paint. Then, when it comes to applying the paint, it is a completely different beast than modern paint. When applying the paint you must be sure all surfaces are properly prepared or the paint will "flash," which means the paint loses its appropriate gloss. You must also be sure not to apply the paint too thick or it will wrinkle. These are only a couple of the differences between hand ground paint and paint we use today.

The colors used in this space were identified through Cross-section Paint Microscopy, done by Susan Buck of Williamsburg, VA. This is a process of taking small samples of paint and using a powerful microscope to analyze the paint history of the room's elements. We were lucky to have enough paint history retained in areas to provide us with an accurate representation of how the Stair Passage would have been painted during Light Horse Harry's time.

In the lower space of the Stair Passage, all the woodwork--including the chair rail, door archtraves and the mantel--was painted a light gray color. The stair elements (hand rail, balusters, risers) will be painted a "Spanish Brown". All the baseboards in the Stair Passage will be painted a dark black-brown. The most exciting color that was identified during the paint analysis was on the main floor woodwork. The color that was identified to be in place was Verdigris--this is a bright vibrant green color that you would have found in the nicer homes of this time period.

The processes of discovering the paint colors, having the paints made, and having them applied has been very exciting. I am looking forward to seeing this space complete with all the colors and woodwork in place, and I'm also very excited to hear the responses from you and our visitors to this restored space.

The Lees and Independence

It's early for me to be posting something about an event in June, but I want to make sure you all mark your calendars! On Saturday, June 5, 2010, we will be presenting our annual Lees and Independence event at Stratford Hall. This free event commemorates the day when Richard Henry Lee made the motion for independence from England, which is arguably as important as the Fourth of July.

This year’s Lees and Independence event will take place in the late afternoon, beginning at 3pm. This event is free and will be fun for all ages! Our activities include:

- A Revolutionary War encampment and firing demonstrations by the 2nd Virginia Regiment

- Fun children's activities, including signing the Declaration of Independence with a quill pen; getting a photo taken in colonial costume; and colonial games with the Rappahannock Colonial Heritage Society

- A 5:30pm talk and book signing by Albert Tillson, author of Accommodating Revolutions: Virginia's Northern Neck in an Era of Transformations, 1760-1810. Tillson’s talk will be entitled “The Abduction of the Atwell: A Northern Neck Incident of the Revolutionary War.” His lecture is based upon a small set of documents he found after completing his book. These documents deal with two deserters from the British army who made their way into Westmoreland County in September 1779 and met two local loyalists who urged them to kidnap the commander of the Westmoreland militia and steal a sizable quantity of money from Richard "Squire" Lee, then join with a group of John Tayloe's slaves, seize Robert Carter's ship, the Atwell, and sail off to rejoin the British forces. Although ultimately unsuccessful, they did in fact implement much of the plan.

The Lees and Independence event culminates in a concert by the 380th Army Band out of Richmond, VA. This concert will be at 7:00pm. Bring your lawn chairs or blankets to sit in front of the Great House and enjoy the music of the 380th Army Band, which served as an integral part of the 80th Division (Institutional Training) as the 80th Division Band for many years. The band was initially constituted on August 2, 1943 as the 80th Infantry Division Band and activated on August 12, 1943 at Murfreesboro, Tennessee. The band received the Meritorious Unit Citation for service in the European Theater during World War II with Campaign Participation credit in Northern France, Rhineland, Ardennes-Alsace, and Central Europe. The Band was relieved from assignment to the 80th Division, reorganized, and re-designated October 16, 2008 as the 380th Army Band.

(Please note: If it rains, the concert will be held in the Council House, and admission will be on a first-come, first-serve basis.)

Come and join us for a fun time!

Interesting Collection Finds

Managing a library collection sometimes has its surprises, especially when you open a book and find little treasures saved within its pages. How many of us have ever used a photo or other piece of paper to mark a place in a book? And have forgotten to remove it after we finished with the book? Without a doubt, librarians over the years have encountered many pieces of "ephemera" (printed matter of passing interest, such as postcards, tickets, ads, etc.) inside volumes upon their return.

Luckily, my find was better than generic ephemera: two precious little watercolors painted by two young girls in 1858 and saved by their father, Charles M. Taynton, in one of his personal books. Each painting was carefully dated as to when it was painted and when its caption was written. Although my search for information about the family has been unsuccessful, I hope Mary and Phebe would be pleased that their father inadvertently saved their artwork for posterity.

A week in the work shop with the M-WTCA

 Last week we had the pleasure of hosting a group of members of the Mid-West Tool Collectors Association (M-WTCA).  This knowledgeable group had agreed to help us with the furnishing and installation of our work shop and were very eager to get the job done.  Using research collected regarding the skilled craftsmen who worked at Stratford in the 18th and early 19th centuries, a wish list of tools typical of an 18th-century work shop, and images of period work benches, the group was able to gather a donation of period tools appropriate for the shop as well as construct a reproduction work bench from native poplar.

Phil Baker and Jack Sciara of the group came armed with a plan for a reproduction work bench based on one in the shop of the Dominy family of East Hampton, New York (now at Winterthur Museum), as well as period paintings and illustrations. With help from our own Phil Mark and Doris Sciara, the team constructed a 14-foot work bench with back boards to hold tools.  Although they used modern saws and nailers for efficiency, they made sure to finish the wood with hand planes to take away any indication of modernity.

Meanwhile, Neil Bohnert, Henry Caudle, Herb Caudle, and Jim DePoy worked with our Collections staff to identify and assess the group of tools donated by M-WTCA members.  The men examined each tool, noting any maker or owner marks, recording time period, woods, and other important factors.  Through the members of the M-WTCA, Stratford Hall now possesses a group of 18th- and 19th-century woodworking tools of great quality - perfect for our plantation work shop.

With the exhibit set to open to the public on April 22nd, we still have some way to go:  Collections and Preservation staff still need to finalize tool donations, reinforce the bench top with reproduction rose-headed nails, and arrange the tools in the shop to mimic period images of working shops.  A big thank you goes to the M-WTCA and their contributions to this exhibit.  The progress made last week was invaluable to the display and what we hope to teach our visitors about skilled crafts at Stratford.

The Music of the Stratford Lees

Throughout my time serving as Stratford Hall’s director of education I’ve hoped to develop a program examining the music enjoyed—and performed—by the Stratford Lees. It is indeed a richly detailed subject. The 18th-century Stratford Lees shared with their Virginia friends a love of music and dance that stands out as a salient feature of their society. Especially in the grand days of Philip Ludwell Lee, their Great House resonated with music of great composers, while fair weather extended the entertainments to a roof-top platform as well as a barge on the Potomac.

It was not just in Virginia, however, or even in other colonies, where the Lees enjoyed some of the era’s best music. Studying law in London just before the Revolution, Arthur Lee took in the famous concerts of Carl Friedrich Abel and Johann Christian Bach. His merchant brother William Lee, also in London, wrote rapturously in 1771 of hearing performances by renowned French cellist Jean-Pierre Duport and violinist Maddalena Lombardini Sirmen, famed student of the Italian-Venetian master Giuseppe Tartini. It’s fascinating to imagine what concerts or operas the two heard while later serving as “militia diplomats” in France and elsewhere on the continent…heady stuff indeed!

Now, on the afternoon of Saturday, October 2, 2010 the Great Hall will again ring with “Music of the Stratford Lees,” through a program presented by The Four Nations Ensemble, a group internationally praised for their historically informed performances. (We’re coordinating research efforts with Four Nations harpsichordist, Andrew Appel, to ensure the most accurate possible selections. And fortunate blog followers here for the 2008 Great Hall performance of the highly acclaimed Muir Quartet will recall just what a fine venue this is!) There’s more however. This full day of “Lee Music” will begin in the morning with scholarly talks featuring Charleston, South Carolina historian and musicologist Dr. Nicholas Butler, author of Votaries of Apollo, the widely praised history of Charleston’s St. Cecilia Society.

Perhaps Dr. Butler can then tell us more of the fate of Philip Ludwell Lee’s runaway indentured servant, Charles Love. In an advertisement of October 6, 1757 in the Maryland Gazette, Lee noted of Love that “he professes Music, Dancing, Fencing, and he plays extremely well on the Violin, and all Wind Instruments.” Carrying with him a “very good Bassoon” belonging to Lee, it was “supposed he will make towards Charles-Town in South Carolina.” Did he make it to Charleston, or did someone claim the reward Lee offered of up to £10 if Love were “taken?” Indeed, as said before, the music of the Stratford Lees is a richly detailed subject. Look for further details soon.

Preservation Intern

After interning at Stratford Hall this past summer, I returned to the University of Vermont in the fall to finish up my masters degree in Historic Preservation. Since graduating, I’ve been on the job hunt and was asked to come back to Stratford for another internship this winter. Working again with Preservation Director Phil Mark, I have experienced a different side of the preservation world during this internship (not to mention more snow than I ever thought possible in the South!). Last time around, my tasks were mainly focused on the hands-on restoration of the estate, providing me with skills in window restoration, painting, plastering, repointing, and investigation of architectural features, among other things. This winter, my efforts have been focused on helping to compile research for the Historic Structures Report which is being created for the Great House by the firm of Mesick, Cohen, Wilson and Baker. Through archival research and physical investigation, the goal of the report is to tell the story of the house and how it has changed, architecturally, over time.

To help facilitate the process of creating this comprehensive report, I have been working in the archives to digitize resources which will be of most help to the firm. I began digitization with the correspondence of preservation architect Fiske Kimball, who worked on the restoration of Stratford Hall in the 1930s. In reading through all of his letters to various members of the board, contractors, and others, I have been able to understand more about the people who undertook the restoration. In those days, historic preservation standards did not exist like they do today; the National Historic Preservation Act was not even on the books until 1966. Consequently, those involved in the restoration tried to do what they thought was right for Stratford, yet had no standard by which to judge their actions. As a student of historic preservation, it has certainly been interesting to see the correspondence regarding certain preservation issues and the process by which certain decisions about the house were made. Though I have only just begun to really delve deep into these boxes and boxes of letters, I feel as though I have learned a great deal about the man behind the restoration of Stratford Hall.

In addition to digitizing the Kimball correspondence, I have assembled a collection of previous reports, paint analyses, drawings, sketches, photographs, etc. for the architectural investigation team so that they can be well-informed about what has already been reported about the Great House. Mark Wenger, of Mesick, Cohen, Wilson and Baker, recently visited to begin researching Stratford Hall. Along with archival research, he looked for places in the house where it would be advantageous for the team to set up probes to determine architectural history of certain rooms in question. The probes consist of removing plaster or trim work in order to see what is occurring in the wall underneath. Ghost marks, which are remnants of past architectural or structural features, can tell a lot about the history of the house. Wenger and the investigation team will be looking for these and other clues to help determine the chronology of the changes made within the house.

Through working with the team from Mesick, Cohen, Wilson, Baker, I anticipate learning a lot more about architectural investigation and the clues that tell important details about a house. The valuable knowledge I gain through this internship will certainly help me as an emerging preservation professional after I leave Stratford Hall and venture forth into the “real world.” Until then, it’s back to learning all that I can while I’m here and, of course, sending out all those resumes and cover letters.

Please note: the photo of Fiske Kimball comes from the following source: http://www2.lib.virginia.edu/finearts/exhibits/fiske/bio/index.html

Archaeology Intern

Material culture, or the artifacts recovered from archaeological excavations, act as windows into the lifeways and mentalities of those who came before us. The act of unearthing something that hasn’t been held in two hundred years is really an indescribable experience and is what I love about archaeology. I hope to bring the same passion that I feel on a dig to my archaeology internship at Stratford Hall.

The main priority of my internship project here at Stratford is to re-house the archaeological artifacts that currently reside in the basement of the Council House. They include artifacts from J. Paul Hudson’s excavations in the Mill Field from 1969 to 1975, and Fraser Neiman’s excavation of the Clifts Plantation in the Mill Field (44WM33) from June 1976 to January 1978, as well as numerous other artifacts that have been found at Stratford over the years. Working with Sarah Holland, the Collections Manager at Stratford, I’ve come up with the proper supplies needed for long-term storage of these artifacts. Thankfully, many of these items were conserved post-excavation. Therefore, despite the amount of time that has passed since their unearthing, most are still in a fairly stable condition, and will remain so with proper storage conditions.

Another goal of my internship is to catalog each and every artifact that is recovered from the Council House basement in as much detail as possible, with the expectation that the information will someday be expanded upon and entered into the Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery (or DAACS). This database, based in the Department of Archaeology at Monticello, is an invaluable resource for the interpretation of the slave-based society that developed in the Chesapeake, Carolinas, and Caribbean throughout the colonial period. It provides the researcher with comprehensive archaeological data from several sites within these regions that were at some point associated with slavery. Stratford Hall actually has one site, ST116, entered into DAACS, but the hope is to contribute more in an effort to further our understanding of the lifeways of enslaved peoples. For more information on ST116, an earthfast slave dwelling excavated by the Mary Washington College Field School, one can view its entry by Dr. Douglas Sanford.

Currently, I am going through the artifacts catalogued by J. Paul Hudson, which include both the artifacts he and the Archaeological Society of Virginia, Williamsburg Chapter, found in the Mill Field and those that had been recovered prior to that (about 7,000 total). Hudson, who at the time was a member of the Executive Board of the Archaeological Society of Virginia, recovered most of his finds from surface collections, though several hundred came from more intensive excavations, which revealed a root cellar (MF-1) and a refuse pit (RP-1). Though the majority of artifacts in Hudson’s inventory are from the 19th century, they also run the gamut from Native American spear points to 18th century English Buckley earthenware to a 20th-century Stratford Hall souvenir cup (complete with the Stratford squirrel!). So, while I’ve gone through less than half of the artifacts at this point, I’ve already been privy to material culture from all stages of occupation of the area that is now Stratford Hall. 

Being a ceramic fanatic, my favorite find so far has been the Josiah Spode stone china transferware plates in the Temple pattern, manufactured from 1805 to 1830 (see picture). These could have been used by the Lees, who lived at Stratford Hall until 1822. While not as expensive as Chinese porcelain—which this blue and white, chinoiserie style earthenware attempted to emulate—this was by no means an inexpensive tableware, and demonstrates that either the Lees or the Somervilles were purchasing items with a certain amount of social cachet.

Next, I’ll be moving on to the artifacts recovered from Frasier Neiman’s excavations at Mill Field. Neiman, the current Director of Archaeology at Monticello, did much more extensive excavations, which led to the discovery of the Clifts Plantation. The land was owned by the Pope family from 1656 until its sale to Thomas Lee in 1718. Built in 1670, and expanded upon throughout the next 60 years, the Clifts was occupied by tenants until 1730, when it was demolished by Thomas Lee. As I’ve been working mainly with artifacts from the late-18th and 19th centuries, I’m anxious to explore the earlier ones recovered from Neiman’s excavation of the Clifts.

So, for the remainder of my internship, I anticipate a lot more tongue testing (best way to figure out what kind of pottery you have in your hand!) and the rediscovery of some awesome artifacts.