USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Concord > Handbook, Concord Antiquarian society, Concord, Massachusetts > Part 5
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
On the other side of the window we come upon a pathetic bit of family history in the dedication of the work of Mary Ann Barry, 1812, to "Lu- cretia Thayer Barry died Oct. 25, 18 10 Aged 9 months," and to "Lucre- tia Barry Second Died November 15th 1811 Aged 9 Weeks." The piece shows the usual despondent lady weeping at an urn beneath a drooping willow, its excellent needlework and composition testifying to the quality of the teaching at Mrs. Rowson's Academy.
An unusually fine sampler embroidered in several flat and drawn fabric stitches hangs over the table across the room. The design is an Occidental version of the Tree of Life, showing at its roots the united hearts of David and Sarah Townsend, "Married 1733-Nov. 23," and on the tree nine apples, each inscribed with the name and date of a child of the marriage. The fourth child, David Townsend, married Abigail Wellington, whose sampler hangs near by.
The corner cupboard contains Sino-Lowestoft in sprigged and classic designs, later, on the whole, than those in Room II. In the center of the lower shelf is the cake plate from the Knox set of Cincinnati china re- ferred to in the notes on Room 7. An excellent example of the numerous designs in the Adam manner popular in this country throughout the first quarter of the nineteenth century is the blue banded tea set on the second shelf. A beautiful pair of cups and saucers with black armorial decora- tion on the third shelf show the superior quality of some of the ware produced for the more discriminating trade of Europe. They were bought in France, and came from the family of William Dawes, who
[ 49 ]
rode with Revere on the night of April 18, 1775. Another Dawes heir- loom is the fine cellarette on the table to the right. Both were given to the Society by Mrs. Arthur Holland, formerly of Concord.
Room 12 THE McINTIRE ROOM 1800-1810
The Architecture
This room is in the style of Samuel McIntire, wood carver and archi- tect of Salem, whose influence is apparent in the architecture of this part of New England throughout the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Although the inspiration of McIntire's work was obviously Adam, there is about it a freshness and freedom from the stereotyped which lend it a charm peculiarly American. While conforming to the Adam precepts of classical arrangement and attenuated proportions, he employed the orders freely and unconventionally, introducing into his work a number of original decorative motives and arrangements which have become ir- revocably associated with his name. Of these the most characteristic is the American eagle, popular symbol of American freedom, without which no gathering or function of the early eighteen-hundreds was com- plete. A number of eagles boldly yet delicately carved are found in the wood trim or surmounting the roofs of houses in Salem on which he is known to have been engaged.
While it is not believed that McIntire himself worked outside Salem, there are several houses in Concord which testify to the propriety of having a room in his style in this house. The mantel here came from a house in Roxbury once occupied by John Singleton Copley. The rest of the room is made up from details copied from the house on Bridge Street, Salem, built by McIntire about 1786.
The Furnishings
The coloring of the room was dictated by the predominance of these colors in many of the fabrics of the period. The wall paper is a copy of a French paper of the Directorate, showing the classic influence
[ 50 ]
THE MCINTIRE ROOM
-
--
YTT
increasingly prevalent on the Continent during the first quarter of the century. The woodwork repeats in color a tone in the background of the paper similar to that found on several original McIntire rooms.
The window curtains are modern, hung in a modified version of a Sheraton design, their weave approximating that of the old French blue brocade of the chair cushions. The glass curtains are an effort to suggest by means of modern materials the sheer India muslins so popular throughout the early nineteenth century. The trimming repeats the characteristic ball motive seen in the woodwork and underneath the cornice of the mirror between the windows.
The furniture shows both Hepplewhite and Sheraton influence. An interesting group in the latter style as interpreted in Salem includes the sofa to the right of the entrance and the sewing table across the room. These pieces, and seven others still in Billerica, were made in Salem early in 1810 as part of the wedding furniture of Miss Lucy Hill of Billerica, great-grandaunt of Mrs. Warren Stearns of that town, from whom these pieces are on loan.
Fortunately Miss Lucy's letters and receipted bills have all been care- fully preserved in the family, so that this furniture is as fully docu- mented as any we know. A group of letters which passed between her and her friend Sally Hemenway, wife of Dr. Samuel Hemenway, her Salem agent, tell a charming story of the hopes and fears of the bride, of her plans for the wedding, the furnishing and decorating of her house, and the stocking of the kitchen and pantries. Through these we are able to identify her cabinetmaker as Nehemiah Adams of Salem, maker of the handsome labelled secretary now in the Pennsylvania Mu- seum, and, by comparison of these pieces with others known to have come from Salem, to establish certain definite characteristics of his work. The graceful ringed and reeded legs, the high, delicately swelled and ta- pered foot, and the use of rare and unusual woods for inlay in geometric forms, as seen on the pieces in this room, are all features of a large group of so-called Salem Sheraton attributable to him.
The sofa shows the carved decoration generally attributed to Mc- Intire, whose services as expert carver may have been engaged by sev- eral Salem cabinetmakers. Across the center of the top rail one of the
[ 51 ]
famous Salem eagles takes the place of the more usual basket of fruit and flowers. Although a number of these Salem sofas are known, only one other, recently in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, has this coveted feature. The covering is of course a late replacement. "I have purchased a brocade gown for your soffa at thirteen Dollars exactly Such a one as Rebecca Pierce gave fifteen for," wrote Sally Hemenway to her Billerica friend. Thus we know something of the original covering, and may hope some day to find another gown worthy to take its place.
Hepplewhite influence predominates in the other furniture in the room. Two characteristic card tables, having the straight, tapered legs and delicate inlay associated with that style, are shown. One came from Daniel Brown (1738-1796); the other and more graceful example be- longed to Tilly Merrick, who married Sally Minot in 1798. Merrick, who had been influential in the mercantile world outside Concord, and was connected with the embassy of John Adams in both France and Holland, "kept store" here in his later years. His epitaph commends him among other things for having "had an excellent art in family government." A fine pair of shield-back chairs came from Sara Dutch of Salem, who married Luther Parks of Concord, and was the grand- mother of the late Mrs. Caleb Wheeler. The tall clock belonged to Lucinda Rogers, who married Thomas Wesson in 1809. The piano was made by Dodds and Klaus of New York for the Whitney family of Concord, who owned it about 1804.
The sofa on the far side of the room shows an interesting and charac- teristic combination of both Hepplewhite and Sheraton features. It be- longed to Samuel and Susan (Hudson) Barrett, who married in 1811, and who also owned the graceful little "fancy" chairs about the room. Charming these must have been in their original coloring of light blue and gold, traces of which may still be seen through the somber decoration of a later and less joyous generation. No less charming the profile of their youthful mistress cut by William Doyle of Boston about the time of her wedding, and now to be seen hanging above the Barrett sofa.
Engravings recalling the triumphs of our struggle for independence, and glorifying its heroes, were extremely popular at this time, and were
[ 52 ]
supplied in numbers by both English and American publishers. Two typical examples are hung in this room, "The Battle at Bunker Hill near Boston," engraved by I. G. Muller, and "The Death of General Mont- gomery," engraved by J. T. Clemens, both from paintings by Trumbull, published in London in 1798.
Numerous forms of minor art were practised by the ladies of this period, whose work sometimes attained to a surprising degree of excel- lence. A velvet stencil or theorum painting, hung over the mantel here, displays a fine sense of color and design unusual in any time. It was made by Miss Lydia Hosmer, probably about 1812.
Cut glass from Waterford and Cork in Ireland, and from the nu- merous factories of England, was imported in quantities throughout the period. A fine pair of side dishes on the mantel, having the cutting and bluish color usually attributed to Cork, belonged to Mary Jones, who was the wife of the Reverend Asa Dunbar, and grandmother of Henry Thoreau.
The lady's profile, strong but kindly, hangs above them in a black wooden frame, facing the profile of her second husband, Jonas Minot. Both were cut and signed by William King of Salem sometime between 1804 and 1809. On either side of them are the portraits of Samuel and Theresa Coates, the latter painted in India ink and touched with gold, delineating with unusual care the details of a lady's costume of the peri- od. Such silhouettes are rarer in America than either the hollow-cut or the cut-and-pasted types, numbers of which must have adorned the walls and mantelshelves of that day, and many of which have survived to tell the story of the moods and manners, the costumes, and even the home surroundings of our forebears.
[ 53 ]
Room 13 THE EMPIRE ROOM c. 1825
Towards the close of the first quarter of the nineteenth century the influence of the styles of the French Empire became increasingly appar- ent here. In architecture a growing interest in Greek classic forms re- sulted in a return to the proportions of Greek temples and a careful copying of Greek architectural elements. The furniture shows a gradual thickening and coarsening of design in which rigidly classic forms pre- dominate.
The Architecture
The woodwork of this room came from a house in Plymouth, Massa- chusetts, where the studding was of course higher than in our house. In spite of the consequent change in proportions, the room has much of the feeling of the period represented by several houses on Main Street in Concord, and by the houses built at the time Beacon Hill in Boston was developed. The mantel came from the old Paul Revere Tavern, which stood for many years opposite the railway station in Lexington Center. The coal grate, the last step in heating efficiency before the advent of the "base burner," came out of a house on Beacon Hill.
The Furnishings
The wall paper is an old paper of appropriate design which had been stored unused in a Concord attic for many years. The window draperies came from the same attic, and are of a material substantially later in date than the room, although harmonious with it in feeling. The metal cornices and tie-backs are of the period, and have been in the collection for many years.
The furniture shows the gradual development of the Empire style from late Sheraton types to the substantial proportions and elaborate ornament of pieces under full influence of Napoleonic taste. An excel- lent example of the latter is the French clock on the mantel, bought in 183I at an auction of the effects of Joseph Bonaparte, eldest brother of
[ 54 ]
THE EMPIRE ROOM
Napoleon, who lived in the United States between the years 1815 and 1832. The alabaster columns and drapery swags, the gilded lions and the eagle, emblem of Napoleonic Empire, are all characteristic motives of the period.
Earlier developments mark the clear transition from Sheraton. The painted "fancy" chair belonged to Colonel Daniel Shattuck (1790- 1867). The piano came from the Hildreth family, formerly of Con- cord, who built the brick house, beloved of architects, on the corner of Lowell and Barrett's Mill Roads. Inlaid above the keys is the name of the maker,
JOHN KEARSING & SONS NO 279 BOWERY LANE NEW YORK
who worked at this address between the years 1802 and 1820, and no doubt made the piano soon after the brick house was completed.
The side chair near by is in the style made famous in New York by the work of Duncan Phyffe, and developed along similar lines by cabinetmakers of skill in both Boston and Philadelphia. It came from a fine set of twenty-four chairs and two long tables made sometime in the eighteen-thirties for Dr. John Homans of Boston.
A good example of the full-blown Empire style as interpreted in New England is the card table by the fireplace, showing the rather heavy reeded leg and acanthus carving found on numerous pieces of the pe- riod. It belonged to the Stowell brothers of Concord, grandsons of the Captain George Davidson whose portrait hangs in Room 10. The ex- uberant curves of the copper coffee urn from the Winthrop family are also typical of the period.
An attractive piece having the gracefully scrolled arms and classic proportions of the Empire style at its best is the sofa from the Old Manse, once the property of the Reverend Ezra Ripley, minister of the church in Concord from 1778 to 1841. The pineapple carving, so grace- less in its decadent form, is here seen as an attractive feature of a well- balanced design.
Dr. Ripley's silhouette, a copy of an original owned by a Cambridge descendant, hangs on the left wall, together with a certificate authoriz-
[ 55 ]
ing Miss Mary Chambers to teach school, written and signed by Ripley. Testifying as well to his pupil's unusual charm is the delicately cut pro- file which hangs below.
Another interesting profile is that of Margaret Fuller, early feminist and journalist, sister-in-law of Channing the poet, friend of Emerson and Thoreau, and heroine of Hawthorne's The Blithedale Romance. Her portrait, now over the piano, was cut and stamped by Henry Wil- liams, who worked in Boston and died there in 1830. His work is now extremely rare.
Above the sofa hangs the portrait of Dr. Josiah Bartlett (1759- 1820), well-known Concord physician, and forebear of one of the founders of this Society.
The gentle arts of needlework and brushwork with which the ladies of the early part of the century had engaged their leisure hours were practised in this period to the point of deterioration. No finishing school but devoted a large part of its teaching to these ladylike arts, and no well-brought-up young woman but had a masterpiece or two to her credit by the time she had reached the age of marriage. An example of the ex- quisite meticulousness of some of the work done is seen in the water- color drawing on the wall near the hall door, painted by Miss Harriet Pratt of Concord in 1834.
Appreciably less painstaking is the needlework near the chimney piece, wrought by Miss Charlotte Julien, daughter of the famous Julien whose "Restorator" was the first public eating house in Boston. She died in Concord in 1845 at the age of fifty.
A pair of flower pieces across the room are the work of Miss Harriet Moore, daughter of Abel Moore, whose wing chair is in Room 7.
[ 56 ]
.
THE THOREAU ROOM
Room 14 THE THOREAU ROOM
The small slant-ceilinged room adjoining the Empire Room contains personal effects of Henry Thoreau acquired for the most part directly from his sister Sophia, who lived to recognize his genius and understand in part the importance of all things associated with his life. The nucleus of the collection was in his room at their mother's house at the time of her death, and was purchased from Miss Sophia for the Society soon after that event. A smaller but equally important collection came from the family of Thoreau's old friend Daniel Ricketson of New Bed- ford, who had had it from the same source. The few additional articles which have come to the Society from time to time had been preserved in families long associated with the Thoreau tradition in Concord.
Many of these things have been treasured for their association with the hut at Walden Pond where "for two years and two months" from July 4, 1845, Thoreau lived and worked and dreamed. "I went to the pond," he wrote in Walden, "because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could learn what it had to teach." The spyglass, his companion on many a nature-study ex- pedition, a few books, and his beloved flute, would certainly have been with him there. "In warm evenings," he wrote, "I frequently sat in the boat playing the flute, and saw the perch which I seemed to have charmed hovering around me." "Our Pan," Louisa May Alcott called him in a poem dear to Concord, written at the time of his death. The flute and glass lie now on the small table at the foot of his bed. Near by is an æolian harp which he owned and which he may have made. While we have no direct evidence that he had it at Walden, it is pleasant to im- agine it there, in the open window, while the wind played the eerie music that he loved, kindred in spirit to his own.
Of the furniture at Walden, Thoreau wrote, "My furniture, part of which I made myself ... consisted of a bed, a table, a desk, three chairs, a looking-glass three inches in diameter, a pair of tongs and andirons, a kettle" (and various other household utensils). The desk and chairs and crude caned bed in this room are traditionally part of these furnishings.
[ 57 ]
The Pembroke table came to us with the same documentation, although Thoreau wrote of his table as "my three-legged table." The desk and bed were no doubt of those pieces which he made himself. Of the chairs he wrote, "There is plenty of such chairs as I like best in the village garrets to be had for taking them away." And more poetically, "I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society." But, "I have no curtains, for I have no gazers to shut out but the sun and moon, .. . " "A lady once offered me a mat, but I had no room."
This room of course makes no pretense of reproducing the Walden hut. But the Society believes that in its bareness and simplicity it repre- sents something of the life that Thoreau lived there, and much of the man himself. The portrait over the bed is the likeness of his brother, his nearest friend and his companion in The Week on the Concord and Mer- rimack Rivers. The books are his favorite ones, some of them annotated in his hand. On the desk are his draughting instruments, used in the intermittent pursuit of his trade as surveyor. His surveyor's chain is on the table near the entrance, and on the walls are three signed survey maps made for customers sometime after he left Walden. His snow- shoes, and his walking stick, notched for measuring, are in a corner by the window. On the desk is the last pen with which he wrote.
Thoreau's interest in the emancipation of the slaves and in the under- ground railway which ran through Concord is well known. The china figurine of Uncle Tom and Little Eva on the table here is said to have been given him by a fugitive slave whom he had helped to escape. He was a warm friend of John Brown, whose autographed photograph stands on the larger table.
Descriptions of Thoreau's appearance have varied: The only portrait purporting to show him in youth, with features either idealized or drawn before they became harsher and more prominent with age and habitual exposure, was purchased at auction in 1934 by friends of the Society, and now hangs over the desk in this room. On the stretcher of the can- vas is Thoreau's name and the date, 1839, when he would have been twenty-two years old. A photograph near by, taken from a daguerreo- type made much later in life by Maxham at Worcester, shows him as
[ 58 ]
MODEL OF THE CONCORD FIGHT
he was long remembered in Concord, at the height of his powers, when he had begun to know the appreciation which has strengthened with each succeeding generation.
The second floor stairway came from a house in Salem, and was in- stalled here without essential change. The paint is the original. The stairs lead to the model of the Concord Fight on the third floor, which may be seen through the door on the right.
THE MODEL OF THE CONCORD FIGHT
BY ALLEN FRENCH
This model was designed to show with great exactness and yet with picturesqueness how the fight at the North Bridge in Concord took place on the morning of April 19, 1775. It was the work of several months, devoted to securing not merely lifelikeness, but also accuracy both in the larger features of the scene and in detail.
In the foreground stand the British regulars, their squads disposed in column to defend the bridge against the advancing Americans. One squad has already fired, and, having separated to right and left, is march- ing with empty guns to the rear, where they will form, load, and wait their turn to fire again. Part of the smoke of their discharge hangs in the bushes to the right of the column. The second squad is ready to fire, the front rank kneeling, the second rank stooping, and the third upright. The three ranks are "locked," or standing close together. In the second rank the man on the left is hit, and is crumpling down. Beside the squad stands Captain Laurie of the Forty-third Regiment, with sword upraised, about to give the command to fire. Behind them in column stand the re- maining troops, waiting their turn. (Not all of them are shown: there were probably more than a hundred British.) The men are all in individ- ual attitudes: one is on tiptoe watching the Americans. An ensign with a flag stands to the right of the column, and another officer can be distin- guished.
[ 59 ]
These regulars stand in a lane bordered by stone walls and overhung by an elm. By the river bank are bushes. Nearer is a field, realistically appearing to show stubble and ploughed ground. In it stands Lieutenant Sutherland, whose recently discovered narrative tells this part of the story. He is ordering two privates to fire.
Beyond the British runs the river spanned by the bridge. The latter runs diagonally across the scene, and unless a spectator takes a position to look along it, he fails to notice the clever narrowing of the bridge. At the farther end are but a few free-standing figures. Nearest stands Major John Buttrick with upraised gun, giving his famous order, "Fire, fellow soldiers, for God's sake, fire!" Beyond him lies the fallen Captain Isaac Davis of Acton, and near by is an American farmer striding down to the river bank to get a fair shot at the British.
Except for some bushes and landscape accessories, all the rest is painted on a semicircular background which closes in the scene. So well have the sculptors wielded the brush that the two parts of the landscape seem one. The painted part shows roads and river, hills and trees, and the clouds overhead, and also the American column as it marches down the hill, turns a corner, and comes to the bridge. From it are already breaking out puffs of smoke, and in the nearer ranks Abner Hosmer is seen falling.
This excellent work was made by Samuel Guernsey and Theodore B. Pitman of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and stands comparison with any other model of the sort. Every figure is individually made, no two atti- tudes are the same, and every face has its appropriate expression. The landscape is remarkable, the foreground trees and bushes are perfect, and the landscape background is brilliant. For the whole scene the sculp- - tors depended largely on the engraving of 1775 by Amos Doolittle, a copy of which hangs downstairs. This gave the landscape features of the time, the shape of the bridge, and the position of now vanished roads. A study followed of the terrain, which in a century and a half has been little altered. Next it was important to have the British uniforms accu- rate. For these, the sculptors used the advice of the librarians of the Brit- ish War Office, and also of Captain Oakes-Jones, a specialist in such mat- ters. The Americans had no uniforms, but came to the field in their ordi- nary working clothes, of which also a study had to be made. The posi-
· [ 60 ]
THE STUDY OF RALPH WALDO EMERSON
tions of the British are according to the tactics of "Street-Firing," which it has been proved they used at the bridge.
The model was the gift, in October, 1930, of Mr. Raymond Emerson.
In a passage leading to the far door of the Emerson Room is exhibited English transfer-printed ware of the first quarter of the nineteenth cen- tury, together with lustred wares and other tableware of later date. An interesting group shows the popular "cottage porcelain" painted or printed with country scenes, or with designs of religious or allegorical import. At the far end of the passage are two cases of early glassware, including a notable group of American drinking glasses, and a few good examples of South Jersey and Stiegel technique.
A map on the right wall gives the names and locations of Concord farms and residences in 1852.
Room 15 RALPH WALDO EMERSON'S STUDY
This room, which occupies a wing of its own on the ground floor off Room 8, provides a fitting climax to our series, embodying as it does the very essence of the literary and social life of Concord of the mid- nineteenth century. The dimensions of the room, the proportions, and even the orientation are identical with those of the original study in the old homestead across the road. The woodwork reproduces in every de- tail the woodwork of the original room, while the shutters are the old ones taken from it. The mantel is a clever copy of the original.
This room now contains the entire contents of the original study, and has been arranged by Emerson's grandchildren exactly as he left it. By the door hangs the calendar, turned, as he left it, to the year and month of his death. His portfolio lies on the table where he put it down. Beside it is the chair in which he sat and wrote, the portfolio on his lap. Along one wall are his books, many of them first editions, all of them priceless for their association with the poet-philosopher and for his frequent annotations; and on the other walls hang the portraits of his
[ 6] ]
friends and relatives and the philosophers whom he admired. An ex- quisite miniature painting of his first wife, Ellen Tucker Emerson, stands on the mantelshelf near the door. Many a pilgrimage from many a distant land has been made to Concord to see this room alone.
[ 62 ]
No. 1. SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY ROOM No. 2. PINE-CEILED ROOM No. 3. CRANE ROOM No. 4. RELIC ROOM
No. 5. GREEN ROOM
No. 6. QUEEN ANNE ROOM
No. 10. YELLOW BEDROOM
No. 11. REEDED ROOM
No. 12. McINTIRE ROOM
No. 13. EMPIRE ROOM
No. 15. EMERSON STUDY
No. 14. THOREAU ROOM
MODEL OF CON- CORD FIGHT ON THIRD FLOOR
-
ROOM Nº5
ROOM Nº 2
Nº 14 THOREAU
ROOM
ROOM Nº 4
ROOM Nº3
ROOM Nº13
ROOM Nº10
Nº 15
ROOM.Nº%
EMERSON STUDY
UP
Nº 9
ROOM Nº 8
ROOM Nº 7
ROOM Nº 12
ROOM Nº11
ALCOVE
SECOND FLOOR PLAN
FIRST FLOOR PLAN
ROOM Nº1
No. 7. CHIPPENDALE ROOM
No. 8. REVOLUTIONARY BEDROOM
No. 9. ENTRANCE HALL
G
8/31/2018 435128 5 26 00
HF GROUP - IN
-
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.