- The Tempest, Act II, Scene I

A consequence of the long, quiet winter season is a scarcity of news for this quarter’s newsletter.  However, the lack of activity did provide an opportunity to reexamine research collected during the 2018-2021 restoration for new insights.  One thing that stood out was how many of today’s concerns echo issues from the past. We look at two examples from the late eighteenth century.   The first is the challenge to Hemsley's business affairs posed by government-imposed tariffs and trade restrictions, combined with worries about physical safety arising from ongoing hostile actions against international shipping.

The second example is as old as the country, specifically Col. William Hemsley’s ongoing irritation with the price of postage and poor service provided by the U.S. Post Office.

The final story does not directly mirror current events but is relevant to growing concerns about violations of due process and civil rights by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). This troubling account involves the Hemsley family, though not the Hemsleys of Cloverfields, whose matriarch was kidnapped and subjected to human trafficking. It details Henny Hemsley's decades-long legal battle to free herself and her children from enslavement to George Walls of Queen Anne’s County, Maryland.

A Tale of Two Tariffs

Tariffs on imported goods dominated much of last year’s news. Free Trade agreements, with 20 countries only sometimes standing,  another 180 or so countries were hit with a baseline 10% duty on goods imported into the United States. In October, President Trump went so far as to threaten China, the nation’s chief economic competitor, with an additional 100% on top of existing duties.  The U.S. Supreme Court struck down the tariffs in February, and since the start of hostilities with Iran in March, investors have redirected their concern to attacks on shipping.    

More than two centuries ago, these same matters occupied the mind of William “Will” Hemsley, Esq. (1766-1825), who in 1798 contemplated giving up on his struggling legal career and traveling to China to pursue trade opportunities.  Upon realizing the complexities and dangers of Sino-American commerce, he abandoned the plan, concluding he “could derive no advantage in going.” [1]

By the time Hemsley came to this decision, American merchants had been operating at the highly regulated Chinese trading port of Canton for fourteen years.   Ships brought in American ginseng, furs, silver specie, and a few other Western goods that appealed to the self-sufficient Chinese market.  Vessels returned to the United States with luxury goods, including tea, silk, porcelain, and spices, which were in high demand and short supply since the American Revolution disrupted colonial trade patterns. [2]

Formidable barriers to entry, imposed mainly by the Chinese emperor but also obstacles created by the U.S. government and powerful mercantile syndicates, made access to markets difficult for independent interests such as Hemsley.

Will would be permitted to travel to Canton with the cargo he had purchased for export, but once he arrived, he would be confined with other foreigners outside the city and would have no say in negotiations. As Emperor Qianlong strictly limited interactions with Westerners, business was handled exclusively by the Supercargo, the ship’s designated businessman who acted on behalf of the investor’s interests, and the CoHong, the Chinese-authorized merchants. [3]  

Hemsley could come along for the ride and little else. For this, he had to pay £200 for his passage; the cost of freight, insurance, and duties on the goods he imported; living expenses in Canton; and a commission to the Supercargo on the sale of his goods. 

Additional costs awaited him back at home. In 1790, the first U.S. Congress passed the “Act Laying Duties on Imports.”  The Washington administration advocated for its passage using the same rationale as President Trump last April, arguing that, rather than harming the economy, tariffs would encourage domestic manufacturing and reduce the national debt. The bill passed and imposed import tariffs of 7 to 10 percent on goods brought into the country. [4]

Traveling to China also carried considerable personal risk.  In addition to the usual concern about being shipwrecked, pirates terrorized vessels around Canton.  Organized criminal gangs commanded hundreds of ships, extorting money from traders, which they sometimes styled as “wealth duties.”  In addition to pirates, both the British and French navies were blockading, attacking, and seizing American ships, each for reasons of their own.

Col. Hemsley,  concerned that his son would be captured, expressed relief that Will had given up on his plan, telling his brother-in-law, “I am in hope that something else will soon turn up to amuse his mind again and give him employment.” [5]

Postal Problems

This year, the nation celebrates its  semiquincentennial, a ponderous, Latin-derived word meaning “250th Anniversary.”   Predating the country it is named after by slightly less than a year was the United States Post Office, which was established in 1775. The Revolutionary government, in part to avoid trusting sensitive and potentially seditious writings to a British-controlled postal system, established a parallel delivery system for its communications.

Delegate Col. William Hemsley (1736-1812) attended the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia that appointed Benjamin Franklin of Philadelphia as the aspiring nation’s first Postmaster General.  Franklin brought to the position experience and certain trustworthiness, having recently been sacked from the same position by the British Crown for being too sympathetic to colonial grievances.

Despite Franklin’s credited improvements, complaints about the Post Office’s high cost and poor service are as old as the organization itself. As both the sender and recipient of countless letters, Hemsley was poised to be a valuable customer for the new service, yet it is clear from many of his writings that he consistently avoided using it whenever possible. The difficulty and expense of sending packages and letters are evident in a  1790 letter written to Philadelphia-based lawyer, Hemsley cousin, and future brother-in-law William Tilghman:

“D Sir I yesterday brought your box of goods as far as the post office at Chester Mill [near Centreville, Maryland] in hopes of getting it up by the stage, but the post rode down on horse back. [6]  It will be but three or four hours ride for Potter to go down in your sulky and bring it up. 

I imagine you got your letter yesterday by the post, as I did not know when a private opportunity would offer.  I thought you would rather pay the postage than not get your letter. I am D Sir yrs most afftly, Wm. Hemsley”

Hemsley practically apologizes to Tilghman for forwarding his letter by official post. [7]   That is because, prior to 1847, the receiver, not the sender, paid the cost.  When a letter arrived at the destination post office (usually located in an inn, store or tavern), the postmaster calculated the amount due based on the distance from the originating post office. The longer the distance, the greater the cost;  not unlike the price of long-distance telephone calls before wireless service. 

In this case, the postal carrier delivered Tilghman’s letter to Ben Franklin’s “B. Free Post Office” in his printshop at 316 Market Street, a distance of about 100 miles, at a cost to Tilghman of 10 cents.

Adjusted for inflation, that amount works out to about $3.50; considerably higher than the current 78¢ required to send a first-class letter, but more affordable than using an express service such as FedEx.   While short-distance letters cost less, the fee was not inconsequential. It cost 6¢ to claim a letter sent from thirty miles, or about $2.12 in present-day money.  

Keep in mind that in 1790, these amounts had significantly more purchasing power than they do today. Estate inventories illustrate this point. For example, appraisers valued the Queenware mustard pot of the late John Dunbracco at 6¢, the same amount as his half-dozen pewter tea spoons. They assessed the salt cellar and pepper box of the deceased Nathan Sparks at 4¢ each, and 6¢ to John McCallister’s collection of six sugar tongs. [7]

The recipient of many letters could buy a lot of tableware if they could make free or less costly arrangements with a traveling friend, merchant, or mariner. And because the cost was borne by the recipient, and a long letter cost as much to receive as a short note, brevity was not the “soul of wit,” but rather bad manners. 

A long, postage-worthy letter from Hemsley to Tilghman, written in September of 1797, begins with a complaint about mail delays “owing to the infernal arrangement of the post office,” before moving on to his intended actions on a wide range of business matters, including New York land speculation, pending interest payments, and possible stock purchases.

Without segue, he changes to a personal subject, confiding in Tilghman that “Being lately so long in Company with your Sister I feel such an attachment for her as induced me to make her a proposal to become one of my family,” and asked Tilghman to communicate his thoughts on the arrangement both to him and the prospective bride. [8]

Tilghman’s response does not survive, but he presumably viewed the match favorably, as the couple married two months later.

Henny Hemsley’s Fight for Justice

In 1817, the Court of Appeals of the Eastern Shore heard the appeal case of  Henny Hemsley and Children against George Wallis.  Henny Hemsley (b. 1791- ?), an enslaved woman owned by George Walls of Kentucky, but formerly of Queen Anne’s County, filed suit claiming that she was the daughter of a married, free-Black woman named Susan, who in 1791 had been kidnapped, sold, and forcibly removed to Queen Anne’s County.

Henny, through her lawyer, William Carmichael, argued that, as the daughter of a free woman, she and her children were legally entitled to freedom. [9]  

The case hinged on the testimony of eye-witness Greenbury Griffin. Griffin confirmed Hemsley’s claim. He told the court he had traveled with Captain James Sweat to Yorktown in the weeks leading to the surrender of the British forces at Yorktown, where he saw Susan “selling cakes and beer” at Gosport Shipyard and along the shore of the York River.  According to Griffin, several men captured Susan, forced her aboard Sweat’s vessel, and sold her to him.  

According to Griffin, Sweat told her “he would make her his wife,” and that Susan railed against him, insisting she was a free woman and already married. Griffin further testified that Susan’s long-held claim was common knowledge in the area. A second witness, John Denny, told the court that Susan had previously recounted the same story to his mother. [10]

Court records provide little information about Susan’s life after her abduction, recording only that she died enslaved to John Gibson of Queen Anne’s County. Unknown is how long Sweat forced Susan to remain with him and who fathered her children. Even her last name and date of death are left out.   

The jury found in Henny Hemsley's favor, but her victory was short-lived as Walls appealed the decision.  A new trial with a different jury was held in May 1818.  Although the judgment does not survive, Henny obviously prevailed again, as the county issued Certificates of Freedom for her and her children, Susan, Juliana, and Pricilla, later that month.

The elder Susan’s story provokes sadness over the violence and crimes inflicted upon her and anger that justice did not come during her lifetime.

And what about Henny? How was an enslaved Black woman able to persuade a lawyer to take up the case of a decades-old crime, let alone pay for his services? It seems likely Henny’s counsel, local lawyer William Carmichael (1775-1853), served pro bono. Carmichael held strong abolitionist sentiments that led him to free more than 130 of his family’s slaves between 1811 and 1839, making it one of the largest manumissions by a single family in Maryland’s history. [11]

Henny took a considerable risk in bringing legal action.  How did George Walls react to being sued? Was he the type of man to inflict violence on Henny for this action?  He had recently moved to Kentucky. Did she intentionally wait until he was gone out of fear for her safety?   And, of course, what connection, if any, does this Hemsley family have to the Hemsleys of Cloverfields? Nothing has yet been discovered to link the two. 

The Hemsleys of Cloverfields knew William Carmichael both personally and professionally. Will Hemsley, Esq. (1766-1825), and he were roughly the same age, and both were lawyers who were strongly opposed to slavery. The family certainly would have known about the controversial trial taking place only a few miles away. 

Beyond that, we will avoid speculation. This dramatic case raises many questions that, hopefully, additional research will eventually answer.

[1] William Hemsley to William Tilghman, February 5, 1799. William Tilghman Papers, Manuscript Collection 659, Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

[2] William R. Sargent,   America and the China Trade.  History Now, Issue 42, Spring 2015), https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/essays/america-and-china-trade.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Dael A. Norwood, Global Trade and Revolution:  The Politics of Americans’ Commerce with China. Omohundro Institute, December 2017, https://oieahc.wm.edu/publications/blog/global-trade-revolution.

[5] Hemsley to Tilghman, February 5, 1799.

[6] The U.S. Post Office handled only letter mail. Its successor, the Post Office Department, established the parcel post in 1913. Prior to that, packages were sent by public coach, private courier, or, after 1907, the United Parcel Service.

[7] Queen Anne’s County Inventory Records 1786-1791 Inventory of Nathan Sparks, December 12, 1788, p. 177. Family Search. https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GYMC-4JY?wc=SNYZ-82S%3A146534301%2C146806501%26cc%3D1803986&cc=1803986&lang=en&view=index&groupId.

[8] William Hemsely to William Tilghman, September 26, 1797. William Tilghman Papers, Manuscript Collection 659, Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

[9] Henny Hemsley and her Children vs. George Walls. June 1817. Queen Anne’s County Court of Appeals, Judgment Records of the Eastern Shore, Maryland State Archives MSA SC 4239. https://msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc5400/sc5496/051600/051634/html/51634bio.html.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Jack Shaum, Carmichael House in Centrevills has Many Links to Maryland History, MyEasternShoreMD, April 3, 2015, https://www.myeasternshoremd.com/news/queen_annes_county/carmichael-house-in-centreville-has-many-links-to-maryland-history/article_2164977e-5f1f-57a8-8f55-66d619e2a74e.html.

Floored: A Look at the Installation of the Final Floor Coverings for Cloverfields

By: Rachel Lovett, Furnishings Consultant

With the installation of the upstairs drawing room floor covering this past December, the Foundation completed the final phase of our greater effort to thoughtfully interpret and install appropriate floor coverings throughout Cloverfields. Each space has been approached with careful research and intention, and this last project allowed us to round out the story in a way that feels both historically grounded and practical for the house today.

In eighteenth-century America, straw and Canton matting offered a sensible alternative to costly imported carpets, providing a middle ground between bare floorboards and luxury textiles. Straw and rush mats, woven from local grasses, were widely used in households that wanted durability and insulation without the expense of wool carpeting, especially in high-traffic areas. Canton, or Indian matting, was imported from the East in long, woven strips with bound edges and became increasingly popular in the later eighteenth century. These mats were often recommended for summer use because they stayed cool underfoot, were easy to sweep, and did not hold dust like heavier carpets. Even in prominent homes such as George Washington’s Mount Vernon, matting can be seen in formal spaces like the New Room, where it protected wooden floors while still contributing to the overall appearance of refinement.

With that context in mind, we viewed the upstairs drawing room as a lively and functional space within the Hemsley household, appropriate for this type of floor covering. It was likely used for informal entertaining, games, and perhaps even lessons for the Hemsley children. Rather than introducing a heavy textile carpet, we wanted a durable area floor covering that would capture the look and texture of historic straw matting while standing up to modern visitation. After researching a range of possibilities and speaking with colleagues, Amanda Isaac, Curator of Fine and Decorative Arts at George Washington’s Mount Vernon for the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, recommended looking at sisal-style mats produced by companies such as Stark. These rugs replicate the appearance of grass matting but are woven with stronger fibers to ensure longevity. She also noted that the National Park Service has used similar products at several sites. Based on her guidance, we selected an eight-by-ten sisal rug from Stark in the Chinese Sea Grass pattern. The finished result nods to eighteenth-century seasonal matting traditions while providing the strength and durability required in a working historic house museum, and it is a piece we expect to use for many years to come.

Another recent addition to the floor coverings at Cloverfields was the installation of three bedside carpets in 2025 for the Hemsley Bedchamber, Guest Bedchamber, and Girls Room, recreated for Hemsley’s two daughters, Sarah and Henrietta, who would have been 6 and five respectively. For the floor covering, we installed a reproduction flat-weave, or “list,” carpet from Woodard and Greenstein.

Unlike costly imported Wilton and Brussels carpets, which were typically reserved for public parlors or drawing rooms, flat-weaves could be produced locally, were widely accessible, and were often used in bedchambers. Rather than covering the entire floor wall-to-wall, such carpets were commonly arranged as bedside rugs or in U-shaped configurations, as we chose for the main Hemsley Bedchamber, and the smaller area carpets for the Guest Bedroom and Girls' Room.

Downstairs, the Dining Room received a hand-painted floorcloth in August of 2024. This special area floorcloth was created by Betsy Greene of Baltimore. Greene is a decorative painter and has worked at several historic house museums, including notably doing the faux graining on the front door of the Hammond-Harwood House Museum in Annapolis. This floorcloth complements the Adelphi Jefferson Trellis wallpaper in the room and features a trellis with a green vine design on a white background, a Greek key border, and clovers at the four edges to honor the site’s name. The green paint is Southfield Green, from the Benjamin Moore Historic Collection.

In March 2025, the installation of a historically appropriate carpet in the parlor at Cloverfields marked the culmination of months of research, collaboration, and careful craftsmanship. The room has gained depth, cohesion, and a renewed sense of eighteenth-century presence.

This project was undertaken in collaboration with historic interiors consultant Jean Dunbar, who works in-house at Grosvenor Wilton, the distinguished English carpet manufacturer established in 1790 and widely regarded as the premier reproduction house for historic museum period rooms. The carpet was installed by Gfroerer Carpets, a firm founded in 1890 that specializes in museum-quality historic installations. Together, their expertise ensured that the final result was both historically grounded and technically exceptional.

Homes of the period often featured dark colors and vibrant patterns, including floral sprays and scrolling botanical motifs that visually anchored a room. Lighting options were limited to candles, fireplaces, and oil lamps, which created interiors that were intimate but often dim. Richly patterned carpets compensated for this constraint. Their depth of color and movement absorbed and animated available light, making spaces feel warmer and more dynamic.

Brussels and Wilton carpets, introduced to America in the 1750s, represented a significant advancement in domestic luxury. Woven on narrow looms and seamed together to create wall-to-wall coverage, they reduced drafts, softened footfalls, and transformed bare wooden floors into statements of refinement. Brussels carpets featured a durable looped pile, while Wilton carpets evolved to include a cut pile that created a softer, velvety surface. By the 1780s, inventories and advertisements indicate a growing preference for Wilton carpets in America’s most fashionable urban homes.

A notable contemporary would have been William Hemsley’s friend and Eastern Shore neighbor, William Paca, who used wall-to-wall carpet in his Annapolis townhouse Dining Room. Historic Annapolis Foundation, which now operates the property as a museum depicting the Paca occupancy (1763-1780), installed a period wall-to-wall carpet in the Dining Room, also from Grosvenor and Wilton. Alexandra Deutsch, former Historic Annapolis curator and now the John L. and Marjorie P. McGraw Director of Collections at the Winterthur Museum, initiated the project, which was overseen by then curator Pandora Stinton Hess in 2013.

By the late eighteenth century, tastes were changing. Wall-to-wall fitted carpeting was coming into vogue, particularly in major urban centers such as New York and Philadelphia, where imported British textiles were readily available, and elite consumers were eager to demonstrate refinement through the latest fashions.

Colonel William Hemsley was not an isolated provincial planter. He traveled, conducted business, and spent time in these urban environments in both New York and Philadelphia. He was clearly attuned to broader transatlantic trends. Cloverfields itself reflects this awareness in its architectural ambition and interior appointments. The decision to interpret the parlor with wall-to-wall carpeting acknowledges that Hemsley would likely have embraced a fashionable innovation that signaled status, comfort, and cosmopolitan taste.

Within the hierarchy of rooms at Cloverfields, the formal parlor, located to the right of the entrance hall, was among the most important. This was the Hemsley family’s principal entertaining space in the late eighteenth century, where significant guests and close friends were received. Archival records indicate that some of the most expensive objects in the house were placed here, including a sofa, desk with bookcase, mirror, and japanned tea equipage. Given the space's prominence and the documented investment in luxury goods, a fitted carpet would have been entirely consistent with the room’s function and status.

After extensive research into appropriate designs, the Pembroke Leaf pattern in Wilton sheared pile was selected. The choice was deliberate and rooted in material culture, architecture, and Hemsley’s own recorded preferences. The Pembroke Leaf pattern extends the botanical language established by the parlor wallpaper (Adelphia Everard Damask in Yellow), visually carrying leaf forms from wall to floor. Its dark green ground anchors the yellow walls, creating harmony while adding richness and depth. The restored mantel carvings echo the floral design, reinforcing a broader eighteenth-century aesthetic impulse to bring the outside natural world into interior space. In this period, nature was stylized and idealized, integrated into domestic settings as a sign of refinement and order.

This pattern has also been used in several distinguished American historic house museums, including the dining room at Gore Place, the parlor at Hamilton Grange, and previously at Stratford Hall.

Hemsley frequently sourced goods from England. On Maryland’s Eastern Shore, where tobacco dominated the economy and urban centers were limited, plantations like Cloverfields functioned as largely self-contained communities. Luxury goods, including carpets, were typically imported directly from Britain.

Despite the political rupture of the American Revolution, Maryland’s elite continued to draw heavily on British cultural and aesthetic models. This was the era of the consumer revolution, when imported goods signaled social position as clearly as land ownership. A British-made, sheared-pile Wilton carpet would have aligned with Hemsley’s aspirations and purchasing patterns.

Inventory records also suggest his fondness for green, a color noted multiple times in porcelain and textiles. He incorporated architectural elements, such as faux ashlar stone walls, that suggested nature indoors, reflecting a popular late eighteenth-century design concept. The Pembroke Leaf pattern, with its botanical motif and rich green ground, resonates strongly with these documented choices.

Taken together, these installations do more than furnish individual rooms. They restore a layered understanding of how floors functioned in the eighteenth century as indicators of wealth, comfort, season, and taste. One year after the parlor carpet installation, the room feels grounded and near complete. Across Cloverfields, the floor covering project reflects a moment when American interiors were shaped by global trade, evolving fashion, and the aspirations of a Maryland planter attuned to the wider Atlantic world.

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]]>A Past Perspective on Current Events and an Update on Floor CoveringsSherri Marsh JohnsTue, 25 Nov 2025 23:12:09 +0000https://www.cloverfieldspreservationfoundation.org/newsletters/plaster-restoration-9b5mg-hfheg5a0605c7d7bdce81a96393c7:5a78a3eb53450a1a08defc3c:68f29add88c2912882d44a19

Rest Assured: Bedchambers at Cloverfields Reimagined

by Rachel Lovett, Furnishings Consultant

Working on the restoration of Cloverfields is a rare opportunity to bring design, decorative arts, and social history together in one project. Recreating the 1784 home of Colonel William Hemsley and his family serves as both a historic canvas and a living laboratory, where period interiors are carefully researched, recreated, and reimagined to reflect the lives of its 18th-century occupants.

The installation of two historically informed bedsteads at Cloverfields in July 2025 marks a significant step forward in recreating the 1784 interiors. To bring this project to fruition, I worked closely with the talented Natalie Larson, the textile historian, who is well known in the field for producing the most authentic historic bed reproductions in the country.

In the 18th century, bedchambers were not only private spaces but also dynamic centers of domestic and social life. Far from serving solely as sleeping quarters, these rooms were stages where daily routines unfolded, from correspondence and household management to the intimate rhythms of family life, including childbirth, illness, and death. To furnish these rooms with accuracy is to restore the textures of lived experience and to better understand the values of comfort, status, and hospitality in late colonial Maryland.

The first phase of the bedchambers project centered around the main Hemsley Bedchamber used by Colonel William Hemsley and his wife Sally in 1784, and the Guest Bedchamber, which welcomed some of the most prominent visitors of the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

The Hemsley Bedchamber illustrates the practical, multi-functional character of family spaces in the late eighteenth century equipped not only with fine furnishings but also with work surfaces and textiles that balanced durability with refinement.

Among the notable pieces acquired for the room is a late eighteenth-century chest of drawers c. 1780. The top features a molded edge above a sliding writing lid; below are graduated, beaded drawers with brass pulls, set on splayed feet. The piece carries provenance to the local Paca family.

Also in the room is a Chippendale-style walnut desk, crafted locally by John Buckingham, who worked locally in Queen Anne’s County from 1760 until his death in April 1764. This dating places the desk firmly within that period. As lady of the house, Sally would have used such a desk for correspondence and household planning, underscoring the dual role of the chamber as both private retreat and working space.

The bedstead was carefully designed to reflect an eighteenth-century aesthetic while complementing the room’s overall furnishing plan. The piece features plain turned mahogany posts with Marlborough feet, an understated yet elegant form consistent with documented regional examples from Maryland and Virginia. The bed was crafted by Harrison Higgins, Inc. of Richmond, Virginia, a second-generation workshop of seven artisans specializing in the reproduction of English and American furniture of the period. The firm has worked for Colonial Williamsburg, Montpelier, Mount Vernon, Stratford Hall, and Winterthur Museum among others.

For the cornice, we selected an upholstered cut design with wide swag valances to complement it. The textile, Les Travaux de la Manufacture from Étoffe in France, is a red-on-white toile de Jouy pattern depicting pastoral scenes of countryside workers in a natural setting. Red toile was especially fashionable in the late 18th century and was often chosen for primary bedchambers.

Although the exact pattern used in the space in 1784 is not known, an 1813 inventory of the third Mrs. Hemsley records the use of cherry dimity in this chamber, giving us a point of reference for the household’s red textile choices.

For the floor covering, we installed a reproduction flat-weave, or “list,” carpet from Woodard and Greenstein. Unlike costly imported Wilton and Brussels carpets, which were typically reserved for public parlors or drawing rooms, flat-weaves could be produced locally, were widely accessible, and were often used in bedchambers. Rather than covering the entire floor wall-to-wall, such carpets were commonly arranged as bedside rugs or in U-shaped configurations, as we choose here, providing warmth and definition to the bedstead area.

The matelassé coverlet was sourced from the shops at Colonial Williamsburg. This reproduction, known as the William and Mary Matelassé Coverlet, is adapted from an antique example in Colonial Williamsburg’s textile collections. For the installation, modern mattresses and pillows were chosen to provide structural stability. These elements, though contemporary, were carefully integrated with the historically informed textiles and furnishings to approximate the visual effect of an eighteenth-century bed while accommodating present-day interpretive needs.

In contrast to the primary bedchamber reserved for the family, the Guest Bedchamber at Cloverfields was conceived as a stage for display, a carefully orchestrated space designed to impress. Prominent visitors, such as Edward Lloyd IV of Wye House and his family, were frequent overnight guests, as surviving correspondence attests. The chamber also likely accommodated members of Colonel William Hemsley’s extended family, including his sisters, who visited Cloverfields often.

The bedstead was a gift to Cloverfields from estate manager Jim Barton. Its attenuated turned posts, paired with a compound cornice produced by Harrison & Higgins of Richmond, Virginia, represent a restrained but fashionable style commonly seen in Maryland and Virginia during the late 18th century. To ensure a match to the mahogany, samples from Harrison Higgins, Inc. studio were sent and compared on-site to match the period mahogany finish.

The bed hangings are Fanny’s India Floral reproduction fabric, based on a skirt panel dated between 1760 and 1790 in the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation’s textile collections. The delicate trailing floral pattern in red, blue, and purple outlined in black recalls the popularity of imported Indian cottons, which were prized by colonial consumers for their brilliance of color and lightness of weave.

Beside the bedstead, a small bedside carpet from Woodard & Greenstein further enriches the decorative scheme. Its muted tones of pink and tan were selected to complement the floral textile, while also reflecting the practice of furnishing bedchambers with small, portable rugs rather than full wall-to-wall carpets.

The installation of the Cloverfields Guest and Hemsley Bedchambers highlights the social functions these spaces held in early national America and the exceptional craftsmanship involved in their recreation.

This interpretive vision was brought to life through the skilled efforts of Natalie Larson, with the assistance of her husband, Bruce, an archaeologist and historic preservationist, for the installation process. Working in seamless coordination from morning to late afternoon, they approached the task like a well-oiled machine, with each detail carefully arranged in advance to ensure a smooth and precise process. From the dramatic cornice crowning the Hemsley bedstead to the delicate trim of the guest bed, the installation unfolded as a work of art in its own right.

By combining reproduction textiles, authentic design elements, and historically informed craftsmanship, this project allows modern audiences to appreciate both the historical significance and the artistry required to bring it back to life.

History Lessons

Local student Lila Clow and her homeschool group visited Cloverfields in mid-October. The field trip was part of their studies about Maryland during the American Revolution. The discussion grew lively when it was learned that Lila is a descendant of the well-known Maryland Loyalist Cheney Clow. Clow’s conflicts with Maryland and Delaware militias, including Col. William Hemsley’s 20th Battalion, were discussed in the last newsletter. 

Flight of the Bumblebee

A Visit to Grandmother’s House

In August, members of the Draper family visited Cloverfields to see the restored house and share childhood reminiscences. The Drapers are the children and grandchildren (and spouses) of Elizabeth Carter Draper Brice (1937-2021), the daughter of Martha Greenwalt Callahan (1895-1989) and her second husband, J. Herbert Carter (1905-1997). Elizabeth was born and raised at Cloverfields. The CPF restoration greatly benefited from her memories and the historic photographs she shared from her collection. It was a pleasure to show the family what has been done and hear their stories.

Reaping What You Sow- Changing Agricultural Practices (1705-2025)

Cool air and shorter days have brought an end to the 2025 growing season, and around Cloverfields, cousins Tom Pippin and Tom Carter have fired up their high-tech combine harvesters and brought in this year’s crop of corn and soybeans. 

Pippin and Carter are grandsons of Martha Greenwalt Callahan Carter (1895-1989). Her father-in-law, Thomas H. Callahan Sr., bought Cloverfields from Hemsley descendants in 1897. The Cloverfields Preservation Foundation acquired the house in 2017, but the Pippin and Carter families still own and continue to farm the surrounding land. 

Cloverfields, built in 1705 by Philemon Hemlsey (1670 -1719), takes its name from his son William’s (1703 -1736) 1726 survey and later patent that combined six contiguous parcels into one 1,622-acre tract called Cloverfields. If visiting today, Philemon and William would recognize the family dwelling, the mile-long drive leading to it, and the arrangement of flanking fields, separated by ditches and hedgerows. The physical layout of the landscape has changed remarkably little since the 1720s, but the men would find other aspects of the Carter and Pippin’s operation alien.

Like most farmers in the area —and, in fact, much of the country —Carter and Pippin grow corn and soybeans. Like Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, these two make a classic pair.  Alternating these crops in the same fields improves soil health, increases yields, and diminishes the need for fertilizer and weed treatment.

Corn, by far the country’s most valuable farm product, is native to the Americas. Native Peoples introduced corn to European farmers, who quickly adopted it as their staple food crop. Corn had several advantages over wheat, the mainstay grain of the Old World, including producing more grain per acre, lasting longer, and not requiring threshing before grinding.   Profit-minded planters cultivated corn rather than wheat to free up more land and labor for income-producing tobacco.

Like most farmers in the area —and, in fact, much of the country —Carter and Pippin grow corn and soybeans. Like Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, these two make a classic pair.  Alternating these crops in the same fields improves soil health, increases yields, and diminishes the need for fertilizer and weed treatment.

Corn, by far the country’s most valuable farm product, is native to the Americas. Native Peoples introduced corn to European farmers, who quickly adopted it as their staple food crop. Corn had several advantages over wheat, the mainstay grain of the Old World, including producing more grain per acre, lasting longer, and not requiring threshing before grinding.   Profit-minded planters cultivated corn rather than wheat to free up more land and labor for income-producing tobacco.

King James’s condemnation that it was “loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, and dangerous to the lungs” failed to diminish tobacco’s popularity among British and European smokers.  It took centuries, but ultimately, King James’s view prevailed. Tobacco has long since vanished from Maryland’s Eastern Shore and is now only grown in limited amounts elsewhere in the state.

Unlike in the rest of Maryland, by the early eighteenth century, wheat began to rival tobacco as the Eastern Shore’s main export. The reasons for this are various and well-documented, but mainly come down to the fact that wheat was easier to grow and usually more profitable. [1]

Although lagging far behind corn and soybeans in terms of acreage planted, wheat, particularly the Soft Red Winter variety, remains a significant crop on Maryland’s upper Eastern Shore.

Philemon Hemsley grew wheat at Cloverfields-- probably a variety known as Yellow Lamas—no later than 1719. [2] By the time of the American Revolution, it had overtaken tobacco as the primary cash crop. As discussed in the previous newsletter, the Eastern Shore produced and shipped so much to Washington’s Continental Army and state militias that it earned the nickname “Breadbasket of the Revolution.”    

While modern corn and wheat varieties look different from Gourdseed and Yellow Lamas, the Hemsleys would at least recognize the plants for what they were. Not so with the soybean fields surrounding Cloverfields. This equally ancient staple native to Southeast Asia was introduced to the British colonies first in Georgia in 1765.  The green legume with a hairy pod met with a reluctant American market.  

Critics declared them “undesirable for table use.” An 1857 editorial in the American Agriculturalist said of them, “We first saw them cooked upon the table of a friend, and were not especially pleased with the flavor. “My wife found them hard to cook and I found them hard to eat.” wrote L.L. Osment of Cleveland, Tennessee.

By the mid-20th century, agriculturalists were hard-selling soybeans, praising them for their superior ability to nourish people, animals, and soil alike. Diners worldwide now enjoy soy products like tofu, edamame, and soy sauce, but most of the nation’s second-most-valuable crop still goes into animal feed. [3]

The most noticeable difference between the pre-industrial agricultural landscape created by the Hemsleys and that of Pippin and Callahan is the absence of human and animal labor. Modern machinery allows a single person to manage hundreds of acres, and trucking to market immediately after harvest obviates the need for most barns, once a defining feature of any farm.  In contrast, pre-industrial farming required scores of workers to plow, plant, weed, and harvest; teams of draft animals to pull equipment; and numerous buildings to house them.

Cloverfields' third owner, Col. William Hemsley, died in 1812.  His will divided Cloverfields and other real estate among six heirs.  In 1825, Hemsley’s grandsons, William H. Forman (1820-1868) and his brother Ezekiel (1821-1875), became the child-owners of 800 acres of Cloverfields, including the house, and also a half-interest in nearby Wye Mill. In 1853, the brothers legally divided their joint inheritance, with William taking possession of the family home and the southern 400 acres. [4]

William H. Foreman’s life spanned a fraught 48 years marked by economic downturns and social upheaval, culminating in the Civil War. Locally, many old gentry families, including close friends and relatives, struggled to stay solvent. During their childhood, financial difficulties led the boys’ guardian, Ezekiel F. Chambers, to consider selling Cloverfields to support them and their mother, then living in nearby Chestertown.   

William reached adulthood possessing only a small portion of the land and none of the labor his ancestors had used to build their wealth.   Additionally, the once-grand family mansion was in poor condition; the west wall and chimney were on the verge of collapse and required reconstruction.

In 1848, William married the wealthy Marcia Watts of Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The bride was the daughter of Frederick Watts (1801-1899), one of the nation's leading agricultural reformers. While he was a lawyer and judge by profession, his true passion lay in farming and promoting science-based agricultural reform. His legacy includes helping to found the Agricultural College of Pennsylvania, now Penn State University, and serving as Commissioner of Agriculture during the Grant Administration. [5].

The couple's union, not coincidentally, corresponded with a series of much-needed repairs and upgrades to the house. 

The Formans' reworking of Cloverfields extended beyond the dwelling to include farm operations.  Faster and more reliable transportation systems made perishable commodities such as milk, eggs, and orchard produce practical and profitable additions to cereal crops.  They diversified a primarily grain-based operation by significantly increasing the number of dairy cattle and poultry.   Decades before the Eastern Shore was known for its poultry industry, Cloverfields had a flock of  264 chickens, as well as dozens of turkeys, ducks, and guinea chicks.  

By 1850, the Formans had abandoned tobacco.  Wheat and corn production continued, but more efficiently using labor-saving equipment.   The 1850 agricultural census valued the farm at $6,000 and farm machinery at $300.  The 1860 census puts these amounts at $20,000 and $500, respectively. 

When William died in 1868, among the most valuable items listed in his estate inventory was a wheat thresher ($130) and a Dorsey reaper "with extras" ($100), the latter recently patented by Marylander Owen Dorsey. A Bickford and Huffman seed drill ($15), introduced in 1849, is also listed in his estate inventory [6].

Over approximately 57 years,  the Forman family transformed Cloverfields into a modern "progressive" farm. Marcia's estate inventory, taken in 1884, reflects a continued commitment to livestock, as well as the addition of on-site meat processing (ham, shoulder, and mutton).

Oral tradition and physical evidence indicate that meat was smoked in Cloverfields' attic. Curing meat inside the home of a prosperous family that had a new Steinway piano in the parlor below is difficult to reconcile, but probably true. [7]

William and Marcia's marriage produced six children. Three sons moved to Baltimore and became grain merchants, operating under the name Forman Brothers & Co., while the two remaining brothers and the only daughter relocated to different states (Pennsylvania, Georgia, and New Jersey).

In 1897, Thomas H. Callahan, Sr. (1844-1923), an Eastern Shore native living in Baltimore (listed in the federal population census as "capitalist"), purchased Cloverfields from the Forman heirs for $10,000.   This raises questions. Why did none of the Forman children stay at Cloverfields?  Why did a farm valued at $20,000 in 1880 sell in 1897 for half that amount?   

Future newsletters will further explore the Forman years and examine the interesting 120-year Callahan-Carter tenure (1897-2017) that brought Cloverfields into the modern era.

[1] Gregory A. Stiverson, Poverty in a Land of Plenty: Tenancy in Eighteenth-Century Maryland. (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press), 1977, 96.

[2] Estate Inventory of Philemon Hemsley. Probate Records of Queen Anne’s County, Liber 4, Folio 119 (May 30, 1720).

[3] William Shurtleff and Akiko Aoyagi, A History of Soy in the United States: 1766-1900. (2004) https://www.soyinfocenter.com/HSS/usa.php].

[4] Queen Anne’s County Land Records. William H. Forman and Marcia R. Forman, and Ezekiel T. M. Forman and Francis M. Forman. Deed of Division, Liber JP1, Folio 430. ,(May 16, 1853).

[5] Mark W. Podia, The Honorable Frederick Watts: Carlisle’s Agricultural Reformer. (University Park: Penn State Environmental Law Review), Vol. 299, December 2008, 17.

[6] Estate Inventory of William Hemsley Forman. Probate Records of Queen Anne’s County, Liber WAJ 2, Folio 420 (August 3, 1868).

[7] Estate Inventory of Marcia R. Forman. Probate Records of Queen Anne’s County, Liber WET 1, Folio 429 (May 27, 1884).

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]]>Rest Assured: Bedchambers at Cloverfields Reimagined. Also, it is Harvest Time. Examining Changing Agricultural Practices, 1705-2025.Sherri Marsh JohnsWed, 02 Jul 2025 23:03:46 +0000https://www.cloverfieldspreservationfoundation.org/newsletters/https/wwwcloverfieldspreservationfoundationorg/newsletters/historical-landscaping-n6m99-hr55x-bb8e2-ysznj-xlfb7-y9pe4-7mzma5a0605c7d7bdce81a96393c7:5a78a3eb53450a1a08defc3c:685b01fa73c06c0effaab8fd

Celebrating the 250th Anniversary of the United States

April 19, 2025 marked the 250th anniversary of “the shot heard round the world,” the now-iconic phrase that refers to the first discharge of gunfire at the Battle of Lexington in Massachusetts. This clash between British regulars and the colonial militia at Lexington Green, along with the same-day skirmish at nearby Concord, signified the beginning of the American Revolutionary War. 

To commemorate the events taking place between the start of the conflict and the war’s end with the 1783 signing of the Treaty of Paris, we will take time to examine Col. William Hemsley's (1736-1812) wartime endeavors. In this issue, Rachel Lovett explores Hemsley’s military service and the many challenges he experienced as a colonel in the 20th Battalion of the Queen Anne’s Militia. We also examine Hemsley's other role as a procurement officer for the Continental Army.

Integral to that story is  Wye Mill, located about a mile east of Cloverfields in the village of the same name.  Hemsley owned Wye Mill during most of the war and received orders from the  Maryland Government’s Council of Safety to have wheat ground at that location for shipment to Gen. George Washington's troops at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. 

Purchasing agents never feature as the hero of war movies, but to George Washington's famously beleaguered and underfed troops, these armed administrators were critical to victory. On Maryland's Eastern Shore, the “breadbasket of the Revolution,” it was a particularly hazardous and largely thankless job.

Feeding Revolution

“An army marches on its stomach.” This familiar statement, attributed to both Napoleon and Frederick the Great, cautions commanders that military success is closely tied to a well-fed fighting force.   Throughout the American Revolution, the Continental Congress struggled to adequately supply Gen. George Washington’s Continental Army, a reality made famous by the legendary hardships troops faced at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, during the winter of 1777-1778.   From Washington’s letters, we know that the chronic shortages of food, clothing, and ammunition plaguing the army jeopardized its survival and, with it, the independence of the new nation.

In helping Washington fight the battle against hunger, Maryland’s Eastern Shore punched well above its metaphorical weight. By the time war broke out, farms on the Maryland portion of the 180-mile-long, three-state Delmarva Peninsula (made up, as the name suggests, of portions of Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia) had shifted away from traditional mono-crop tobacco farming by adding large quantities of wheat and corn to the agricultural mix. Not only did grain grow in abundance here, but the vast shoreline created by the Atlantic Ocean and the Chesapeake Bay stymied British and Tory attempts at an effective shipping blockade. As a result, the region became such a vital source of army food stores that historian Charles Truitt described Maryland’s Eastern Shore as “The breadbasket of the Revolution.” [1] 

By 1777, Col. William Hemsley commanded the Twentieth Battalion of the Queen Anne’s County Militia. He also held key elected and appointed offices, including serving as a representative for Maryland in Philadelphia at the Second Continental Congress. Arguably, the colonel’s most significant contribution to the Patriot cause was not in his capacity as a military officer or statesman, but as a procurement agent, purchasing and shipping supplies to Washington’s often-desperate troops in the north.

Provisioning an army may sound mundane and routine, but it was a challenging and sometimes hazardous task. The cheerful myth of the American Revolution is the story of freedom-loving colonists rising as one to overthrow British tyranny. That presentation is far from accurate. The American Revolution was a civil war fought not just between armed American and British forces, but also between pro-independence Patriot colonists and their Loyalist neighbors, also known as Tories, who wanted to stay under British rule. Compelling crops, livestock, and money from the war’s supporters was difficult, but doing so from those downright hostile to the cause proved perilous.   

Loyalist sentiments ran high on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. In neighboring Kent County, planter James Chalmers recruited over 300 men to form the First Battalion of Maryland Loyalists. Isaac Atkinson, a landowner in Somerset County, attempted a rebellion by trying to persuade members of the county militia to switch allegiance and side with the British. Methodist minister Cheney Clow received a British commission, raised a fighting force, and went so far as to build a fort along the border between Maryland and Delaware. [2]

Along the peninsula, Loyalists acted as British scouts, attacked procurement officers, interfered with recruitment efforts, and stole supplies. Tory sea captains in the lower Chesapeake —pirates in the view of the new state government— routinely interfered with shipping. British raiding parties and their Loyalist surrogates looted farms and attacked the residences of local militia. Several raids took place within a few miles of Cloverfields, including that on Col. Edward Lloyd IV’s Wye House, located four miles south of Cloverfields. [3]

We do not know if Col. Hemsley struggled with his decision to back the revolution, but the issue divided his extended family. Col. Hemsley’s Loyalist uncle, James Tilghman (1716-1793), spent the first part of the war under house arrest, and his teenage son, Philemon Tilghman (1760-1797), ran away to join the Royal Navy. (Still impulsive as an adult, Philemon outraged both families when he audaciously eloped with his commanding officer’s daughter in 1785.)  

The actions of his father and brother must have been a painful embarrassment to Tench Tilghman (1744-1786), James’s older son and Hemsley’s first cousin, who served with distinction and without pay as Washington’s aide-de-camp through the duration of the war. [4] It was Tilghman that Washington entrusted with delivering to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia the triumphant news of Gen. Cornwallis’s surrender at Yorktown, Virginia.

Even when they weren’t actively involved in insurrection against the new government, many Eastern Shore farmers were hesitant to sell provisions to procurement officers.  Their objection was often financial rather than political. Farmers routinely complained about the price at which they were compelled to sell their crops and livestock, the quantity they were required to relinquish, and receiving payment in the form of promissory notes or dubious Continental currency. Hemsley wrote to Gov. Lee, complaining about the lack of “hard money” that “in transactions between man and man, paper money does not pass at all.” [5]

Procurement officers, such as Hemsley, found themselves caught between a government desperate to acquire supplies and unaccommodating farmers, who were either worried about their livelihoods or opposed to the cause. Maryland’s Council of Safety, the wartime government body responsible for the state's defense and enforcing the dictates of the Continental Congress, was quick to demand supplies but slow to pay for them, sometimes requiring procurement officers to self-fund purchases.

In 1778, William Hemsley purchased Wye Mill from Edward Lloyd IV (1744-1796). In Hemsley, the Council had someone who offered the valuable combination of financial experience, owned a grain mill and a ship authorized for use as a privateer, and commanded the local militia. [6] The following year, Hemsley received a £10,000 order for supplies, including wheat to be ground at his own mill and sent to the Continental troops.  This exceptionally large amount, more than ten times the typical purchase order, made to county officers, reflects the trust and confidence the Council had in Hemsley. [7] 

For Col. Hemsley and others in his position, frustrations and hazards persisted throughout the war and into the years of the new republic. With the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia, on October 19, 1781, and cessation of large-scale hostilities, the need for supplies diminished but did not disappear.

The Introduction to Journal and Correspondence of the State Council, 1781-1784, which covered post-surrender activities, writes of the need to keep Maryland troops supplied with food and clothing until units were disbanded, to guard prisoners of war, to send supplies to Maryland prisoners confined in British ships in New York, to suppress small enemy vessels operating in the Bay, to conciliate soldiers clamoring for their pay and “to do all these and innumerable other things not with hard money which was well nigh unobtainable, but with bills of credit, dubiously secured and paper currency rapidly depreciating in value.”[8]

In Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation, Joseph P. Ellis wrote, “No event in American history which was so improbable at the time has seemed so inevitable in retrospect as the American Revolution.” The colonists achieved a shocking victory over the world's largest empire and most powerful military not just through actions audacious and spectacular, but also in accomplishing the unexceptional and ordinary. Col. Hemsley’s service as a procurement officer provides an important reminder of that and makes clear that even undistinguished deeds were essential and sometimes dangerous.

[1]    Barrie Paige Neville,  “For God, King, and Country:  Loyalism on the Eastern Shore of Maryland During the American Revolution.” International Social Science Review 84, no. 3/4 (2009), 145-147. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41887408.

[2] Leonard Szaltis. Chesapeake Bay Privateers in the Revolution (Charleston:  The History Press, 2019), 23.

[3] Mildred C. Schoch. The Endeavours and Exertions of Queen Anne’s County, Maryland During the Revolutionary War, 1775-1783 (Annapolis: Maryland State Archives, 1976), 97.

[4] Tench Tilghman served without pay until 1781 when Gen. Washington arranged for him to receive a regular commission in the Continental Army. Washington called Tilghman “a zealous servant and slave to the public, and a faithful assistant to me for near five years.” https://msa.maryland.gov/msa/mdstatehouse/html/committeerm_wlt.html

[5] Schoch. Endeavours and Exertions, Endeavours and Exertions, 33.

[6] Edward C. Papenfuse. A Biographical Dictionary of the Maryland Legislature, 1635-1798 (Annapolis: Maryland State Archives, 1979), 432. https://msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc2900/sc2908/000001/000426/html/am426--432.html.

[7] Schoch. Endeavours and Exertions, 58-59.

[8] Schoch. Endeavours and Exertions, 91.

Recent Visitors

Views from the Garden

Cloverfields Preservation Foundation Enters into a Partnership with the Friends of Old Wye Mill

CPF is excited to announce it has completed the purchase of historic Wye Mill and entered into a partnership with the Friends of Old Wye Mill (FOWM). Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, this important landmark of early American industry is recognized as one of the oldest continuously operating water-powered grist mills in the United States.  Dendrochronology dates the current structure to 1754, but a grain mill has operated on site since at least 1682.  William Hemsley (1736-1812) purchased it from Edward Lloyd IV in 1778, and it remained in the Hemsley line until descendants sold it to the Hopkins family in 1845.

CPF will make repairs to the historic structure and provide additional improvements to enhance the visitor experience.  FOWM, who have owned the building since 1996 will continue to manage day-to-day operations, including offering public milling demonstrations and the sale of fresh stone-ground flour and meal.  Old Wye Mill is now open for the season.  For more information, visit their website at  https://www.oldwyemill.org/

Leader in Liberty: Colonel William Hemsley’s Role in the American Revolution

by Rachel Lovett, Collections Consultant

The Cloverfields Preservation Foundation recently acquired at auction a Revolutionary War–era letter written by Colonel William Hemsley, dated March 17, 1781, concerning the procurement and delivery of ammunition. This exciting acquisition has renewed interest in Hemsley’s role during the American Revolution—particularly timely as we approach the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding. While the letter reveals one specific moment in time, the content helps piece together a puzzle of March 1781, a time fraught with Loyalist raids on the Eastern Shore.

To help understand this letter in context, a timeline of Hemsley’s involvement can be created to illustrate his leadership, character, and contributions to the revolutionary cause.

The American Revolution spanned over eight years, beginning with the first shots fired at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts on April 19, 1775, and concluding with the Treaty of Paris on September 3, 1783. Unlike 20th-century wars, the Revolution was mainly fought at home, through the everyday efforts of citizens. On Maryland’s Eastern Shore, Colonel William Hemsley (1737–1812), the third-generation owner of Cloverfields, was a key figure who recruited troops, secured supplies, and helped maintain political order during a time of profound upheaval.

By summer 1776, news of the Declaration of Independence had spread rapidly. Communities on the Eastern Shore, including Queen Anne’s County, mobilized quickly. Thirty-nine-year-old Hemsley emerged as a trusted leader. In September, he attended a key militia meeting at Kent Island where officers were elected. By December, he was appointed to Maryland’s Council of Safety, an essential wartime body overseeing local defense, implementing revolutionary policies, and maintaining civic order amid uncertainty.[1]

The 1776 Maryland census offers a snapshot of Cloverfields at the outset of the war. The household included adult men and women, likely comprising Hemsley, his wife, siblings, in-laws, and children. Like many contemporaries, Hemsley held enslaved individuals—44 in total, according to the census—reflecting the scale of his domestic and agricultural operations that supported his public duties during the Revolution.[2]

In 1777, Hemsley’s military leadership expanded. In June, he corresponded with Maryland Governor Thomas Johnson about militia enrollments and officer commissions. By August, he reported having two battalions, totaling approximately 600 men, but highlighted shortages of vital supplies, including tents and blankets.[3] Lack of supplies was not the only setback. Smallpox was also a constant threat to the troops and citizens alike. In a June 14 letter from Hemsley to Governor Johnson, he noted, “Thomas has been delayed by being inoculated.”[4] Smallpox is a highly contagious and often deadly disease that causes fever and rash. Having survived smallpox as a teenager in Barbados, George Washington had firsthand knowledge of its dangers. In 1777, he ordered the systematic inoculation of the Continental Army, which dramatically reduced fatalities.[5] In December 1777, after a year on the Committee of Safety, Hemsley resigned—likely to attend to family matters as his wife Sally gave birth that year to their fifth child, Philemon.

The following year, Hemsley managed volatile local tensions. In February 1778, the Council of Safety tasked him with deploying militia to assist the sheriff in quelling unrest over substitute money—a controversial tax to fund military replacements. Throughout spring, Hemsley contended with escalating Tory violence and raids, including attacks led by the notorious Cheney Clow, a Methodist minister originally from Maryland. In April 1778, Clow rallied a force of about 200 men and fortified a stronghold near the Maryland–Delaware border to resist Patriot rule.[6] His actions led to clashes with local militia. Initially evading capture, Clow was finally caught in 1782, imprisoned, tried for treason and murder, and hanged a few years later. His uprising underscored the deep and volatile divisions at home between Loyalists and Patriots, revealing that the battle for independence was not only fought on distant fields, but within Maryland’s own communities.

Meanwhile, Hemsley faced delicate family issues. His wife was pregnant with their daughter Sarah, and in March, his cousin Edward Tilghman Jr. was arrested for unauthorized travel to British-occupied Philadelphia. Over several months, Edward petitioned to travel again, including a request to visit nearby Cloverfields in April, and ultimately received permission to move freely again by late July. Amid these challenges, Hemsley also oversaw the procurement of essential provisions such as the ingredients for ship’s bread, a dense type of cracker, for the Continental forces.

By 1779, Hemsley’s focus shifted toward logistics and administration. He coordinated and stored 10,000 barrels of flour for the Continental Army while balancing local supply demands. That year, he was elected to the Maryland State Senate and appointed to a commission expanding the Governor and Council’s authority, reflecting increasing trust in his leadership. His wife gave birth to their seventh child that year, Henrietta Maria, marking the third birth in three years.

In 1780, despite personal illness and setbacks, Hemsley’s determination remained unwavering. In July, he wrote urgently to Maryland Governor Thomas Sim Lee about deteriorated jail conditions in Queen Anne’s County, the high costs of housing recruits and deserters, and the need for funds and supplies. He even sheltered soldiers at Cloverfields while awaiting support. The Council authorized £6,000 to aid recruitment, and by mid-August, Hemsley had enlisted 31 men—despite suffering a severe fever. He also coordinated flour shipments and managed enlistment logistics.

The year 1781 provides the most vivid and demanding portrait of Hemsley’s service during the Revolution. A letter written by Hemsley, dated March 14, 1781, to Governor Lee describes a harrowing experience for his friends and neighbors, Colonel Edward Lloyd, John Beale Bordley, and William Paca.

“About two o’clock today I received a letter from Colonel P. Tilghman informing that the enemy landed at Col. Lloyd’s this morning at 1 o’clock and plundered him of all his plate, money, clothes, etc. then went to Beal Bordley’s who shared the same fate, they were twelve in number; in two barges. They used no violence to either of the two families, but kept the Col. Safe until they had done their business lest he should alarm the neighborhood. I have just received a letter from Mr. Richard Tilghman, to whom Mr. Paca writes he was attacked by about 20 or 30 refugees who came in a barge and plundered to the amount of 500 pounds hard money and Mr. Paca’s overseer says Mr. Bordley had scarce anything left. Colonel Lloyd lost 7 negroes Mr. Bordley 3. I have scarce not been able to collect any intelligence where the vessel lay, the men landed from. Therefore concludes they must have rowed up from Poplar’s Island. Mr. Matthew Tilgman went from the special council with 50 men well armed and one field piece down to the Bay Side. I shall get out of the classes for this county tomorrow and hope you’ll have some persons ready to receive the recruits should any be obtained.”[7]

The threat was immediate and close at hand. Just three days later, on March 17, Hemsley wrote the letter recently acquired by the Foundation, highlighting how the war had reached his doorstep and how he continued to fulfill his duties despite the danger to his property and family at Cloverfields.

The letter reads:

"You [are to] please order Capt. Falkner to collect the Arms with all the Accoutrements that were delivered him & send them down to Queens Town under the care of some trusty person, to Mr. Robt. Wright - desire him to send a list of what he does send - I would have you get the Arms in your possession put into order, & distribute them into such active Hands as you can rely on. Make use of the lead as far as wanted, & have 40 or 50 rounds of Cartriges for each muskett made up, & take the persons each to whom you deliver the muskett & c. and the number of Cartridges - Give strict orders that they do not fire away the powder & ball - I will pay the expenses of bringing the arms down." At verso: "Colonel Jno. Thompson / The Doct'r is requested to forward this, this Evening".

While historians have long known about the Loyalist raid on his friends’ estates, this letter provides new insight into Hemsley’s immediate response. Despite the threat so close to home, he remained focused on his responsibilities, ordering the collection and redistribution of arms and covering the related expenses himself. Among those mentioned in the letter is Robert Wright, a lawyer and militia captain from the Eastern Shore who later served as Governor of Maryland and a United States Senator.

Throughout 1781, Hemsley continued to navigate recruitment challenges, the strain on families, and the instability of currency. He personally oversaw exemptions and substitutes and advocated for neighbors, such as Joseph Gould, a poor young man supporting five siblings, who requested an exemption from service.[8] This decision reflects Hemsley’s effort to balance the demands of wartime service with an awareness of the personal difficulties facing those in his community.

As British raids continued into the summer, defensive efforts such as subscription-funded barges guarded the Bay. In September, Hemsley helped with logistics to secure horses for officers, including Colonel Tench Tilghman, aide de camp to George Washington.[9]

Although the majority of the fighting effectively ended with the British surrender at Yorktown in October 1781, Hemsley’s public service continued. After completing his term in the Maryland State Senate, he served in the Continental Congress in 1782 and 1783, participating in the nation’s transition from war to peace. In 1784, he returned to Cloverfields, focusing on farming and renovating the family home—signaling a new chapter after years of intense Revolutionary service.

Colonel William Hemsley emerged as a leader during the Revolutionary turmoil, demonstrating resilience and unwavering resolve. Many of his descendants have carried forward these same qualities. His legacy of service and sacrifice remains a powerful reminder of the quiet strength that helped shape the nation, especially as we reflect on 250 years of American independence.

This work would not have been possible without the dedication of the late historian Mildred C. Schoch, whose quiet commitment helped preserve the Revolutionary legacy of Queen Anne’s County. As a member of the Bicentennial Commission in 1975, she painstakingly compiled every available primary document on this topic from the Maryland State Archives. In her introduction, she wrote with humility, “It is hoped that historians… will find this study useful and interesting.” Thanks to her efforts, generations later, we still can.

[1] Mildred Schoch, The Endeavours and Exertions of Queen Anne’s County, Maryland During the Revolutionary War 1775-1783 (Maryland: Queen Anne’s County Bicentennial Committee, 1975), 23.

[2] Maryland Colonial Census, Queen Anne’s County, 1776.

[3] Schoch, Endeavours and Exertions, 26.

[4] Schoch, Endeavours and Exertions, 25.

[5] Ann M. Becker, Smallpox in Washington's Army Disease, War, and Society During the Revolutionary War (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2022), 34.

[6] Dee E. Andrews, The Methodists and Revolutionary America, 1760-1800 The Shaping of an Evangelical Culture (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010), 57-58.

[7] Schoch, Endeavours and Exertsions, 97.

[8] Schoch, Endeavours and Exertsions, 34.

[9] Schoch, Endeavours and Exertsions, 109.

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]]>Colonel William Hemsley, Cloverfields and Wye Mill during the War for IndependenceSherri Marsh JohnsThu, 27 Feb 2025 18:02:32 +0000https://www.cloverfieldspreservationfoundation.org/newsletters/https/wwwcloverfieldspreservationfoundationorg/newsletters/historical-landscaping-n6m99-hr55x-bb8e2-ysznj-xlfb7-y9pe45a0605c7d7bdce81a96393c7:5a78a3eb53450a1a08defc3c:67c0a8b895e25856427a03d0

CPF Receives Donation of Hemsley Family Heirlooms

We begin this newsletter by thanking Ms. Hope Halleck of Lewes, Delaware, for her kind and generous donation of important Hemsley family heirlooms, including silverware, correspondence, photographs, and genealogical information.   A traditional letter of introduction from Ms. Halleck’s uncle William Halsey Wood III to CPF furnishing consultant Rachel Lovett initiated the acquaintance that led to the gift.  Sadly, Mr. Wood passed away in November at age 93, shortly after Rachel received his letter.

Ms. Halleck personally delivered the boxes of antiques and memorabilia to Cloverfields. Joining her that January day for a tour of her ancestors’ property were family members, including siblings Jay and wife Barbara, sister Heidi, and two delightful young nieces, fittingly named Hemsley and Halsey.   

Ms. Halleck is a descendent of Philemon Hemsley (1670-1719), builder of Cloverfields, through his great-grandson Alexander Hemsley, Sr. (ca. 1785- 1834) and his second wife Elizabeth Anne West (1795-1887) of Philadelphia.  This gift prompted us to research this lesser-known cadet branch of the Hemsley family.

Alexander grew up at Cloverfields, the son of Col. William Hemsley (1736-1812) and his second wife Sarah Williamson (1749-1794).  In 1808 Alexander made an advantageous marriage to his cousin, Henrietta Maria Tilghman (1787-1817) of Sherwood, near St. Michaels, Maryland, and after his father’s death, received a considerable inheritance that included land and Wye Mill.  Fortunes tragically reversed for Alexander, and by 1817 he had lost his wife and inheritance and struggled to hold on to Sherwood.

In this, Alexander was not alone. The War of 1812, the financial panic of 1819, and a prolonged agricultural depression undermined the fortunes of many old planter families in such a way as to disrupt the established social order. By the 1830s, unfamiliar names had infused the list of traditional Eastern Shore power brokers.  

In 1823, Arthur Tilghman Jones, Sr. of Queenstown, Maryland wrote to Maryland expatriate James Hollyday, III in Natchez, Mississippi describing the plight of their friends and family, including Alexander’s, reporting “Your Uncle John, A. Hemsley, Tench Tilghman…and my father are completely wiped out.” Worse off were “Mr. N. Price, Mr. Paca and your Uncle Hollyday trying to keep out of the Brick House in Chestertown,” meaning jail. [1]

Despite difficulties, business and family connections regularly took Alexander to Philadelphia. There, he met his second wife, Elizabeth Anne West, the daughter of merchant and importer Francis West. The couple married in 1822 and took up residence at Sherwood, which Hemsley had inherited from his late wife. Alexander died in 1834. Elizabeth, then pregnant with Alexander Hemsley, Jr. (1834-1904) and in need of her family’s support, returned to Philadelphia.   

Alexander Hemsley, Jr. was raised and educated in Philadelphia. In 1862, during the height of the Civil War, he married Emily Cox (d. 1890). No doubt Alexander’s service as a private in the 1st Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry cast a heavy shadow over the newlyweds. The 1st Troop saw action, including at Gettysburg, but Alexander returned from war and had a long marriage and successful career as a research chemist, specializing in photographic chemistry.

Photography, invented roughly twenty years before the Civil War, became immensely popular during the conflict, especially with families with a loved one heading into danger. Demand grew in the years after as photographs became increasingly more affordable.

Cameras rapidly improved, but photographers struggled with providing enough light to capture an image adequately. Anyone who has watched a movie set in the second half of the nineteenth-century has likely seen the process. Flash photography then consisted of igniting a trough of chemicals (flashpowder), which when ignited provided a brilliant burst of white light along with a cloud of toxic smoke. Inherently explosive, flashpowder was dangerous to use, sometimes causing burns to the photographer and close-sitting subjects.

While working on a new flashpowder formula, Hemsley perished in a tragic accident so horrible that it was reported in newspapers across the country, including on the front page of the New York Times.    During an experiment, an accidental spark triggered a massive explosion that destroyed his laboratory, injured his two assistants, and damaged surrounding buildings. [2]

Hemsley employed two female laboratory assistants, namely Minnie Lichtenwalter and Mary Morse, described in newspapers as “bright young women…having an unusual order of intelligence”  Both women sustained injuries but survived the ordeal.  

Minnie Lichtenwalter turned tragedy into opportunity. The following year she married Albert Grubb. The couple raised the necessary capital to open the Luxo Flashlight Works outside Philadelphia. In 1908, Albert accidentally ignited a batch of flashlight powder, causing an explosion that nearly killed the couple.[3] After that incident, Minnie retired from chemistry and Albert embarked on a career as a milkman. [4]   

[1] James Bordley, Jr. The Hollyday and Related Families of the Eastern Shore of Maryland (Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 1962), 188.

[2] “Explosion Kills Chemist,” The New York Times (New York City), March 24, 1904.

[3] “Electric Spark from Man’s Hand Causes Explosion,” Daily Local News (West Chester), May 6, 1908.

[4] 1910 United States Federal Census, Pennsylvania, Delaware County, District 0140. Ancestry.com.

Events and Visitors

Over the past season, Cloverfields welcomed various organizations and individuals for tours and meetings.

In November, Cloverfields was one of the stops of the Friends of the Colonial Williamsburg Collections, a connoisseur and study group associated with Colonial Williamsburg. The assembly heard about CPF’s furnishing plan from Rachel Lovett, before enjoying a tour of the house and grounds, and lunch.

In December, Cloverfields was pleased to host the annual meeting of the Queen Anne’s County Historical Society (QACHS).

Author and historian Niambi Davis of the Kennard African American Cultural Center and Dr. Adam Goodheart of Washington College’s Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience led a discussion on the Emory Family of Poplar Grove, the history of the property, and the lives and contributions of the enslaved workers who lived at the large eighteenth century Queen Anne’s County estate. Ms. Olivia Wood, an Emory descendant and Poplar Grove’s current owner, updated the group on her efforts to restore the house and grounds.

A meeting highlight was the unveiling of a portrait of an Emory family member, donated to the QACHS by local collector and antiquarian Robert Shannahan.

Dave Perkowski of Lynbrook of Annapolis worked on the Cloverfields restoration. He returned with his family to celebrate his mother-in-law’s birthday and see how things have progressed since his work wrapped up.

CPF staff enjoyed swapping stories with the staff of Historic Annapolis when they visited as part of their annual recent winter retreat. HA is in the midst of a multi-year, multi-million dollar restoration of the 1767 Brice House in Annapolis. At Cloverfields they were able to see the completed work of members of their restoration team, including that of Jack Abeel (millwork), Susan Buck (paint analysis), Raymond Cannetti (masonry), Willie Graham (architectural historian), and Chris Mills (plaster conservation).

Poured from the Past: Dessert & Tea at Col. William Hemsley’s Cloverfields (continued)

Who Built the Miller’s House?

About a mile down the road from Cloverfields, on a hill overlooking the eighteenth-century Wye Mill, stands a two-story, three-bay, brick, eighteenth-century dwelling, traditionally known as the Miller’s House. CPF purchased it and the 1.8-acre lot in 2018. Then vacant and seriously damaged by the 2011 earthquake, CPF conducted a structural analysis, stabilized the structure, and is now studying options for restoration.

The age of the Miller’s House is a matter of some debate. The question isn’t merely academic. CPF’s approach to restoration depends on the answer. To help determine the construction date, CPF hired dendrochronologist Michael Worthington of Oxford Tree-Ring Laboratory to date the building’s original wood fabric, through an analysis of its tree-ring growth patterns. Unfortunately, Worthington’s first attempt failed due to the deteriorated condition of the sampled wood. Results of a second test from a different part of the building are pending.

The house stands on property historically associated with Wye Mill. The authors of the Miller’s House 2010 National Register Nomination credit the Lloyd family with its construction, believing it was purpose-built for the miller in the 1750s or 60s. Others remain unconvinced.

Local historian Cynthia Schmidt has conducted considerable research on the Lloyd family, Wye Mill and the Miller’s House. She points to the 1798 Federal Direct Tax entries for Edward Lloyd, V, noting that none of his numerous other tenant houses were built of brick. Even Wye House, the grand Lloyd family seat on the Wye River, is of frame construction.

CPF historian Sherri Marsh Johns finds Ms. Schmidt’s argument compelling. While appearing rather plain and modestly sized to the modern eye, it was well-built and spacious by eighteenth-century standards. Again looking at the 1798 tax, in the adjacent Wye Hundred tax district an overwhelming 76% of houses were frame or log and a similar majority were one story, with an average square footage of 650 sq. ft. It is out of character for the cost-conscious Lloyds to go to the expense of erecting a brick, two-story, 1440 sq. ft. dwelling for their tenant mill operator.[1]

Col. William Hemsley purchased the mill property from Edward Lloyd, IV, in 1778. Ms. Johns believes Hemsley had the house built, not for the mill operator, but for the benefit of his family. Two sons, William and Philemon, and a niece Anna Maria “Nanny” Lloyd lived there at different times between 1798 and 1808. A third son, the previously discussed Alexander Hemsley, inherited the house and mill in 1812.

Future articles will further explore the rich history of these two historic properties.

We look forward to Michael Worthington’s dendrochronology report, and hope it will finally answer the question “Who built the Miller’s House?”

[1] Ann Elaine Hill, “A Spatial and Cultural Analysis of the 1798 Federal Tax Assessment: A Case Study of Wye Hundred, Queen Anne’s County, Maryland, in the Late Eighteenth Century (MA Thesis, University of Delaware, Newark, 1974)

Poured from the Past: Dessert & Tea at Col. William Hemsley’s Cloverfields

by Rachel Lovett, Furnishing’s Consultant

As the day at Cloverfields drew to a close, the Hemsley family followed a familiar rhythm of dining and leisure, especially when entertaining guests. After the final dessert course—served in the Dining Room—the gathering often moved to the parlor or an upstairs withdrawing room for tea. More than just refreshment, this ritual marked a transition from the formal dining room to a more intimate setting to close the gathering.

This article explores three items from Hemsley estate inventories that played a role in these traditions.

Ivory-handled Dessert Knives and Forks

Ivory-handled knives and forks were a staple in the Hemsley household, repeatedly appearing in inventories from 1736 through 1812. The presence of 1½ dozen ivory-handled dessert knives and forks indicated that Hemsleys were aware of the tradition of having a separate last dessert course, rather than including sweets in the second course. Dessert knives and forks could be used to eat sweets like cake, custards, and fruit.

Ivory-handled dessert knives and forks were a mark of sophistication among Maryland planters. Their popularity is evident in estate records, such as the 1784 inventory of John Hopkins the Elder of Anne Arundel County, which also lists these elegant dining utensils.

A first-hand glimpse into how Hemsley acquired these pieces comes from a letter he wrote to London merchants Robert and James Christie on November 15, 1763. The Christies were well-connected in Maryland through Robert’s wife, Mary, who was the sister of Maryland founding father Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer. Their firm became a premier supplier to Maryland’s elite, making them a natural choice for Hemsley’s order.

The letter, sent via Captain Watson of London, arrived on March 20, 1754. It is now housed in the Morgan Library and Museum in New York City. In it Hemsley requests table cloths and “one dozen neat London-made ivory-handled dessert knives & forks in a mahogany case,” to be paid for with proceeds from his tobacco shipments. [1]

He instructed that the goods be sent aboard Mr. Anderson’s Wye Ship, almost certainly referring to London merchant William Anderson (1709–1771). Anderson operated stores on the Wye and Chester Rivers, and had deep ties to the colony—his wife, Rebecca Lloyd, was the sister of Edward Lloyd III, a close Hemsley associate.

Though Anderson remained in London, all his children eventually settled in Maryland, including his son James, who in the 1760s married Meliora Ogle, daughter of Maryland’s proprietary Governor Samuel Ogle. Their story, worthy of an article itself, is given in more detail in the endnotes. [i]

Tea Culture

In the 18th century, tea was cherished not just as a comforting drink, but as an intimate part of genteel social gatherings. Taking tea could be a standalone event or enjoyed after dinner. When the Hemsleys served tea at the conclusion of a meal, they took their guests from the dining room to either the parlor, or upstairs withdrawing room for this next phase of the gathering.

American Tea consumption was interrupted on May 10, 1773, when Parliament passed the Tea Act, giving the British East India Company exclusive rights to sell tea in the American Colonies. While the company could export tea duty-free, American consumers were still taxed, fueling outrage over taxation without representation. This led to widespread resistance, culminating in the Boston Tea Party, December 16, 1773. As a result, tea drinking declined, and coffee consumption increased along with herbal alternatives to traditional tea including mint, rose hip, and lemon balm among others. [2]

Philip Fithian, a tutor at Nomini Hall, the home of Col. Robert Carter in Virginia, recorded in his journal Sunday, May 29, 1774:

“After dinner we had a Grand & agreeable Walk in & through the Gardens—There is great plenty of Strawberries, some Cherries, Goose berries &c.—Drank Coffee at four, they are now too patriotic to use tea.” [3]

By October, tensions boiled over in Annapolis, where furious colonists set fire to the Peggy Stewart, a ship carrying British tea. These bold acts of protest helped fan the flames of revolution, culminating in the Declaration of Independence in 1776. However, by 1784—the year of interpretation at Cloverfields—tea was starting to reclaim its place on Maryland tables.

Robert Morris, a banker, merchant, and politician from Oxford, Maryland— known as the "Financier of the American Revolution"—was a friend and close associate of Colonel William Hemsley. The two men served as fellow politicians in Philadelphia and shared a connection through their Eastern Shore estates. [4] Morris even visited Cloverfields, where tea was likely a topic of conversation in the years following the Revolution.

In 1784, Morris sent the Empress of China on America’s first independent voyage to China, making him the first to import Chinese tea on an American vessel.[5] Given their personal and business relationship, it is possible the Hemsleys were among the first Americans to enjoy tea imported directly from China.

Unlike at Nomini Hall, tea was served, at least to some degree, at Cloverfields during the war. Col. William Hemsley’s August 14, 1779 account with cousin and future brother-in-law Tench Tilghman mentions acquiring green tea and also settling his account with Robert Morris.

In his May 10, 1802 letter, Col. Hemsley writes from Cloverfields to his brother-in-law William Tilghman in Philadelphia for sending “sugar and tea,” so we know his family took their tea sweet.

Japanned Tea Urn

Three Hemsley inventories list Japanned items. Col. William Hemsley’s 1812 official estate inventory included a tea urn and chest. A second Cloverfields inventory found at Poplar Grove in the papers of Anna Maria Hemsley Emory lists three waiters (tea trays) of assorted sizes, along with a chest, and urn, and five waiters are among the items appearing in the 1822 inventory of the Colonel’s second daughter Charlotte (1762-1822).

Japanning, a process designed to mimic the prized lacquerware of Asia, was highly sought after in colonial America, and the items listed in Hemsley’s inventory reflect this desire. These pieces were often tea ware and had a glossy and highly decorative surface, aiming to replicate the aesthetics of Asian lacquered objects. The Japanner industry was primarily centered in England in cities like Birmingham and Pontypool in Wales beginning in the early 18th century. However, there are examples of American Japanners, most notably in Boston.[6] Manuals like A treatise of japaning [sic] and varnishing printed in 1688, helped the industry to flourish in the 18th century and later into the Victorian era.

Given that the fashion for Japanned pieces started appearing in early to mid-18th-century America, it is likely that these items were acquired earlier and could have adorned the parlor as it appeared in 1784.

An extant Japanned tea urn from this period is a rare find, as many did not survive. European and American Japanning techniques involved applying a delicate veneer to a surface, which proved far less durable than the original Asian lacquers. Japanned tea urns, designed to hold hot water, often suffered from cracked and peeling finishes over time. This 18th-century Dutch example, made of pewter, may resemble the material used in Hemsley’s own “Japanned tea urn.”

The desire for Japanned objects extended well beyond the Hemsley family’s home. In Maryland, inventories of prominent families from the mid-18th century often include similar pieces. For example, in 1754, Daniel Dulany’s inventory notes a Japanned tea table, while in 1763, Philip Thomas Sr. also owned a Japanned tea table and chest of drawers. Henrietta Maria Dulany, in 1766, and Charles Clark of Prince George County, in 1767, both referenced Japanned items in their inventories, including waiters and tea boards. These references underscore the popularity of Japanned goods among Maryland’s elite.

An interesting connection to the Hemsley family’s appreciation for Japanned wares appears in correspondence from the Richard Tilghman Papers housed at the Pennsylvania Historical Society. In a letter dated June 17, 1799, Anna “Nanny” Lloyd, a Hemsley relative and frequent guest at Cloverfield, wrote to her uncle, Richard Tilghman, requesting a square Japanned dressing box, specifying that it should not exceed $4. This request highlights the widespread appeal of Japanned items among the extended Hemsley family and their acquaintances.

Black Basalt Queensware

One of the most visually distinctive tea-related items listed in the inventories is “black Queensware,” a type of basalt pottery. Hemsley’s collection included at least six dishes, two cream pots, and two teapots made from this material.

Black Basalt is a refined type of pottery made from a blend of clay and other materials that fire to a deep black color. Its origins trace back to the Iron Age when certain clays naturally fired black, but the most successful formula was developed by Josiah Wedgwood in 1767 and perfected by around 1774.[7] Wedgwood, a pioneering English potter and entrepreneur, was known for his scientific approach to ceramics, elevating pottery from a craft to an art form.

His pieces became known as Queensware after Queen Charlotte patronized his work. His innovation with Black Basalt, along with his famous jasperware and creamware, solidified his reputation as one of the most influential figures in ceramic history to this day.

Inspired by classical antiquities, Wedgwood’s Black Basalt imitated the appearance of ancient bronzes and Greek pottery. The fine, dense body captured intricate details, making it particularly suited for neoclassical busts, vases, and tea wares. Other manufacturers quickly followed his lead, producing Black Basalt in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Craftsmen made pieces in various styles, including plain, engine-turned, gilded, painted, enameled, and relief-decorated. Unlike jasperware, which features contrasting colors for the base and figures, Black Basalt relief work is typically black-on-black.[8]

It was very popular in the 18th century, and women were particularly fond of the contrast it presented against their skin and clothes. Black basalt Wedgwood continues to be popular amongst collectors today.[9]

Wedgwood’s company most likely produced William Hemsley’s pieces, as Wedgwood was a leading manufacturer of Black Basalt during the 18th century. However, the available inventory records do not specify whether these pieces featured any relief decoration.

In the coming years, the Foundation hopes to recreate vignettes of the Hemsley family in the period, and acquire items like these that we can trace to primary sources.

[i] The story of James Anderson and Meliora Ogle is one of financial ruin and heartbreak—after inheriting his father’s firm in 1771, Anderson’s business collapsed in the London financial crisis of 1772-1773, forcing him to flee to Maryland in 1774 to escape debtor’s prison, leaving behind his pregnant wife, Meliora, and their two children; both she and his mother, Rebecca Lloyd Anderson, were pursued by creditors and died destitute in 1775, despite efforts by her mother Anne Tasker Ogle and Joshua Johnson to settle his debts. James’ youngest daughter Henrietta was later brought to Annapolis in 1784. Thank you to Paul Koch for providing the backstory and research on this fascinating family.

[1] William Hemsley to Robert and James Christie, November 15, 1763, MA 1353.2, The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY, http://corsair.themorgan.org/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=103411.

[2] Benjamin L. Carp, The Boston Tea Party (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010), 27.

[3] Philip Vickers Fithian, Journal and Letters of Philip Vickers Fithian, 1773-1774; a Plantation Tutor of the Old Dominion, edited by Hunter Dickinson Farish, Williamsburg, 1957, pp. 110, 195-196.

[4] Robert Morris, The Papers of Robert Morris, 1781–1784, ed. E. James Ferguson et al. (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1984, vol. 8, Page 469-470.

[5] Eric Jay Dolin, When America First Met China: An Exotic History of Tea, Drugs, and Money in the Age of Sail (New York: Liveright, 2012), 5-10.

[6] Christine Palmer, “Tortoiseshell & Gold: Robert Davis and the Art of Japanning in Eighteenth-Century Boston,” Colonial Society of Massachusetts, accessed February 12, 2025, https://www.colonialsociety.org/publications/3297/tortoiseshell-gold-robert-davis-and-art-japanning-eighteenth-century-boston.

[7]Alan Cuthbertson, “History of Wedgwood Black Basalt,” Collecting Wedgwood, July 11, 2017, https://collectingwedgwood.com/history-of-wedgwood-black-basalt.

[8] and [9] Cuthbertson, “History of Wedgwood Black Basalt.”

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]]>Winter in Review: a Season of Gifts and VisitorsSherri Marsh JohnsTue, 29 Oct 2024 17:06:23 +0000https://www.cloverfieldspreservationfoundation.org/newsletters/https/wwwcloverfieldspreservationfoundationorg/newsletters/historical-landscaping-n6m99-hr55x-bb8e2-ysznj-xlfb75a0605c7d7bdce81a96393c7:5a78a3eb53450a1a08defc3c:6716c054e8590e46e7be9a21

The Long Road Home: Henrietta Maria Hemsley Earle Returns to Cloverfields

by Rachel Lovett, Furniture Consultant

When twenty-year-old Henrietta Maria Hemsley (1779-1821) sat for her miniature portrait in 1799, she could not have imagined its journey through time (Figure 1). Nor could she have foreseen that nearly 220 years later, Cloverfields, her childhood home, would be preserved to reflect the year 1784, the time when she was just five years old. Yet history has taken a remarkable course. Now, after more than two centuries away, Henrietta Maria's miniature portrait has finally returned to Cloverfields, coming full circle.

Henrietta Maria (pronounced Mur-I-ah) was the seventh of Colonel William Hemsley's twelve children. Her birth in 1779, during the thick of the American Revolution, coincided with her father's election to the Maryland State Senate and important war-time appointments as both Continental loan, and procurement officer for Queen Anne's County.

By the time Henrietta Maria was born, her father had lost his first wife. Henrietta Maria's mother and Hemsley's second wife was Sarah Williamson, who he married in 1768. The couple's marriage and his rising status likely served as the impetus for the ambitious renovation of Cloverfields that due to the war would not be complete until 1784.

The couple possibly named Henrietta Maria after Colonel William Hemsley's first wife. If so, it is unknown how Sarah, known to the family as “Sally,” felt about naming her daughter after her late predecessor; however, such a naming convention was a fairly common practice in the period, as was the name itself. Hemsley had a sister and more than one cousin named Henrietta Maria.

Young Henrietta Maria Hemsley's large family included three older half-siblings: Mary "Polly" b. 1760, Charlotte b. 1762, William b. 1766, and three older full siblings, namely Anna Maria b. 1773 and died young, Philemon b. circa 1777, and Sarah b. 1778. She also had five younger siblings: Thomas b. 1781, Alexander b. circa 1785, Anna Maria b. 1787, and James and Juliana, for whom dates are unknown.

With such a large household, it was likely challenging to find a voice in the crowd, yet her miniature- the only known portrait of one of Colonel Hemsley's daughters - provides us a rare glimpse into the woman behind this ivory likeness.

Henrietta Maria began life in late-18th-century Maryland amid the privileges and opportunities reserved for a daughter of the land-owning elite. In contrast to her elder sisters, Henrietta Maria's personality is somewhat less known. Her beautiful eldest sister, Polly, had an excellent sense of taste and fashion. She married Colonel Joseph Forman of Rose Hill at Cloverfields in 1782, in a lavish wedding befitting a woman of her station [1].

Second eldest, the savvy business-minded Charlotte is perhaps the most well-documented of the Hemsley girls.  She never married and is regularly mentioned in family records, including correspondence from her father to family in Philadelphia advising them Charlotte was authorized to conduct her investments as she saw fit. Sarah, just a year older than Henrietta Maria, was likely her confidant and roommate at Cloverfields.

According to family lore, Sarah was a bit of a wild child. On one occasion, she ran away from home to Spa Spring to socialize with the local Native American community without telling anyone of her whereabouts, as related in family historian Frederic Emory's self-published book The Hemsleys of Maryland, written in 1886.

Henrietta Maria's daily life would have been marked by the genteel customs and expectations of an affluent young woman, including cultivating social graces, education in music, literature, fine arts, and participation in local social circles and events.

Henrietta Maria's upbringing involved learning the management of a household, a skill essential for women of her class. She would have been trained in the art of hospitality, overseeing the production of domestic goods like food and textiles, and managing the enslaved household staff. Her education, while limited compared to that of her male counterparts, would have emphasized refinement and preparation for marriage, ensuring she was well-versed in the social and cultural codes that governed elite society.

While many of her days were likely filled with leisure activities like riding, attending social gatherings, or participating in the local church, she was confined by the rigid roles and expectations that governed the lives of women of her status.

Business often took Colonel William Hemsley to Philadelphia, allowing his children to travel with him and expand their horizons outside of rural Queen Anne's County, Maryland.

At the dawn of the 19th century, Philadelphia was a lively center of cultural and economic life, and one of the most influential cities in the early United States (Figure 2). Serving as the nation's capital from 1790 to 1800, it drew many prominent figures and fresh ideas, establishing itself as a center for innovation in art, politics, and fashion.

It was here in Philadelphia that Henrietta Maria had her miniature portrait painted in 1799 by the English-born artist Robert Field (1769-1819), who had come to the United States in 1794. Field was an engraver, miniaturist, and portrait painter who based his career on commissions from wealthy members of society.

Field made several significant connections in Philadelphia with Maryland families. In the fall of 1801, he shifted his focus to the plantation families of Maryland's Eastern Shore. During this period, Field likely stayed with the families whose portraits he painted, including possibly Henrietta Maria's eldest brother William Hemsley, Esq. (1776-1825), whose miniature is now in a private collection.

Throughout 1802, Field fulfilled numerous portrait commissions in Queen Anne's and Talbot Counties, working with large plantation-owning families deeply intertwined through societal and familial bonds. Many of his works from this time remain in the private collections of their descendants.

Field's career stretched from London to the new United States, Canada, and finally, Jamaica, throughout which he stayed in one place for only brief amounts of time before moving on to another customer base.

In contrast to other contemporary miniaturists who worked on smaller surfaces, Field distinguished himself by using larger ivory pieces imported from England. This approach enhanced the luminosity of his subjects. Fine hatchings characterize Field's miniatures and typically feature backgrounds in blue or brown. His figures are prominently placed high in the center of the composition, with clear, definitive brushstrokes and occasional stippling in the background. Most of his works are signed "R.F." and include the entire year. Compared to his peers, Field's miniatures often exhibit lighter skin tones, giving his portraits an almost ethereal, airy quality.

American miniatures were typically created using watercolor on ivory sourced from tusk or whalebone. Often enclosed in oval cases, these miniatures frequently featured a lock of hair from the sitter on the reverse side. Henrietta Maria’s miniature contains no hair. These small, cherished keepsakes were given to loved ones on special occasions and were commonly worn as jewelry.

Painted when she was twenty, this portrait captures Henrietta Maria in the prime of her youth before her marriage to Thomas Chamberlaine Earle (1771-1843). Thomas was the son of Richard and Ann Chamberlaine Earle, an affluent Eastern Shore planter family well-known to the Hemsleys.

Thomas was a relation to Henrietta Maria, although indirectly.  His father was the brother of her father's first wife Henrietta Maria. Therefore, Thomas was a first cousin to her half-siblings Polly, Charlotte, and William through their mother.

Thomas decided on a career in law and government work and initially worked for the firm Nicols, Chamberlaine & Earle. In 1795, at the age of 24, commercial business took him to England. While in England, Thomas visited Chamberlaine relatives in Cheshire, England. He was the first family member to visit England since 1723.  During his visit, he obtained the family lineage from John Chamberlaine of "Saughall," which he later published [2].

It is unknown where Thomas and Henrietta Maria initially lived after their marriage, but by the early 19th century, they rented Lexon, a 200-acre estate on Corsica Neck Road, outside of Centreville, Maryland (Figure 3).

Built ca. 1760, Lexon is an elegant, two-story, Flemish-bond, brick dwelling with a pitched gable roof and a center-passage plan. The well-appointed interior exhibits a blend of Federal and early Greek Revival styles introduced during renovations in the early 19th century, possibly when Henrietta Maria lived on the property. While smaller than Cloverfields, Lexon is typical of the type of house popular with Queen Anne's County families of above-average means.

Henrietta Maria's life at Lexon was likely comfortable and the best of circumstances afforded to a woman of her station in life.  Little is known about the daily household operations, but the couple's privileged lifestyle was likely made possible by enslaved workers who cleaned, cooked, and tended the grounds. The 1810 Federal Census records indicate the Earle household included nine enslaved persons.

In addition to his legal career, by 1804, Thomas Chamberlaine Earle owned a general store in Centreville, Maryland. During the early 19th century, Centreville emerged as a burgeoning commercial and social center following the relocation of the county seat from Queenstown in 1782. The town's French-inspired name reflected post-Revolutionary admiration for France. Officially planned in 1794, Centreville's layout included 37 lots along the north-south axis formed by Commerce and Liberty Streets and bisected by the main east-west road, Water Street. The courthouse, completed in 1796, is the oldest in Maryland and remains a central town landmark.

The town also saw the establishment of key structures and institutions: a market house in 1796, replaced by a town hall in 1877, an academy in 1803, and a primary school system by 1826. The local economy was seasonally influenced by horse racing, which began in 1805.

The marriage produced no surviving children. However, the couple appeared devoted to each other and had a warm, caring extended family frequently in attendance at Lexon. The pair, in turn, visited their many nearby relations.

In contrast to her life as a younger daughter at Cloverfields, Lexon was a place where she could express her individuality in practice, if not in name.

Henrietta Maria's husband Thomas also had a sister named Henrietta Maria, and his brother Samuel also married a Henrietta Maria, and that is not to mention the cousins and next generation of nieces. Dinner parties must have been challenging with so many relatives of the same name.

In all likelihood, these ladies developed a variety of nicknames to differentiate themselves. Her brother Alexander affectionally called her Henny. An 1801 letter from Alexander to their sister Anna Maria notes that "sister Henny" is helping with his shirts [3].

Thomas' legal career continued to prosper, and starting in 1815 he served as the Register of Wills for Queen Anne's County, a position he held until his death in 1843. As Register of Wills, Thomas' principal tasks were recording wills and ensuring the proper administration of a decedent's estates. His office also oversaw Certificates of Freedom for the enslaved individuals of Queen Anne's County, freed per the wills he registered.

Thomas invested in the Centreville-based Maryland Silk Company in 1839, which was part of a larger area initiative by private companies to grow Mulberry trees for the production of silk. The industry never took off, however, mulberry trees are still found around the old-line state, notably the one in front of the William Paca House in Annapolis, Maryland, which was planted within the same era as the Centreville, Maryland Silk Company.

Sadly, Henrietta Maria passed away on Christmas day 1821, when she was just 42 years old, and Thomas lived until age 72, continuing on at Lexon as a widower.

Around the time of Henrietta Maria's passing, her miniature was given to her younger brother Thomas Hemsley (1781-1830), who gave it to his son William Hemsley (1810-1862), who gave it to his daughter Mary Hemsley Sterrett (1834-1911).

Having no heirs, Mary Hemsley Sterrett sold it to collector and family member John Hemsley Johnson of Baltimore, the great-grandson of Philemon Hemsley (1777-1822), an older brother of Henrietta Maria. Johnson didn't have any children either, and the piece passed down in the line of his brother Richard Pleasant Johnson (1871-1940) and continued in his line until it was recently sold at auction in July of 2024 by a descendant.

While out of Cloverfields' 1784 period of interpretation, the piece plays an integral role in connecting the Hemsley children to the wider world of Queen Anne's County in the 19th century. The miniature is now on display at Cloverfields in the Hyphen Gallery, which serves as an exhibition space for items related to the family outside of the 1784 period of interpretation.

The design is complete to recreate the childhood bedroom of Henrietta Maria and her older sister Sarah on the second floor. The room will include a camp bed with a green check pattern, a Philadelphia dresser, and a variety of children's toys befitting a room for a 6- and 5-year-old pair of sisters in 1784.

The Cloverfields Preservation Foundation is pleased to reunite the portraits of father and daughter and bring Henrietta Maria back to Cloverfields after an absence of more than two centuries (Figure 4).

[1] Maryland Historical Society, “Letters of Molly and Hetty Tilghman,” Maryland Historical Society Magazine, Volume 21, Issue No. 1 (Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 1926), p. 34.

[2] James Bordley, “The Hollyday and Related Families of the Eastern Shore of Maryland: Including the Truman, Vaughan, Covington, Lloyd, Robins, Chamberlaine, Hayward, Carmichael, Murray, Bennett, Earle, Chew, Hemsley, Tilghman, Goldsborough, and Other Families,” (Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 1962), p. 235, original from the University of Wisconsin - Madison.

[3] Alexander Hemsley to Anna Maria Hemsley, February 14, 1801, James Woods Poplar Grove Collection, Maryland State Archives, Special Collection, Image 5807-01-0009.

Remembering Mary Davidson Callahan Pippin (1927-2024)

We at the Cloverfields Preservation Foundation are saddened to learn of the recent death of Mary Davidson Callahan Pippin and offer our sincere condolences to her family.

Mrs. Pippin was the wife of the late James Olin Pippin, Jr. and mother of four. She was active in the community, most notably with St. Paul’s Episcopal Church and the Queen Anne’s County Garden Club.

Mrs. Pippin’s grandparents, Thomas and Ann Callahan, purchased Cloverfields from the Hemsley descendants in 1897.  She grew up at Cloverfields with her brother Thomas Callahan III, and half-siblings Elizabeth Carter Draper Brice, and James Carter, all of whom predeceased her.

Mrs. Pippin had a great passion for gardening, for which she credited her mother, Martha Greenwalt Callahan Carter (1895-1989). In 2021, CPF had the pleasure of dedicating Cloverfields’ gardens to mother and daughter. At the dedication celebration, guests enjoyed hearing Mrs. Pippin’s recollections of her mother’s garden and the visits and honors it received from the Maryland Garden Club.

Both Mrs. Pippin and Mrs. Brice shared many family stories and memories of Cloverfields with CPF during Cloverfields’ restoration. Video recordings of their recollections are available on our website. Mrs. Pippin and Mrs. Brice also shared photographs, including the earliest known photographs of Cloverfields, which proved invaluable in understanding the evolution of the house in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

CPF is grateful to these two remarkable women, and to their mother, whose preservationist spirit safeguarded Cloverfield during the nearly sixty years it was her home.

Cloverfields’ Key Connection

September 13th, 2024 marked the 210th anniversary of the failed British attack on Fort McHenry in Baltimore.  Well-known is the story of amateur poet Francis Scott Key, who, while on a diplomatic mission, was detained by the British aboard his ship in the Patapsco River and watched the 25-hour bombardment unfold (Figure 1). 

As dawn broke, a fearful Key rejoiced upon seeing “that our flag was still there.” The great garrison flag flying triumphantly over the fortress indicated the Americans had not surrendered;  the British would not land troops, and Baltimore - and perhaps the young nation -  was saved.

Deeply affected by the stirring sight of the 30 ft. x 42 ft. “star-spangled banner,” Francis Scott Key penned a deeply moving poem on the back of a letter about what had witnessed. Within a week, Key’s words appeared in print titled “The Defense of Fort McHenry,” with instructions that they should be sung to the tune of a British melody, “Anacreon in Heaven.”  Soon renamed “The Star Spangled Banner,” it quickly became a much-beloved patriotic song. Despite its popularity, it was not until 1931 that the United States Congress recognized the “Star Spangled Banner” as the nation’s official anthem [1].  

While “The Star Spangled Banner” is by far Francis Scott Key’s most famous poem, it was far from his only.

Key was a family friend and related to the Hemsleys by marriage. Key developed a close friendship with William Hemsley, Esq., the eldest son of Colonel Hemsley (Figure 2).

Both men were of similar age and trained as lawyers. They shared deep religious convictions and, at one time, considered becoming Episcopal priests. The pair also found common ground on the issue of slavery, which both believed to be immoral.

A collection of Key’s poems was published in 1857, after his death, and released nationally (Figures 3 and 4). Many of Key’s other poems had religious themes that were used a Christian Hymns. Notably, the volume included a piece written in memory of his friend William Hemsley, Esq. that he penned some three decades earlier as an epitaph for Hemsley’s gravestone (Figure 5).

The text of that poem reads:

Here lies a man whose life proved and adorned
The faith by which he walked. By all esteemed,
By many loved, hated or feared by none,
He moved, secluded from the world's vain gaze,
Within a narrow, but a glorious sphere
Of Christian duty, shedding love and peace
Around his path, where many an eye that once
Beheld and blessed him, now is dim with tears.
Reader! if thou dost know the grace of God,
Thank Him for this His gift; and pray that thou
May'st live, like Hemsly, to thy Maker's praise,
And, like him, die with steadfast hope in Christ,
The victor, not the victim, of the grave!

A widower and childless, upon his death in 1825, William’s final arrangements fell to Anna Maria Earle Forman, the young widow of William’s late nephew, Ezekiel M. Forman. Anna and Ezekiel’s sons, William H. and Ezekiel T. M., were the heirs to Cloverfields.

Anna, or perhaps Key, at her request, changed the first two lines to a personal expression of love for the father figure whose home she had shared with her husband and young sons. The rest of the poem remained as Key wrote it. The verse was carved upon Hemsley’s original ledger stone and its replacement, both of which lie in the family cemetery at Cloverfields.

[1] Smithsonian Institution, “The Real Story Behind the Star-Spangled Banner, the Flag That Inspired the National Anthem,” smithsonianmag.com/history/real-story-behind-star-spangled-banner-flag-inspired-national-anthem-149220970/

Garden Notes

The weather remains warm and Cloverfields’ pollinators remain busy with end-of-season activities. A few of them were willing to pause for photographs.

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]]>Henrietta Maria Earle: The Portrait of a Lady—Francis Scott Key's Poem for his Friend, William Hemsley, Esq.— A Tribute to Mary Davidson Callahan Pippindecorative artsGardens and GardeningTravelSherri Marsh JohnsThu, 20 Jun 2024 14:26:45 +0000https://www.cloverfieldspreservationfoundation.org/newsletters/https/wwwcloverfieldspreservationfoundationorg/newsletters/historical-landscaping-n6m99-hr55x-bb8e2-ysznj5a0605c7d7bdce81a96393c7:5a78a3eb53450a1a08defc3c:66743c256419c53c8f097b1cAs progress continues in implementing Cloverfields’ furnishing plan, Rachel Lovett discusses the subtle reasoning behind the look of the new floorcloths. In addition, family letters recount the Hemsley’s summer trips to Barren Creek’s mineral spring.

Bringing the Outside In: A Look at Cloverfields’ New Floorcloths

by Rachel Lovett, Furniture Consultant

In early America, floor covering use remained fairly minimal until the first half of the 18th century. Textiles were expensive and, therefore, most American floors were left bare, except for an occasional straw mat. Painted canvas cloths, now commonly referred to as floorcloths, appeared in early America in the first half of the 18th century. English designer John Carwitham published a book of floorcloth patterns in 1739,  and it gained widespread popularity. His intricate and versatile designs became sought-after elements in interior decoration. Durable yet fashionable, by the mid-18th century, these floorcloths were ubiquitous in homes, commonly found in entryways and high-traffic areas, as the canvas was easy to clean.

Initially, these pieces were imported from England. However, after the American Revolution, the new nation started to embrace locally made goods, and floorcloths are a great example of this homespun enterprise. In Maryland, several newspapers, such as the Annapolis-based Maryland Gazette, had artisans offering a variety of painting services, including the making of floorcloths.

In 1767, Annapolitan Charles Carroll, known as “the Barrister” to distinguish himself from his father and son, ordered from London “2 Good Painted floor Cloths…made of the best and strongest duck [canvas] and Painted so as to bear mopping over with a wet mop and Put up Dry and so as not to be Cracked or to have the Paint rubbed off.”[1]

Floorcloths came in a variety of styles, ranging from plain and geometric to faux marble tiles. During the 18th century, there was an explosion of interest in the natural world that reflected society's growing fascination with botanical wonders. Textiles and decorative art items showcasing elaborate flowers and plants became immensely popular as a way to entertain your guests. These intricate designs not only delighted the eye but also transported the viewer.

Thomas Jefferson was particularly fond of solid green floor cloths. A solid green floorcloth is noted as being in the Presidential House under Jefferson’s term in his small dining room and Great Hall of Entrance, noting it had "the whole floor covered with canvass painted Green.” Jefferson also painted the entranceway at his home, Monticello, grass green.

“Grass green is particularly significant for Cloverfields as the grounds possibly featured one of the earliest curated green spaces in Maryland.” — Rachel Lovett

Jefferson’s love of green floor coverings was inspired by famous American artist Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828) who did this in his own home. Their goal was to bring the outside in, a popular theme in this period. (A similar concept is expressed in the faux ashlar stone walls in Cloverfields lower passage and stairhall).

The decision to create green floorcloths at Cloverfields was inspired by a desire to be historically accurate yet subtle, to avoid detracting from the architecture, especially the faux ashlar stone walls in the lower passage, one of the house's most important architectural features.

Grass green is particularly significant for Cloverfields as the grounds possibly featured one of the earliest curated green spaces in Maryland. Although lawns are now a staple of the American home, English colonists did not find the lush green expanses we see today. European farm animals quickly decimated native grasses such as marsh grass, broomstraw, and wild rye. To create green spaces, settlers imported seeds from England, including clover, which is not native to North America. This practice was intentional and green lawns were accessible only to those who could afford them, making such landscapes a symbol of status and wealth.

George Washington referred to planting “English grass seeds” in 1785 at Mount Vernon. His contemporary Charles Carroll of Carrollton, Signer of the Declaration of Independence from Annapolis, Maryland, used white clover as ground cover in his yard.

The earliest reference to the name “Clover Fields” in relation to the Hemsley property was October 10th, 1726, on William Hemsley’s (1703-1726) warrant to "resurvey several parcels into one tract known as Clover Field." [2]

In the 18th century, clover was a desired ground cover used to create meticulously curated landscapes. Given that clover is not native to America, the Hemsleys were likely planting white clover and choosing the name intentionally as a status symbol. The importation of clover was relatively new in the early 18th century, making the Hemsleys trendsetters of their time by incorporating this plant into their grounds.

European turf grass far surpassed clover in the late 18th century as leading citizens like Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and Charles Willson Peale embraced English turf grass with a mix of clover. They modeled their estates after great English country houses with velvet-like green carpets.

By 1780, seeds became more widely available, leading to the establishment of seed stores and greenhouses in cities like Philadelphia. These enterprises were largely dominated by the Shakers, a Quaker breakaway group, who were known for their expertise in horticulture and seed production.

While green spaces were available to the American market, it was primarily the elite who curated them until the mid to late 19th century. During this period, middle-class Americans began to take notice of the works of landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903), who created lush public parks such as Central Park in 1858. Similarly, the 1876 World Fair in Philadelphia educated Americans on how to create what we now call a lawn or yard. These green spaces soon became a status symbol, representing a well-maintained and prosperous home.

Unfortunately, today clover is often seen as a weed or, at best, a symbol of luck if one finds a four-leaf clover. However, clover has many merits: it is drought-resistant, attracts pollinators, and is easy to grow. Until the mid-20th century, clover was a staple in the ideal American green lawn, grown alongside turf grass. This changed when chemical companies invented herbicides and launched a successful advertising campaign to eliminate clover, a strategy that continues to influence how Americans view their lawns today.

While no records of floorcloths from 1784 have survived, Colonel William Hemsley’s 1812 inventory lists numerous green items, including a set of green-edged china dishes and a baize crumb cloth. Paint analysis also revealed vestiges of green verdigris paint on trim work in Col. Hemsley’s first-floor study. This suggests that Hemsley would have appreciated green floorcloths, aligning with his inclination to bring the outdoors inside, as demonstrated by the faux ashlar stone walls he installed in 1769.

Betsy Greene, a decorative painter from Baltimore, Maryland, was selected to create Cloverfields’ floorcloths. Greene has provided faux graining and floorcloths to some of the area’s finest historic house museums, including the Hammond-Harwood House Museum in Annapolis, Maryland, where she made the faux mahogany front door and entryway floorcloth.

Greene completed four floorcloths for Cloverfields, covering the front entry hall, study, hyphen entrance, and kitchen entrance. The chosen color, Sherwin Williams Tailpot Green, mimics the look of grass, and the natural coarseness of the canvas material enhances this effect. This design choice is reminiscent of the aesthetic that Thomas Jefferson would have appreciated, blending practicality with historical authenticity.

Historically accurate and inviting, these reproduction 18th-century green floorcloths serve both as a charming nod to the past and a practical addition for everyday use. They offer an easy-to-clean surface for wiping feet. At Cloverfields, they provide a functional benefit while enhancing the historic ambiance of the space, just as they would have two hundred years ago.

[1] Invoice to Mr. William Anderson, 24 February 1767, “Letters of Charles Carroll, Barrister,” MHM, 37 (March, 1942): 61.

[2] Queen Anne's County Circuit Court Patent Certificate 198 MSA S1204_202.

“Spring Vacation”: Examining the Origins of Recreational Travel

The Hemsleys did not vacation, nor did any of their friends. The term, and the concept as we know it, only became commonplace after the Civil War, first used in reference to wealthy urbanites who “vacated” the city during the summer. Increasingly, members of the expanding middle class took time away from home and business, seeking better health, self-improvement, spiritual fulfillment, or simply recreation.

Semantics aside, many eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century Americans found the practice of neglecting one’s responsibilities for the sake of rest and amusement morally suspect. For those unconcerned that “Idle Hands are the Devil’s Workshop” the cost and complexities of travel, along with a lack of reliable caretakers for the farm or shop, often presented overwhelming obstacles.

Exempt from opprobrium was what we now call wellness travel, which, as the accompanying article shows, was not synonymous with leisure travel. For millennia, people traveled to bathe in and imbibe mineral springs, hoping to cleanse away their infirmities. Results varied, of course, depending upon the water's composition and the disorder's nature.

The healing properties of Spa Belgium’s spring water became so famous that its name has since become eponymous with wellness resorts in general. Also achieving international fame were the thermal waters of Bath, England, used by the Celts, Romans, and Saxons before ambitious eighteenth-century developers turned the sleepy town into a playground for the wealthy. In terms of commercial success, probably none rivals the naturally sparkling water of Vergèze, France, bottled with great success by Dr. Eugène Perrier in 1898.

Natural mineral springs are common in many parts of the world, but only a tiny percentage evolved into significant tourist destinations.

On this side of the Atlantic, Native Americans from coast to coast frequented natural springs long before Europeans made them fashionable.

It was George Washington's frequent visits that brought fame to Berkley Springs, now in West Virginia. Incorporated as Bath by investors hoping to cash in on the fame of the English spa town, Washington’s regular patronage established the place as one of America’s oldest health resorts.

In 1799, Nancy Hemsley was invited by her friend, Mrs. Lawrence, to journey to Bath/ Berkely Springs, but recent mercury treatments had left Nancy too weak to contemplate such a long journey.

Historians consider these places to be the crucible of the vacation resort. Visitors to a mineral spring could only “take the waters” for so many hours a day. Inevitably, towns grew as entrepreneurs offered visitors additional amusements. Increasingly, the promise of entertainment and socializing eclipsed the popularity of the water. Saratoga Springs in New York became more famous for its horse racing, and skiing is the main draw at Steamboat Springs in Colorado, to name two of many examples.

Now a middle-class institution, the vacation is considered a right and necessary for one’s well-being, even if the destination does not include a trip to a mineral spring.

Cloverfields also welcomed visitors from the Archaeological Society of Maryland and the Maryland Metaphysical Society.

Travelling to Stay Well in the “Sickly Season”

In 1797, fearing  an impending war with France and its impact on his investments, Col. William Hemsley postponed plans to purchase “a place to the northward…to retire to during the sickly season.”  Since the mid-20th century, Americans have associated that with the cold- and flu-prone months of winter. In Hemsley’s day, however, at least for residents of hot and humid climates, the sickly season was certainly summer, which brought with it months of exposure to a variety of potentially life-threatening insect and water-borne illnesses.  In 1807, Hemsley recalled the past summer as “a most sickly season [that] has proved fatal to many. Pere’n Tilghman and Hugh Sherwood both died on one day.” [1]

With Louis Pasteur’s Germ Theory more than sixty years away from discovery,  physicians lacked a better explanation for the cause of infectious disease than the two-thousand-year-old miasma theory of Greek physician Hippocrates, who believed most sickness spread through contaminated air.   Foul odors, of which there was no shortage in summer, provided a warning of an unhealthy environment.

Advancements in medical treatment based upon the scientific method were on the horizon, but physicians continued to practice “evacuatory medicine,” also first advanced by Hippocrates.   The exact prescription depended on the disease but invariably required a rebalancing of the patient’s four essential humors—blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm—a process achieved through a variety of mostly unpleasant and sometimes harmful practices.   

By the early nineteenth century, Col. William Hemsley and his third wife, Nancy, were no strangers to illness. Their health issues, of course, were not due to an unhealthy miasma surrounding Cloverfield.  Based on the description of their symptoms, it is likely both suffered from chronic malaria, then known as bilious fever.

Derived from the Latin “mal” and “aria,” meaning bad air, the name itself is an affirmation of miasma theory. In reality, malaria, like many other diseases, including yellow fever, spreads through the bite of an infected mosquito.  Unlike yellow fever, which is a viral infection,  from which the patient recovers (or dies), malaria is caused by the plasmodium parasite. If left untreated, the parasites multiply in the host’s liver, destroying red blood cells and inducing fever, chills, aches, anemia, and jaundice.    

In chronic malaria, symptoms come and go with varying severity as the immune system responds or the parasite goes dormant. The disease again becomes acute with the return of hot weather and new bites by infected anopheles mosquitoes. Rates of malaria, yellow fever, dysentery, and other illnesses caused by pathogens in food and water also spiked in summer and reached epidemic levels in crowded areas.

Nancy Tilghman Hemsley’s always delicate physical condition worsened after her marriage to  William in 1797.  Her high fevers, severe abdominal pain, and debilitating weakness made the family fear for her life on more than one occasion. 

The family doctor (and William’s son-in-law), Dr. James Troup, was a graduate of the Royal College of Physicians in Edinburgh, Scotland, then a leading medical school. For Nancy, Dr. Troup prescribed the accepted course of evacuatory treatments, including bloodletting, blistering, emetics, and doses of mercury (both ingested and applied topically), none of which brought his patient lasting improvement.

By 1802, William reported Nancy rarely enjoyed three consecutive days of good health. One wonders that she had any!   Arguing she was too sick to travel, persuading her to leave Cloverfields in summer became an annual struggle. 

“From the time we crossed the Dover Ferry until we got here we had to fight the mosquitoes with bows to keep them out of the carriage…” — Col. William Hemsley to William Tilghman about the journey to Barren Creek.

William’s formerly robust health started to decline when he reached his sixties.  In November of 1808, he delayed a trip to Philadelphia explaining “ my seasonal complaint has reduced me low.”  Already experiencing fever and stomach problems, a painful attack of gout left him barely able to walk. Notably, gout, caused by elevated blood levels of uric acid, is another side-effect of chronic malaria.

During the summer, William and Nancy sometimes joined friends and family at Barren Creek, a tributary of the Nanticoke River, in what is now Mardela Springs, on Maryland’s lower eastern shore. A spa town of sorts since at least the 1790s, colonists learned about the curative qualities of the spring water from the local Nanticoke Indians, who touted its healing powers and had frequented it for centuries. 

In July of 1806, the couple endured a sweltering two-day, sixty-mile journey by carriage in the company of countless biting insects to Barren Creek. “From the time we crossed the Dover Ferry until we got here we had to fight the mosquitoes with bows to keep them out of the carriage…” complained William Hemsley to his brother-in-law.  He continued, “We have suffered more than can be conceived. And now they are so thick here I am fearful your sister will not stay more than a day or two.” [2]  

With the arduous journey behind them, the Hemsleys settled into the local boarding house and set about consuming the famed vomit- and diarrhea-inducing water. The trip sounds like a dreadful ordeal, but Barren Creek’s clientele, which included wealthy and discerning patrons, some traveling from as far away as Philadelphia, gave positive reports.

The elder William, again writing to his brother-in-law remarked, “Will Hemsley has been here eighteen days and has given the waters a fair trial and he has a very good opinion of them in removing bile, and he has been informed that in disenteria [sic] and all complaints of the bowels they have a wonderful effect, so that I am in hopes Mrs. Hemsley will derive great advantage from drinking the water.”  Presumably, she did as the following August she returned. “A few days being at the spring Mrs. H. thinks will secure her against a bilious fever…” penned William to his brother-in-law. [3]

While Barren Creek’s springwater was not a panacea, neither was it a placebo.

Given the down-right dangerous medical treatments prescribed at the time, it is easy to question the wisdom of consuming  Barren Creek’s peculiar springwater. The place name even sounds like a health warning. Now, with the knowledge that mosquitoes transmit malaria and a host of other diseases, the trip sounds all the more likely to sicken than to heal.

Was Barren Creek’s spring water curative? The answer is probably a qualified “yes.” The spring contains sulfur, a naturally occurring element known to have wide-proven medical applications when ingested and applied topically, though toxic when consumed in large amounts. Sulfur-based drugs are among the earliest class of manufactured antibiotics and are still prescribed to treat a wide spectrum of conditions as minor as acne and as deadly as septicemia. Sulfadoxine replaced quinine (traditionally served with gin as a health “tonic.”) in treating malaria. Will Hemsley, Jr. would not have been surprised to know that sulfa drugs are effective against dysentery.

In 1903, Dr. P. B. Wilson, a Professor of Chemistry at Baltimore University School of Medicine, found that the spring also contained high levels of iron, which is used supplementally to treat anemia and traces of other elements with known medical applications. While Barren Creek’s springwater was not a panacea, neither was it a placebo.

In the 1890s, new owners rebranded the spring and town as Mardela Springs. Investors started bottling the “medical water,” which they sold by the case, with a label featuring a Nanticoke Indian and promises of efficacy against “all diseases known to man.” [4]

However, a preference for beaches and antibiotics, compounded by the Great Depression put the little spa town and the bottling company out of business. The springhouse and hotel (now a private residence) remain. If you find yourself on Rt. 50, heading to the beach to escape the miasma, detour to visit the Barren Creek Heritage Museum, operated by the Westside Historical Society, and learn more about one of Maryland’s oldest summer travel destinations.

[1] Col. William Hemsley to William Tilghman, Queen Anne's County, July 17, 1797. William Tilghman Correspondence, Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

[2] Hemsley to Tilghman, July 27, 1806.

[3] Hemsley to Tilghman, August 13, 1807.

[4] Paul Touart, Maryland Inventory of Historic Properties form, Mardela Springhouse (WI-80), February 2, 1998.

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]]>What is in a Name? Rediscovering the Forgotten Significance of “Clover Fields” and its Influence on Interior Decoration Decisions. Also, Wellness Tourism in the Early Nineteenth Century.Sherri Marsh JohnsSun, 25 Feb 2024 22:48:14 +0000https://www.cloverfieldspreservationfoundation.org/newsletters/https/wwwcloverfieldspreservationfoundationorg/newsletters/historical-landscaping-n6m99-hr55x-bb8e25a0605c7d7bdce81a96393c7:5a78a3eb53450a1a08defc3c:65cb8f631708a876acfccf80In honor of Valentine’s Day, this month’s newsletter features stories of love, marriage, and a few less clear-cut relationships. Also in this issue is new research on artist John Hesselius (1728-1778), his work, and his connection with Cloverfields.

Canvas Connections: Exploring the World of the Artist John Hesselius (1728-1778) and his Family at Cloverfields

by Rachel Lovett, Furniture Consultant

Restored to the year 1784, Cloverfields depicts the home of Colonel William Hemsley (1727-1812). One of the most authentic items acquired to date is the portrait of Hemsley (Image 1) which hangs in the parlor. In the portrait, Hemsley appears to be in his early thirties, posed against a dark background, depicting a forest landscape with a tree on the left.

He wears a light brown jacket with his left hand in his pink silk waistcoat, with a white cravat and undershirt. Pink was regarded as a fashionable masculine color in the period, often associated with hunting. One hand in the waistcoat was a typical gentleman’s pose in the period, seen on numerous contemporary portraits. His brown wig, common in the mid-18th century, is slightly receded and reveals a shaved head and natural brown hair, while his gaze is directly facing the viewer.

Oil on canvas, this piece was painted by the artist John Hesselius (1728-1778). Hesselius also painted Hemsley’s mother Anna Maria, step-father Robert Lloyd, and two younger half-sisters, Anna Maria and Deborah, likely contemporaneously to this portrait.[1]

Done from life, likely at Cloverfields,  Hesselius completed the family before 1763, as Hemsley’s mother, Anna Maria Tilghman Hemsley Lloyd (1709-1763), died that year. Sometime later, Hesselius made a miniature copy of Hemsley’s mother’s portrait, and it was given to Hemsley during his lifetime. A small note inscribed on the back reads "$7.00 / Loaned to Wm Hemsley / during his life - at his death / to be returned to A.M. Tilghman / or Augustina Forman".[2]

This likeness of his mother was a treasured keepsake for Hemsley kept in his personal possessions.

Beyond the Hemsley family, Hesselius’ client list literally painted a picture of the landed gentry in Virginia and Maryland. Traditionally, artists in early America were seen as mechanical craftsmen, not any different than a blacksmith or a tailor. However, Hesselius was unique, as he not only painted the landed gentry but also rose to become one of them.

Hesselius was born in 1728 and emerged as a prominent portraitist in the mid-Atlantic region, particularly in Maryland, during his most prolific period spanning roughly from 1750 to 1763. His artistic lineage traces back to Gustavus Hesselius (1682-1755), his father and a Swedish-born painter, who is recognized as one of the earliest trained artists to practice in America.

Hesselius embarked on his career as a portrait artist around 1750, evident from the dated works attributed to him. It's speculated that he might have worked alongside fellow artist Robert Feke (1707-1752) that year.

Hesselius’s style follows English Baroque and Rococo traditions. His portraits often exhibit generic and repetitive facial features. His early attempts at capturing human anatomy, particularly in the depiction of hands and facial features, display a certain degree of challenge. Hesselius's artistic evolution can be traced to the works of Robert Feke, leaving an impression on his own artistic expression. In contrast to the restrained style of his father, Gustavus Hesselius, John found inspiration in Feke's vibrant and decorative approach.

Feke's style permeates Hesselius's canvases, especially in the use of vibrant colors to depict textiles. Moreover, Hesselius's artistic journey was also shaped by John Wollaston (active between 1742 and 1775), a British artist who later moved to the colonies and did a large volume of work in Maryland from 1753 to 1754.

In contrast to other prominent portraitists of the time, such as John Singleton Copley, who sought the more developed centers of painting in London, Hesselius remained rooted in the American Colonies. His steadfast commitment to the late English Baroque and English Rococo traditions, coupled with a propensity for integrating external influences, positions John Hesselius as a distinctive figure in the unfolding narrative of colonial American portraiture.

While residing in Philadelphia for several years, Hesselius frequently journeyed through Virginia and Maryland, seeking commissions for his portraiture. By approximately 1759, he settled in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. In the early 1760s he trained future artist Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827) of Annapolis, who traded three saddles to have Hesselius teach him to paint. Peale would later rise to be known as the portrait painter of the American Revolution and one of the most celebrated influential trendsetters in early America.

In July of 1763, at age 35, Hesselius married Mary Woodward, a prosperous widow with four young children who owned Primrose Hill (Image 2), a 500-acre estate in Annapolis south of the capitol. This marriage provided entrée into a status seldom seen for a portrait painter in the period.

The couple suffered the loss of three children who died young before having three healthy daughters: Charlotte, born in 1770; Caroline, born in 1773; Elizabeth, born in 1775; and one son, John, born in 1777.

Despite maintaining his artistic endeavors in Maryland and Virginia, Hesselius found himself occupied with managing two estates, Primrose Hill and Bellefield, located north of Annapolis on the Severn River. He also dedicated significant time to religious activities as a churchwarden in Annapolis at St. Anne’s Episcopal Church.

Sadly, for Hesselius’ young family and his patrons, he passed away in 1778 at the age of 50. His estate's inventory suggests a man of considerable wealth, possessing a multitude of skills beyond his artistic talents. He owned numerous scientific instruments, including a camera obscura, a microscope, three violins, a harpsichord, and a guitar, all relatively rare for 18th-century America.

The relationship between Hemsley and Hesselius continued through the next generation with their children. A July 14th, 1793 letter, now owned by CPF, references social gatherings between Hemsley’s second-eldest daughter Charlotte, and Hesselius’ second daughter Caroline, mentioned only as Miss Hesselius.[3]

In the letter addressed to Edward Lloyd IV, Col. William Hemsley follows up on an invitation for the Lloyds to visit the next day. The invitation also included the couple’s daughter Rebecca and houseguests, Miss Anderson and Miss Hesselius, who were to remain overnight as guests of Charlotte.

As detailed in the accompanying article, concern that Rebecca Lloyd might encounter a romantic interest frowned upon by her parents during her visit to Cloverfields had put the visit into question.

We do not know if Caroline Hesselius visited Cloverfields the next day. If so, she must have felt a twinge of joy and pain seeing her late father’s work on display.

One can imagine her lingering in the parlor, contemplating her father’s familiar style and thinking of him painting at Cloverfields three decades earlier.

Although no image exists of Caroline Hesselius, there is an image of her older sister Charlotte (Image 3). Charlotte, the eldest surviving Hesselius daughter, was married to Thomas Jennings Johnson, son of Maryland’s first governor at the time of the letter.

Charlotte Hesselius was known as a notorious flirt in her day. Her mother Mary wrote a poem about her. A verse from it says, “Too thoughtless for conquest, too careless to please. No ambition she knows but to live life at ease.”[4] Sadly, Charlotte died in childbirth in 1794, just two years into her marriage.

Since the moment Hesselius carefully laid down his brush to complete the canvas of Col. William Hemsley, the portrait has borne witness to the unfolding chapters of American history. Through periods of societal change, cultural shifts, and historical milestones, the portrait remains a steadfast link to the past. It has witnessed the comings and goings of different owners, each inheriting not just an artwork but a piece of the rich tapestry of Hemsley's legacy. In the gaze of Hemsley, frozen in time by Hesselius's skillful hand, the portrait invites reflection on the interplay between art and the ever-evolving human experience.

[1] All remain in private collections as of February 2024.

[2] Information according to the Frick Art Reference Library. https://library.frick.org/permalink/01NYA_INST/1qqhid8/alma991013416049707141. The piece was later returned to the family of Hemsley’s half sister Deborah and it is still in a family private collection.

[3] Caroline’s elder sister Charlotte and younger sister Elizabeth were already married by 1793, leaving her as the only possibility to be Miss Hesselius. The elder Charlotte married Thomas Johnson (son of Maryland’s First Governor), and the younger Elizabeth married Walter Dulany on June 5th, 1792, in what appears to be a double ceremony. Caroline would later go on to marry Judson Claggett in March of 1795.

[4] The full contents of the poem can be found in The Century Magazine Volume LI No. 4, dated February 1896, in an article entitled Certain Worthies and Dames of Old Maryland on pages 490-491.

Unsuitable Suitors and Protective Patriarchs

The Story of Rebecca Lloyd and Joseph Hopper Nicholson

On July 14, 1793, Col. Hemsley and his second wife Sally found themselves in an awkward position. They had invited Col. Edward Lloyd IV, his wife Elizabeth, their daughter, referred to in letters as Miss Lloyd, and house guests, Miss Henderson and Miss Hesselius, to dine the next day. The Hemsley's thirty-three-year-old daughter Charlotte had extended the invitation to have the young women spend the night at Cloverfields as her guests. 

We know this from a letter Hemsley wrote to Lloyd in which the former entreats the latter not to cancel the date out of fear of an unwelcome encounter. [1]

Miss Henderson's identity remains unknown. Miss Hesselius, we learned from Rachel Lovett's accompanying article, is Caroline, the second of three daughters of portrait painter John Hesselius and his wife Mary Young Woodward. Miss Lloyd is obviously Rebecca Lloyd (1771-1848), the second daughter of Col. Edward Lloyd IV (1744-1796) of Wye House and the former Elizabeth Tayloe (1750-1725) of Mount Airy in Virginia.

Edward Lloyd headed one of the Eastern Shore's wealthiest and most influential families and, in 1767, made a brilliant marriage to Elizabeth, daughter of Col. John Tayloe II (1721-1779). With over 40,000 acres under his control, Tayloe was one of Virginia's largest landowners and at the top of Virginia politics and society. Tayloe’s wealth and holdings exceeded Lloyd’s, but the match was mutually beneficial and brought each business and political connections in the neighboring colony.

The Lloyds were naturally protective of Rebecca and likely hoped she would make an equally suitable marriage, which brings us back to Hemsley's awkward position. Rebecca was receiving romantic overtures from an ambitious local lawyer named Joseph Hopper Nicholson (1771-1817). While Rebecca apparently welcomed Nicholson's attention, her parents did not.

Previously, Col. Hemsley assured Mrs. Lloyd that Rebecca would not encounter the young man while at Cloverfields, but the day before the event, Hemsley found himself needing to reaffirm his promise. He wrote to Mr. Lloyd informing him Nicholson, in the company of two other young gentlemen, had unexpectedly visited the family a few nights before.

Fearing the Lloyds would hear, or perhaps had heard, of the visit and possibly think them complicit in the romance, Hemsley explained the circumstance. Sounding uncharacteristically embarrassed and apologetic, Hemsley told Lloyd that the visit was both extraordinary and unexpected, that he had no business with the man that would precipitate a call, and entreated them not to let the unanticipated event cause them to reconsider their visit.

Regrettably, we do not know if the Lloyds and young ladies visited Cloverfields as planned and can only speculate as to why the possibility of an encounter with Joseph Hopper Nicolson would scuttle the event.  

Nicholson came from a well-regarded Chestertown family and inherited most of his father's modest but respectable estate. Nothing about his background appears objectionable, but perhaps the Lloyds thought a woman of Rebecca's position and status could do better than this young country lawyer.   

The Hemsleys and Joseph's widowed mother, Mary, were then involved in an acrimonious land dispute. A month after the planned get-together, Hemsley wrote to Lloyd about the lawsuit and "Mary Nicholson's pretensions" to his land. Perhaps the Lloyd's disapproval stemmed from a similar interfamily dispute and not a personal objection to the young man. 

Whatever the reason, in this case, the couple's desires won out over family misgivings. Rebecca and Joseph married three months later. 

[1] Col. William Hemsley to Edward Lloyd IV. July 14, 1793. Cloverfields Preservation Foundation Collection.

CPF congratulates Kimmel Studio Architects and Lynbrook of Annapolis for winning the 2023 American Institute of Architects, Chesapeake Bay Chapter, Honor and Preservation Award for Residential Renovation and Addition for their work at Cloverfields.

An Offer of Marriage

Being lately so long in company with your sister, I feel such an attachment for her as induced me to make her a proposal to become one of my family

-Col. William Hemsley to William Tilghman, October 30th 1797

Valentine’s Day, of course, is the February holiday dedicated to celebrating romantic love. With antecedents in a pagan Roman fertility festival and the veneration of a 3rd-century martyred priest, the spirit of the holiday has strayed far from its origins.

We do not know if the Hemsleys celebrated Valentine’s Day, but they certainly would have been aware of it. By the 1750s, British friends and lovers of all classes exchanged tokens of affection or handwritten notes. The sentimental holiday did have its critics. On several occasions, “Mr. Town,” a commentator with the weekly London publication The Connoisseur took aim at its observers. In a 1754 essay, he mocked superstitious young women who used the occasion to employ “amorous sorcery.”  For admirers squeamish about employing magic, there was poetry or love letters, and if they lacked the talent to pen their own sentiments, professional Valentine writers were there to help.

This increasing focus on what we now call romantic love created difficulties for controlling parents who expected their children to marry partners to secure alliances and consolidate wealth. One hundred years of marriages to first cousins suggests the Hemsleys, at least sometimes, married for such practical considerations.   Decades of family correspondence routinely mentions upcoming marriages, but only Col. Hemsley’s 1797 letter confessing “an attachment” points to a union based on affection.[1]

Col. Hemsley intended first cousin Anna Maria “Nancy” Tilghman (1750- 1817) as his third wife. At age sixty-one, twice widowed, and with fortune and legacy established, he could afford to follow his heart, as indicated when he writes to Nancy’s brother, “As to pecuniary matters, I shall be entirely disinterested...” Hemsley asked Tilghman to put in a good word for him with his sister, which he apparently did, as Hemsley later thanked Tilghman for his “approbation.”

William Hemsley wrote of his feelings, but what were those of the intended bride? Unmarried at age forty-seven, did Nancy welcome the union and an opportunity to manage her own household? Or was she content, but since the death of her father three years earlier, feel a burden to her siblings and obligated to marry?

Whether out of affection or duty, only two months after receiving Hemsley’s proposal, the pair wed on December 26, 1797. Col. Hemsley tells Tilghman of the event and “hope neither of us will ever have cause to repent the connection” (Image 1).[2]

On whether theirs was a happy union or a proverbial case of “Marry in haste, repent at leisure,” the record is silent. The marriage lasted for nearly fifteen years, concluding with Hemsley’s death in 1812.

[1] Col. William Hemsley to Hon. William Tilghman. October 30, 1797. William Tilghman Correspondence, Manuscript Collection #659, Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

[2] Hemsley to Tilghman, January 7, 1797.

Unsuitable Suitors and Protective Patriarchs (continued)

The Story of Mary “Polly” Tilghman and William Paca

On Valentine’s Day, 1782, marriage occupied the thoughts of Col. Edward Tilghman Sr. (1713-1785), but it was not the thrice-married octogenarian and uncle of Col. Hemsley who planned to wed. 

An alarming rumor had reached Tilghman that his nineteen-year-old daughter Mary (1762-1793), known as Polly, would soon be engaged to a widower twice her age. The prospective groom was William Paca (1740-1799), a wealthy lawyer and politician best known today as one of Maryland’s four signers of the Declaration of Independence and builder of the William Paca House in Annapolis.

Except for age, Paca’s prominent position and large estate should have caused Tilghman to look favorably upon a match, but this was not the case. Accompanying news of the romance were stories questioning the gentleman’s character. Tilghman determined to find out if reports of the engagement were accurate. Instead of simply asking Polly, he sent a series of letters to male relatives asking what they had heard of the matter and their opinion of Paca. Tilghman’s concern, we learn, was not a matter of age but, as noted Annapolis historian Jean Russo put it, a question of reputation. [1]

Tilghman’s first letter went to his son Edward Jr., known as Neddy, demanding “a very explicit detail of [his] knowledge of Mr. P’s character & circumstances & what you have heard & from whom, any way relative to them.” The son’s reply only heightened the father’s anxiety. Paca “in a very considerable degree wants integrity and veracity,” wrote Neddy, and close friends considered him “a man of deep malice and resentment.”  Furthermore, he was a known womanizer, “[addressing] every woman as if he intended to make love to her…” To all this, he added, Paca was too old to marry his sister.

While the elder Tilghman expressed considerable concern about the former issues, about the latter, he responded in a shockingly callous manner for a father, telling Neddy, “my real opinion is he would outlast her… He is uncommonly robust and healthy. She [is] constitutionally delicate & tender & being from parents, both rather declining, cannot last long.”

A few days later, Tilghman wrote to his nephew, Col. William Hemsley, putting to him the same questions he asked of Neddy. The request left Hemsley in a delicate position. ­With family honor at stake, Uncle Ned required an honest answer, but he and Paca shared many connections. The pair had worked closely together during the Revolution, he was now a neighbor, and they saw each other socially.

In his carefully worded response, Hemsley denied knowing anything adverse about Paca’s character (other than recalling the ungracious and hasty manner in which Paca broke off his engagement to his cousin Nancy Tilghman). He admitted to hearing rumors of a possible engagement but denied first-hand knowledge of the matter. Mrs. Hemsley, he said, observed Paca shifting partners to dance with Polly, and she took Polly’s reaction when they danced or spoke to mean there was something to the report—or possibly the opposite, that Polly knew of the rumors and Paca’s attention embarrassed her.   

Tilghman requested Hemsley cease discussing the matter with his wife: “I repeat my injunction of secrecy even from the wife of your bosom...”  Why make such a request? On this question, Tilghman is straightforward, writing, “from constitution, education & habit, [women] are in my opinion unfit repositories for important secrets.”  Ironically, he did not consider himself an “unfit repository” for having shared this important secret with numerous male relations or a hypocrite for asking them for what was essentially gossip about Paca.

Ten days after his initial inquiry and still not knowing his daughter’s relationship status, Edward Tilghman Sr. took up the question with one of the two persons with firsthand knowledge of the matter. Again, not his daughter, but Paca, to whom he wrote, inviting him not to his home but to meet discreetly at a clearing at the end of a cart road.  

At the interview, Paca confessed he had hoped to make “an agreeable matrimonial connection,” and for some time, Polly had been “foremost in his esteem.”  On more than that Paca equivocated. When Tilghman pressed him with Polly’s claim—apparently, father and daughter had finally got around to talking– that on the evening of a visit to the Coursey’s, Paca asked Polly “if she could love him,” and when she evaded, he “insisted she should consider if she could, which she promised him she would do.” Paca claimed no recollection of the exchange, but being drunk that night, or in his words, “a good deal enlivened by liquor,” he conceded the claim might well be true.

A month after voicing his concern to Neddy, Edward Sr. had somewhat softened his opposition to the match, but Neddy remained so steadfastly and vocally opposed that he feared Paca would challenge Neddy to a duel.

None of these letters take into consideration Polly’s opinion or make mention if it were known. Whether or not she married Paca seems to have been a matter for the men to work out among themselves. The story concludes without a wedding. Did Paca lose interest in Polly or cease his advances because of the family animus? Maybe Polly was the agent of her story after all, and after the promised consideration, she told Paca she could not love him. The following year, she married her first cousin, Richard Tilghman (1747-1805). 

William Paca did not remarry. Sadly, Edward Tilghman’s prediction proved correct; Paca outlived Polly by six years.

[1] This story comes to us from A Question of Reputation: William Paca’s Courtship of Polly Tilghman (Annapolis: MD: Historic Annapolis, Foundation, 2000) by Jean B. Russo. The informative and entertaining book is out of print, but “Polly Tilghman’s Plight: A True Tale of Romance and Reputation in the 18th Century,” the 1997 Maryland Historical Society Magazine article which preceded the book, is available online at https://msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc5800/sc5881/000001/000000/000369/pdf/msa_sc_5881_1_369.pdf. The quoted letters are from Tilghman Papers at the Maryland Center for History and Culture.

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]]>Negotiating Friendship, Courtship, and Love in the Eighteenth CenturySherri Marsh JohnsThu, 26 Oct 2023 19:34:15 +0000https://www.cloverfieldspreservationfoundation.org/newsletters/historical-landscaping-n6m99-hr55x-bb8e25a0605c7d7bdce81a96393c7:5a78a3eb53450a1a08defc3c:6531538a8f3daf69a00f1387

Discovering William Hemsley, Jr. (1766-1825) in Art and Life

CPF recently received an interesting and welcome email from Tom Edgar, a Hemsley descendant through the Emory line. Mr. Edgar owns a framed miniature portrait that, according to family tradition, depicts a member of the Hemsley family. Interested in learning more about the piece, Mr. Edgar reached out to other relations and eventually was put in contact with us. Evidence, to be detailed in a future newsletter, led CPF historian, Sherri Marsh Johns, and decorative arts consultant, Rachel Lovett, to conclude that the elegantly dressed gentleman shown in the portrait is likely William Hemsley, Jr. (1766-1825), as painted by English-born artist Robert Field (1769-1819) in 1802.

William Hemsley, Jr. was the eldest son of Col. William Hemsley (1766-1812) and the former Henrietta Maria Earle (1730-1767). Known as Will to family and friends, he was the last of the Hemsley name to reside at Cloverfields. If correct about the sitter's identity and the portrait’s date, Will is thirty-six and shown as he appeared around the time of his marriage to his nineteen-year-old cousin Maria Lloyd (1784-1803). 

The image shows a mature man, poised and confident, with wide blue eyes and a mouth conveying just a hint of a smile. Hemsley's unhappy biography is at odds with the sitter’s sanguine expression. Born with every advantage the age could offer, mental illness and plain misfortune thwarted his personal happiness and professional aspirations. Family letters reveal a stalwart man who courageously pushed back against sickness and tragedy by seeking solace in religion and family.

Will studied law and started his career as a country lawyer, working for a time in Hagerstown, and as a gentleman farmer, managing his father's nearby Hopton and Wye Mill estates.

1797 marked an important turning point in Will's life. Through his father's connections, he received a prestigious diplomatic assignment to serve in London as secretary to Rufus King, the newly appointed Minister Plenipotentiary to Great Britain.* His Tilghman relations used his impending departure as a welcomed opportunity to return their widowed in-law Harriett Milbanke Tilghman and her young children to London.

Harriett's story reads like the plot of a Jane Austen novel. Will's many cousins included Lt. Col. Tench Tilghman (1744-1786), who served as aide-de-camp to Gen. George Washington during the American Revolution. Tench's brother Philemon Tilghman (1760-1797) also fought in the Revolution but on the other side, having run off at age sixteen to join the Royal Navy. Both men were Col. William Hemsley's first cousins and brothers of his third wife, Anna Maria "Nancy" Hemsley (1750-1817).

Philemon, by most accounts a rake lacking in money but not audacity, had eloped with Harriett Milbanke (1765-1835), the beautiful daughter of his commanding officer, Admiral Mark Milbanke. The furious Milbanke disowned Harriett, and the shunned couple sailed to Maryland and moved in with Philemon's father, James Tilghman (1716-1793), at Golden Square.

Philemon died in January 1797, having spent the inheritance received from both his father and a late brother. To relieve themselves of the prospect of supporting a young widow with five children, Philemon's relations, including Col. William Hemsley, raised money for Harriett to accompany Will on his voyage to London in hopes she would reconcile with her family.

The Milbanke family reunion succeeded, but Will's diplomatic career failed. Within six months he left his position with Rufus King and returned to Maryland. According to the 1886 manuscript, The Hemsleys of Maryland: A Genealogical Sketch by Frederick Emory,  Hemsley was shipwrecked on the return voyage. Emory writes that the near-death experience affected a profound religious conversion, after which “he lived the life of a sincerely pious man."   

Unlike some bargains made with the Almighty during times of great crisis, Will's new-found faith remained steadfast for the remainder of his life. Records of Old Wye Church record Hemsley as a long-serving lay reader and one of the "faithful fourteen" (most of whom were Hemsleys or close relations) who kept the church going during the difficult years of the early nineteenth century. He seriously considered entering the clergy and, through the careful study of Scripture, concluded that the enslaving of humans was incompatible with Christian principles.

Hemsley wrote a series of letters to Bishop James Kemp regarding slavery, including one in which he posed a series of queries about its morality and Christian obligation.

While wrestling with these matters, Will prepared for marriage to his cousin Maria Lloyd (1784-1803). Their short, unhappy union appears to have been a marriage of convenience between two people in uncertain circumstances. At nineteen, Maria was half the age of her bridegroom. From her widowed father, former U.S. Senator and future General, James Lloyd (1756-1830), Maria received a distinguished name but little or no dowry.

Lloyd’s steep debts and heavily mortgaged property motivated him to write to President George Washington for assistance. Reminding Washington of his service to the nation, Lloyd requested an appointment and, confessing in considerable understatement, that he could not make "comfortable provision for a large and encreasing [sic] family. Lloyd did not receive the requested appointment, went on to lose the family estate, Farley (or Fairlee), and after losing his wife and marrying off two of his three daughters, spent the last decade or so of his life living with various relatives. He is buried at Cloverfields with all three daughters.

Will and Maria married early in 1802. In August, Col. Hemsley wrote his cousin and Maria's uncle, William Tilghman, with news that Will had experienced another breakdown and had been away from home for two weeks, "which has made him even more miserable." He wrote, "Poor Maria's fate is a melancholy one and it has destroyed the peace of both families." How the situation resolved in the short term remains unknown, but the couple’s troubles ended the following May with Maria’s death.

The last ten years of Will Hemsley's life are not well documented. In 1812, he inherited Cloverfields. The young nation was again at war and entering a protracted economic crisis that ruined many Hemsley friends and relations. Intervention by nephew Ezekiel M. Forman (1790-1823) kept Will from insolvency and prevented the sale of Cloverfields, as well as the Wye Mill inherited by Will’s younger brother Alexander.

Ezekiel and his bride Henrietta Earle Forman took up residence at Cloverfields with Will and his older sister Charlotte. Hemsley wrote his will in 1821 and named Forman as the principal heir to both his real and personal estate, excepting his enslaved people who are discussed later. Forman predeceased his uncle by two years. In his 1822 will, Ezekiel refers to his Hemsley as "a father and a friend." He "fervently…solemnly and affectionately" asked Henrietta to remain at Cloverfields under Hemsley's “protection” and strongly discouraged her from remarrying. 

William Hemsley, Esq. (no longer styling himself "Junior" since his father's death) died in 1825. He had added a codicil to his will leaving Cloverfields and most of his personal estate to Ezekiel and Henrietta’s sons. His ledger stone in the Cloverfields cemetery reads in part, "This stone is dedicated by the widow and fatherless children of his nephew who found a shelter in his love and protection. Reader be moved." At William's death, those fatherless children, William H. and Ezekiel T. M. Forman, then ages five and two, became the juvenile owners of Cloverfields.

Hemsley’s will provided for the gradual emancipation of his enslaved people (except those above age forty-five who were prohibited freedom by law). He ordered men to be granted their liberty at twenty-six and women at twenty-three. Persons already of the specified age were obligated to serve two more years, except for Mordecai Moore, who was to remain bound for one more year. Hemsley gave to Ezekiel Forman’s "care and attention" those persons awaiting their freedom or too old to be legally granted it,

More than fifteen years before his death, Hemsley asked Bishop James Kemp the proper course of action for a slave-holder who found slavery contrary to Christian doctrine. The Bishop provided no useful guidance. His response is roughly summed up as "there is no good choice." There is no record Hemsley personally owned enslaved people before inheriting Cloverfields. The estates he managed and those who labored there were his father's. Still, given his convictions, what circumstances prevented him from liberating those he inherited sooner? 

On the other hand, the 1808 ban on the importation of slaves into the United States drove up the value of enslaved workers so much so that it led to the organized kidnapping of free blacks.  Col. Hemsley remarked on the high prices paid by buyers from the Deep South. He wrote critically of those who sold enslaved people to the deep-pocketed southern buyers, citing the brutality of conditions there and the cruelty of breaking up families. Despite his near insolvency, Will Hemsley did not use his valuable human capital as a means to free himself from debt.  

The historical record is fragmentary and incomplete. As with the Field miniature, surviving documents reveal Will Hemsley, Jr.'s life at discreet points in time. Much remains unknown. Previous newsletters have highlighted the Hemsley family’s wealth and political power, and how they carefully projected this image against the beautiful backdrop of Cloverfields. Will Hemsley's sad story offers a valuable counterpoint by showing that Cloverfields’ façade also beautifully concealed the same family’s weakness, pain, and loss.

* A lower rank than ambassador. As a republic, the United States did not exchange ambassadors with Great Britain until a policy change in 1893.

Fall Arrives at Cloverfields

Seemingly oblivious to the calendar, Cloverfields’ summer flowers remain in bloom, but the neighbor’s harvested cornfields rebut our dissembling flora, insisting fall has indeed arrived.

When the Hemsleys lived at Cloverfields, summer was the “sickly season.” Happily, those of us working at Cloverfields stayed well and enjoyed hosting visitors from across the country and around the county, including more than a dozen descendants of the Hemsleys of Cloverfields.  

Dr. Hugh and Pam Hemsley of Chesterfield, Virginia, toured the house and grounds with their daughter and two grandsons and brought the family Bible. Philemon Hemsley (ca 1777-1808) purchased the Bible in 1806, the year after marrying Elizabeth  Lloyd (1784-1808). Elizabeth’s twin sister married Will Hemsley, Jr., whose life is discussed in the opposite article.

The Bible’s pages record nearly two hundred years of births, marriages, and deaths of this cadet branch of the Hemsley family, up to and including Hugh’s birth.   CPF thanks them for bringing this important piece of family history and allowing us to copy the genealogy section.

A few weeks later CPF received Ms. Olivia Wood and cousins visiting from as far away as upstate New York and California. All are Hemsley descendants through Anna Maria Hemsley (1787-1864), the daughter of Col. William Hemsley (1736-1812) and his second wife, Sally Williamson (1749-1771). After her 1805 marriage to Thomas Emory, Anna Maria moved to Poplar Grove, near Centreville, Maryland.  Ms. Wood and husband Eric now own Poplar Grove and have started restoring the family’s eighteenth-century home. Last year Ms. Wood opened her home to visitors from CPF, so we welcomed the opportunity to return the hospitality. 

Other visitors included the president of Chesapeake College, the Annapolis Chapter of The National Society of Colonial Dames of America, Friends of Wye Mill, and Wye Mills Homemakers Club. As the latter group began to leave, four young environmental scientists who were taking soil samples from the neighboring farm came over and asked about the property and for permission to take selfies in the garden. All lovers of history, the group thoroughly enjoyed receiving an impromptu tour of the house and grounds.

Signed, Sealed, Delivered: The Desk & Bookcase at Cloverfields

By Rachel Lovett, Furniture Consultant

This past spring a rare opportunity presented itself for the CPF to acquire a ca. 1770 desk and bookcase that has a compelling connection to Cloverfields. The piece was owned continuously by one Maryland family, direct descendants of Colonel William Hemsley (1736-1812) through his eldest child, Mary "Polly" Forman. In order to fully appreciate the significance of this piece within the late-eighteenth-century household, it is essential to analyze its function, form, and provenance.

Desks and bookcases were typically located on the first floor in the parlor for visitors to see in eighteenth-century Maryland. The pieces have been associated with masculinity, and many eighteenth-century male portraits portray the subject seated while reading or writing at a desk. A desk and bookcase conveyed the wealth and intellect of the owner to the viewer; essentially, they were a status symbol.

A two-part desk and bookcase is listed in the parlor in Col. Hemsley's 1813 inventory. Given the age of the piece (ca. 1770) and the connection to the Forman family who inherited Cloverfields, it is certainly plausible this exact piece was at Cloverfields. The piece's position in the parlor rather than a private study suggests that multiple family members or visitors may have used it.

In the eighteenth century, letters were often read aloud at family and public gatherings, underscoring the need for discretion in communication. In 1784, Colonel William Hemsley had a private study that served as a sanctuary for confidential matters and correspondence, such as the exchanges related to the unsuccessful courtship of his relative, nineteen-year-old Polly Tilghman, by their neighbor, forty-one-year-old twice-widowed Governor William Paca. Likewise, a July 1793 letter from Hemsley to his friend Edward Lloyd IV was also written in private when he assured Lloyd that his daughter Rebecca's unwanted potential suitor, Joseph Hopper Nicholson, would not be at Cloverfields upon their next visit. Lloyd's objection notwithstanding, Nicholson married Rebecca in October of that year.

This desk and bookcase might have also played a role in the education of Hemsley's children, where they learned the art of penmanship. Children in the period learned to read after age four, however, they did not learn how to write until at least age nine or older. Writing was challenging as it was done with a quill pen, generally made of a goose feather, and the ink was messy and easy to smudge. While literacy rates were high in late-eighteenth-century America, writing was a skill predominantly possessed by men engaged in business and wealthy women responsible for household management. Once letters were written, they were closed with sealing wax, often stamped with a coat of arms or another sign indicative of the sender. The seal held the pages together to prevent the letter from being read until it was in the hands of the intended reader.

This particular desk and bookcase was constructed about 1770 and exhibits characteristics of Mid-Atlantic origin. The piece contains native woods found in Maryland furniture construction during the second half of the eighteenth century. The primary wood is walnut, which was common in Maryland cabinetmaker shops. Colonel William Hemsley's 1813 inventory reflects a high quantity of walnut furniture. The secondary woods for the backs of drawers and bottoms are yellow pine and tulip poplar, which is also in keeping for a Maryland-made piece. The piece has a broken-arch pediment and an urn-and-flame finial that may be replacements. Notable on the piece is the high quantity of drawers, which would be spaces where valuable papers could be hidden. The prospect door, which is the locked door on the interior of the slant top, is thought to be a replacement along with the ogee bracket feet.

Overall, the piece is in fine stable condition. Generally, country plantation seats would contain simpler furnishings compared to city dwellings. So, while this piece is not as fancy as other examples from Annapolis, Philadelphia, or New York, it is likely more in keeping with what existed at Cloverfields in 1784.

Until this past spring, the desk and bookcase were owned by Laura Eddy, a Hemsley/Forman descendent from Easton, Maryland. Family history states that the desk has provenance in the Forman family for over two hundred years. According to family history, the piece descended through the line of the Forman family, dating all the way back to Col. Joseph Forman and his wife Mary "Polly" Hemsley, the eldest child of Col. William Hemsley. Col. Joseph Forman (1761-1805) and Polly (1760-1795) were married at Cloverfields on Polly's 22 birthday, April 30, 1782.

The marriage produced four children. The couple's third son, Maj. Ezekiel Marsh Forman (1790-1823), was set to inherit Cloverfields upon the death of his childless uncle, William Hemsley Jr. (Colonel William Hemsley's eldest son/Polly's younger brother). However, Ezekiel, who, along with his family, had already taken up residence at Cloverfields, died unexpectedly in 1823, predeceasing his uncle by two years.

Next in line were Ezekiel's very young sons, William H. Forman and Ezekiel T. M. Forman, the great-grandsons of Colonel William Hemsley. When the Formans inherited the property in 1825, they obtained the home's contents, possibly including this desk. William died in 1868 (then having sole ownership of the house). Notably, William’s 1868 estate inventory includes a valuable secretary and bookcase. He left his real and personal estate to his wife Marcia Watts Forman for the duration of her life and upon her death in equal shares to his six children.

Marcia rented out Cloverfields during her children's minority but was again living there at the time of her death in 1884. Her estate inventory makes no mention of a desk, but notably does include a bookcase in “Room No. 1 below stairs.” At $5.00, it is the most valuable piece in the room, exceeding the $3.00 walnut table, $3.00 carpet, and $2.00 chaise lounge.

The next known owner of the desk is Laura Gold Forman Grymes. Born in 1867, she was the only daughter of William and Marcia Forman. Cloverfields continued in the Forman family until 1897, when Laura's eldest brother Frederick Watts Forman and "co-heirs," including Laura, sold Cloverfields to Thomas H. Callahan, Sr. At this time, the estate dispersed, and Laura took possession of the desk and bookcase, assuming she had previously done so. Laura gave the piece to her daughter Marcia Watts Grymes, who gave it to her son Peter Hersloff, the father of the most recent former owner, Laura Eddy, who sold the piece to CPF.

Given the provenance, design, and age of this piece, it was worthy of acquisition for the Cloverfields Preservation Foundation. Now on display (with brasses freshly polished by Estate Manager, Jim Barton), the desk and bookcase has made an excellent vignette in the first-floor parlor to give the space an air of authenticity.

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]]>In This Issue: Discovering William Hemsley, Jr. (1766-1825) in Art and Life, CPF Acquires the Hemsley-Forman Desk and Bookcase, and Summer in ReviewSherri Marsh JohnsTue, 27 Jun 2023 13:58:05 +0000https://www.cloverfieldspreservationfoundation.org/newsletters/formanportraitandgarret-y9w8s5a0605c7d7bdce81a96393c7:5a78a3eb53450a1a08defc3c:646e3406f5b8a95107562456Rebuilding the Ice House and Wellhead

The March 21, 2019 newsletter announced Applied Archaeology and History Associates’ discovery of a rare wood-lined ice house. Earlier this year, Lynbrook of Annapolis finished reconstructing it and the adjacent wellhead based on archaeological evidence and architectural research.

Background

In 2018, a geophysical survey of the Cloverfields side yard revealed an area of ground disturbance about 35 ft. east of the house. Dr. Tim Horsley conducted the survey and interpreted the subsurface anomaly as buried walls enclosing a roughly 13 ft. x 9 ft. area. Prior to excavation, archaeologists tentatively identified it as the site of the former milk house, which was among the outbuildings listed in the 1798 Federal Direct Tax assessment for Cloverfields.

By the time the field crew reached the bottom of the feature, it was obvious they had found the remains of an eighteenth-century ice house. The excavation revealed the remains of a low brick foundation supporting a wooden superstructure that had capped a sloping pit. Archaeologists also found the remains of pine planks that had once lined the pit’s walls and floor. Artifacts, including the presence of wrought nails and tin-glazed earthenware, dated the structure to the eighteenth century and the ownership of Col. William Hemsley (1736-1812). The wood lining proved particularly interesting as most known ice houses had subterranean walls of brick or stone. Wood linings were uncommon, but known examples include one belonging to George Washington at Mt. Vernon.

In case you missed it, in this 2019 video, Jason Tyler, with Applied Archaeology and History Associates, discusses the discovery of the ice house and compares it with one built for George Washington at Mount Vernon. Video credit: StratDV Video Production.

Mistake or Mistaken Identity?

The ice house discovery was somewhat of a surprise as the 1798 tax record for Cloverfields lists numerous service structures but does not mention an ice house. Presumably, the enumerator overlooked it or failed to look closely and marked the structure down as a milk house, a far more common type of cold storage facility. One expects an estate like Cloverfields to have both.

The enumerator’s possible misidentification can be forgiven as ice houses were a comparatively rare feature on the early-Federal landscape. In the Chesapeake they are almost exclusively associated with high-status properties. A properly functioning ice house required skilled construction and considerable labor to fill.

Stocking an ice house was a straightforward but cold, arduous, and potentially dangerous task. Workers cut blocks of ice from frozen rivers and ponds with saws and axes and then hauled it away by wagon. Back at the ice house, the crew lowered their frigid harvest into the pit, packed it down, and covered it with an insulating material, such as straw. Snow was gathered when ice wasn’t available, though it melted far more quickly.

Mutual Connections

Robert Morris, known as “The Financier of the American Revolution,” was a friend and war-time colleague of both Col. Hemsley and George Washington. Washington and Morris exchanged letters about ice house design and commiserated over the difficulty of preserving snow. In 1784, Morris, living in Philadelphia, wrote to Washington, “I tried snow one year and lost it in June.” He later observed “ice keeps until October or November.” [1]

One is tempted to make a connection between Hemsley and Washington, both of whom had rare wood-lined ice houses, and Morris, whose opinion on ice house design was valued and whom they both knew well. Unfortunately, while Washinton or Morris’s influence on the Hemsley ice house seems possible, it is so far not provable.

The Hemsleys benefited from their proximity to fresh water in procuring ice. Although Cloverfields stands between two branches of the Wye River, the water is brackish. Nearby Tuckahoe Creek, which feeds the mill pond at Wye Mill (owned wholly or in part by William Hemsley or his descendants from 1777- 1845), provided a source of fresh water ice .

In addition to being a refreshing luxury in the summer heat, ice was important for food preservation. Thomas Jefferson points this out in an 1809 letter to his overseer where he writes, “It would be a real calamity should we not have ice… as it would require double the quantity of fresh meat etc. in summer had we not ice to keep it.”[2]   

How long into warm weather ice lasted depended on a number of variables. Naturally, the larger and deeper the pit, the longer ice lasted. The Cloverfields’ ice pit is relatively shallow, measuring approximately seven feet deep. There is no record of how long ice typically survived inside, nor is it clear from archaeology when the building ceased to be used for its intended purpose.

Around the mid-nineteenth century, the lining had deteriorated, and the pit transitioned into a household trash dump. By then, the ice house was obsolete. Commercially harvested ice from New England and the upper Midwest went by train and steamship to most parts of the country to fill the kitchen ice boxes of middle-class consumers. The 1884 estate inventory of Marcia Watts Forman, the widow of William Hemsley Forman (great-grandson of Col. Hemsley and wife Henrietta Maria Earle), lists a “refrigerator” (ice box) in the hall. The modest $1.00 value is the same as that given to the adjacent hat rack and slightly less than the $1.25 valuation of two nearby chairs. Mrs. Forman’s inexpensive refrigerator successfully illustrates the near-complete democratization of ice over the course of one century.

[1] George Washington to Robert Morris, June 2, 1784. The George Washington Papers, Series 2, and Robert Morris to George Washington, June 15, 1784. The George Washington Papers, Series 4. https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/04-01-02-0315-0001

[2] Thomas Jefferson to Edmund Bacon, January 3, 1809. Thomas Jefferson Papers, Huntington Library. https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/99-01-02-9464

Chilled to Perfection: The Ice House and Dining Room in Conversation 

By Rachel Lovett, Furnishings Consultant

Introduction

Imagine a hot July afternoon in 1784 inside the elegant dining room at Cloverfields. No one is yet present; however, the table is laid out for a mid-afternoon meal for six guests, with green feather edge English creamware.[1] The room’s temperature hovers just below a sweltering 85 degrees Fahrenheit while the humidity feels as if the nearby Wye River is pooling into the room. Wafting through the open window is the scent of freshly baked bread from the nearby kitchen, signaling that the meal will soon be ready.

Luckily for the Hemsley family and their guests, the estate has an ice house, a rare luxury in late 18th-century America, mainly found on southern plantations. Soon Colonel William Hemsley and his wife Sally will lead their party into this space to enjoy cooling libations and custards to break the Maryland heat.  

The Hemsleys hosted many of Maryland’s elite gentry in the late 18th century, including the family of famed portrait artist John Hesselius and Edward Lloyd IV of nearby Wye House, known to his friends as “The Magnificent” for his wealth and status.   

Designing for Dining

The discovery of a rare wooden lined ice house at Cloverfields, uncovered in 2019, is a key component in understanding on-site hospitality in 1784, CPF’s year of interpretation. The availability of ice meant the family could enjoy cold libations and specialty desserts, unobtainable to those without access to that rare summer commodity.  The dining room furniture plan has been selected with this in mind.

 A careful examination of the 1812 inventory of Colonel William Hemsley (1737-1812) revealed items likely used by the family for chilled desserts and beverages in 1784. Side tables came into wide use in the years after the American Revolution and were commonly found along the perimeter of parlors and dining rooms in affluent homes.  One of the most notable pieces listed in the 1812 inventory is a marble slab side table, a piece that fused fashion with function. Unlike a wood top, such as mahogany or walnut, marble is heat resistant and impervious to liquids, meaning hot dishes, cold desserts, and chilled iced beverages could safely be placed on it without concern for condensation or heat marks.  

While marble slabs had been used in Europe for centuries, their use in America was just coming into vogue in the 18th century, and few early examples survive. Eighteenth-century American cabinetmakers crafted the table’s wood frame to accommodate marble sourced from continental Europe. Notable contemporary pieces are found in historic houses and museums, including George Washington’s Mount Vernon and the Hammond-Harwood House in Annapolis, Maryland.  Colonel William Hemsley’s brother-in-law Colonel Tench Tilghman (1744-1786) of Talbot County, Maryland, owned a fine Chippendale-style marble top pier table with a mahogany frame made in Philadelphia c. 1765.

Another item on the estate inventory useful for serving chilled items was a glass dessert pyramid with 47 components. This piece likely had several oval glass stands and smaller cups used for custards, fruits, and ice cream. These smaller cups were placed on top of the oval stands.

Dessert pyramids were once a cornerstone of grand 18th-century dining in the Chesapeake. Due to their fragility and the large number of small portable components, intact extant examples are now even rarer than marble slab tables. Functionally designed to present enticing sweets, the equally important goal of these pieces was an elegant display of symmetry for the table. Contemporary recipe manuals such as Hannah Glasses 1760 The Complete Confectioner suggested stacking salvers with the largest at the base, so it was essentially the shape of a pyramid.

The Process

Lynbrook of Annapolis reconstructed the ice house and wellhead based on designs by architectural historian Willie Graham, who has served as CPF’s restoration and preservation consultant since the start of the project. Graham based his plans on archaeological evidence and his extensive knowledge of other examples from the period.

Together, Lynbrook and Graham created the appearance of a historic construction by using traditional materials and paying strict attention to details. Hand-forged nails, replica sash-saw marks, custom-made bricks and, in the ice house, rafter pairs numbered with Roman numerals are among the elements that allow the structures to hold up to scrutiny. For durability, modern materials, such as CMU blocks and pressure-treated lumber, were used in areas outside of the public eye.

Kimmel Studio Architects Receives Two Awards for Cloverfields Projects

CPF congratulates Devin Kimmel, AIA, ASLA and the talented team at Kimmel Studio Architects for winning two awards for Cloverfields projects! In May, the Institute of Classical Art and Architecture presented the firm with the prestigious John Russell Pope Award in Historic Preservation. In their announcement, ICAA highlighted KSA’s innovative approach to the Cloverfields restoration.

As lead architect, Devin developed the master plan and design to restore the house and gardens. The approach carefully balanced faithfulness to the original materials and character of the 1705 home and its formal gardens while integrating contemporary construction methods and sustainability measures. About the award, Kimmel said, “The project was a beautiful interplay of colonial and contemporary design and methods, giving us a rich sense of timelessness."

Kimmel Studio Architects also received the 2023 Maryland Association of Landscape Architects Merit Award for General Design. This prize recognized KSA’s concept for restoring Cloverfields’ terraced gardens. Kimmel and the team based their interpretation of the gardens’ 1784 appearance (CPF’s period of interpretation) on evidence from ground-penetrating radar, archaeological discoveries, and period writings. The Merit Award recognizes superior professional accomplishment. Congratulations!

Lynbrook of Annapolis Receives Two Annapolis Home Builder and Fine Design Awards

The accolades keep coming in for CPF’s team of experts. The biennial Annapolis Home Builder and Fine Design Awards recognize high achievement in architecture, custom building, interior, and landscape design. Judges are distinguished professionals in their respective fields. The January 2023 edition of Annapolis Home Magazine announced the most recent winners. Lynbrook of Annapolis was honored with two awards, including First Place for Historic Renovation Design Excellence for Cloverfields, and First Place for Total Home Project by a Team of Professionals (Custom Building) for a contemporary design. Well Done!

Chilled to Perfection (Continued)

The first recorded serving of ice cream in America was at a dinner party given by Maryland Governor Thomas Bladen in Annapolis in 1744. Ice cream steadily gained popularity in the mid-18th century, although many of the flavors would be somewhat foreign to the 21st-century palate, such as savory ones like Avocado and Artichoke. However, sweet flavors like Citrus, Strawberry, and Mint, all popular in the 18th century, have stood the test of time.

In 1784 George Washington ordered a “cream machine for ice, and rebuilt his ice house. In 1790 Washington spent the modern-day equivalent of $6,500 on ice cream alone. Thomas Jefferson left for France in 1784 and returned with an ice cream recipe that helped popularize the dessert amongst the American public. Colonel William Hemsley likely had ice cream during this time in Philadelphia during the years of the American Revolution. Ice cream was popular in Philadelphia, as it was served at City Tavern, which hosted many of the city’s Revolutionary celebrations

Ice cream at Cloverfields was likely eaten with ivory-handled dessert forks. In a November 15, 1763 letter from Colonel William Hemsley to his London agents James and Richard Christie, he ordered a dozen dessert knives and forks in a mahogany case. These pieces also appear in the 1812 inventory, so they were still in use in 1784. Other items used during this period include two meat tins “for the ice house.”  The ice house was likely the same building referred to in the 1798 Federal Direct Tax as a milk house. Eighteenth-century milk houses, also known as dairies, did not house milk cows. Instead, they acted as cold storage for milk, butter, cheese, and other perishables.

Behind the Scenes

The realm of the ice house/dairy at Cloverfields during this period was overseen by an enslaved woman and estate favorite Nannie Faithful, who, along with her husband Charles, appeared in the 1812 list of enslaved workers. Nannie was then age 70, and Charles was age 82. Given their ages, the couple was likely at Cloverfields in 1784.

Sources suggest the couple played an integral role in daily life at Cloverfields. Hemsley descendent Frederic Emory noted in an 1886 account that according to Colonel William Hemsley’s granddaughter Henrietta Troup, “Charles was chief lieutenant at Cloverfields… who rode around on horseback to the different farms to obtain supplies of butter, eggs, etc.” and Nannie was “held in high esteem by the family, no one acquainted with the customs of the household, ever thought of visiting Cloverfields without paying respects to the able dame, who generally received visitors at the dairy, her special domain always looking fresh and neat in her white cap and kerchief.”[2] While the roles of the Faithfuls are defined in the historical record, less is known about the kitchen staff who prepared the meals and served them in the dining room. In 1784 the well-appointed dining room at Cloverfields ran like a Michelin-star restaurant. An enslaved cook, equivalent to a modern-day chef, was one of the most skilled people on the estate. They orchestrated elaborate midday meals assisted by several assistants who acted as sous chefs in the kitchen, which in 1784 was a new addition to the back of the mansion.

The grand spectacle of food required additional skilled servants for presentation and serving. They, as well as the hosts and the guests, understood the etiquette that elevated dinner from a simple meal to an ostentatious event. A 41-year-old woman named Rachel and a 43-year-old woman named Molly are listed on the 1812 inventory as house servants. Rachel and Molly could have easily been in the house in 1784 at age 13 and 15, respectively, and assisting in the servants’ hall or dining room during meal services.

For those with economic resources to entertain in a grand fashion, like the Hemsleys, dinner was generally eaten in the mid-afternoon and was the day’s main meal. It would consist of multiple courses, with the first containing soup and meats and the second and even third combining savory dishes like roasts and cooked vegetables with sweets like pies and tarts.

Dinner would end with a dessert course, with the tablecloth removed and an impressive centerpiece full of fruit and sweets laid before the diners with devices like a dessert pyramid. Dining in the late 18th and early 19th century was an involved process that could take up to several hours. Conversation was important as it was expected that you would converse with your host and guests at length. Possessing a charming and witty disposition went a long way to gaining the respect and admiration of your fellow guests. Given the distance between houses, guests often stayed the night, as travel was especially difficult in the dark.  After dinner, guests enjoyed games, dancing, and music in the second-floor drawing room at Cloverfields.

In the coming months, Cloverfields Preservation Foundation will be working on acquiring furnishings, textiles, and floor coverings for the mansion. Each room at Cloverfields has been meticulously researched to create vignettes that pay tribute to the stories and people who once called this place home.  The goal for the furniture plans at Cloverfields is to give an air of authenticity to each space so one can imagine daily life in 1784, by acquiring items that actually existed in the home, like a marble slab table and a dessert pyramid for the dining room.

[1] The 1812 Inventory identifies 92 “Green Edge” mid-18th century English-made creamware plates and two green edge soup tureens. Appropriate examples have now been acquired as a Foundation purchase from the Talbot County Historical Society in 2022. Cloverfields Preservation Foundation, No. 2022.70.1-13.

[2] 1886 Frederic Emory Unpublished Manuscript. The Hemsleys of Maryland. H. Furlong Baldwin Library, Maryland Center for History and Culture.

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]]>In This Issue: Completion of the Ice House, and Imagining a Summer Meal with the Hemsleys. Also, Restoration Team Members Win Four Awards.Forman FamilyRose HillFoodwaysFood PreservationComfortgarretMary Hemsley FormanColonel Joseph Formandecorative artsSherri Marsh JohnsTue, 28 Feb 2023 23:43:23 +0000https://www.cloverfieldspreservationfoundation.org/newsletters/formanportraitandgarret5a0605c7d7bdce81a96393c7:5a78a3eb53450a1a08defc3c:63fe1554e9e6dd15ef861472A Life in Profile: Acquiring the Silhouette of Colonel Joseph Forman (1761-1805)

by Rachel Lovett, Furnishings Consultant

Last November, the Cloverfields Preservation Foundation took a significant step forward in establishing the decorative arts collection by acquiring a rare silhouette of Colonel Joseph Forman (1761-1805) by Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de Saint-Mémin (1770-1852). 

In terms of artistic value, this work elevates the growing collection to national standing. Works by St. Memin can be found in institutions around the country like the Smithsonian, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Monticello, The British Museum, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, among others. Cloverfields Preservation Foundation purchased the piece from Laura Eddy, of Easton, Maryland, a descendant of Colonel Joseph Forman and his wife Mary “Polly” Hemsley Forman. Eddy is passionate about the mission of Cloverfields and preserving the Hemsley family legacy.

The sitter, Colonel Joseph Forman (1761-1805), married Mary “Polly” Hemsley (1760-1795), the eldest child of Colonel William Hemsley (1736-1812). Forman, Polly, and their descendants played an integral part in the story of Cloverfields.

Forman was a frequent visitor to the home in the early 1780s. The couple married at Cloverfields on the 30th of April 1782, Polly’s 22nd birthday. 

Colonel William Hemsely’s first cousin, Henrietta Maria “Hetty” Tilghman, wrote a letter to her cousin, Mary “Polly”Pearce, in 1782 describing the bride’s wedding dress:

“Now upon the subject of matrimony I must tell you a little of P.H. (Polly Hemsley) she is positively to be married the last day of this month, her birthday, and I had the honour of seeing her clothes which were made in Philadelphia. She has a white Mantua robe, trimed with silver and a pink striped riding Habbit, and a petticoat trimmed with gause. Charlotte (her sister, second daughter of Colonel William Hemsley) has a Robe exactly like Polly’s white and silver. Aunt Ringold and I.F (probably groom Joseph Forman) went down last Wednesday. I sent the Bride an elegant White Sattin pincushion, and garters of the same, with white ribbon strings.”[1]

During the 1780s, the couple visited Cloverfields often as they began their married life together in nearby Chestertown. Cloverfields' year of interpretation, 1784, was the birth year of the Forman’s eldest child Henrietta Maria, who was Colonel William Hemsley’s first grandchild. (Henrietta Maria later married Robert Lloyd Tilghman in 1807, had four children, and resided at Hope).

In 1790, Forman purchased a tract of land in Chestertown, Maryland, and it is believed he commissioned the architecturally significant house known as Rye or Chester Hall, which is still extant.[2] Forman had a military career and later served as a Consul to Rotterdam and Amsterdam. Historical records report that Forman's second child, William, died “in the flower of his youth” in the West Indies, suggesting Polly and the children may have traveled with Forman during his career. 

Joseph Forman came from a distinguished background. His father, Ezekial, was a high sheriff of Kent County, Maryland (1776), paymaster to the Eastern Shore marching militia, and member of the Maryland Council of Safety. His uncle, Brigadier General David Forman (1745-1797), was an associate of George Washington, and a man of great renown known for his service during the American Revolution, nicknamed “Devil David” for his tireless pursuits against American loyalists. 

Forman’s older brother, General Thomas Marsh Forman (1758-1845), was a prominent military figure in the American Revolution and War of 1812. During the Revolution, Thomas became a Captain in his uncle David Forman’s regiment and later succeeded James Monroe as Aide to General William Alexander (Lord Stirling). Thomas was a horse racing enthusiast and the first President of the Maryland Jockey Club. Thomas lived at Rose Hill plantation in Cecil County, -Maryland.

This former plantation has been the subject of recent scholarship by Dr. Lucy Maddox in her 2021 book The People of Rose Hill: Black and White Life on a Maryland Plantation. The book primarily uses the diaries of Thomas’ second wife, Martha Ogle Forman (1788-1864), to uncover the complex dichotomy of relationships between owners and the people they held. In the book, Maddox mentions Cloverfields as the inspiration for the tall staircase addition at Rose Hill.  

Most important to the Cloverfields story is that Polly’s brother, the childless widower William Hemsley, Esq. (1766-1825), who inherited Cloverfields upon Colonel Hemsley’s death in 1812, named Polly’s and Joseph’s third son, Major Ezekiel Marsh Forman (1790-1823) his heir. Ezekiel Forman and his wife, the former Henrietta Maria Earle (b. 1799), moved to Cloverfields with William and were living there at the time of Ezekiel’s death in 1823. Ezekiel and Polly are buried at Cloverfields. After Ezekiel’s passing, William revised his will in favor of his great-nephews, the young William and Ezekiel Forman. The Forman decedents owned Cloverfields until 1897.

Returning to the silhouette, the artist Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de Saint-Mémin (1770-1852), was one of the most celebrated French artists in the early American republic. Known in art circles simply at St. Memin, the artist had a brief but prolific career in America from 1793 until 1814. Born into a French aristocratic family of art collectors, Memin had a short career in the military before the French Revolution forced him into exile. In order to support his parents and sister, he took up art in New York City and went into a year-long partnership with fellow Frenchman Thomas Bluget de Valdenuit (1763–1846) in 1796. 

During his partnership with Valdenuit, Memin was introduced to a device known as a physiognotrace, a new mechanical instrument for tracing a silhouette. After creating a head, Memin would then draw the sitter’s appearance with lifelike accuracy. Silhouettes were ubiquitous by the early 19th century, much like modern-day photography, and could be seen in the homes of the elite and lower classes. 

However, St. Memin’s pieces are more intricate, accurate, and larger than contemporary silhouettes. Memin was working in the Neoclassical taste and catered to the popular idea that one’s physiognomy actually conveyed one’s character based on the shape of their facial structure. His pieces were mounted in gilt-wood frames with reverse glass painting known as verre eglomise. There was also an option for the sitter to purchase engravings of the original. 

The American public received this new fashion well, and Memin was a sought-after artist. Memin moved in influential circles and catered to the elite, creating works of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Paul Revere to name a few. Memin primarily worked in New York and Philadelphia, until 1803, when he made an extended trip through the American south until 1810.

Joseph Forman served as Consul in the Netherlands (then the Batavian Republic) from 1800-1803 and passed away tragically at sea in 1805 at age 44. The only overlap of time the two men spent in Maryland would be during a two-year span, from 1804 to 1805. Therefore we can date the piece to this timeframe. The work depicts a man in early nineteenth-century dress in his early 40s, which would be in line with Forman’s age during these years. While the piece dates later than the period of interpretation (1784), it will be used in rotating exhibition space in our new hyphen gallery where visitors first enter the mansion. This space will be reserved for works that are integral to the history of the property but fall after the year 1784.

[1] J. Hall Pleasants, ed., “Letter of Molly and Hetty Tilghman,” Maryland Historical Society Magazine, 21, no. 1 (March 1926): 27.

[2]  Maryland Historical Trust, National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form QA-23, 1977.
______________________________________________________

The Invention of Comfort

It is hard for the visitor not to be struck by the sense of history that comes when entering Cloverfields’ attic, being under the attic’s massive white oak rafters, walking across poplar floorboards measuring over one foot in width, and opening a door still hanging on decorated hinges forged more than three centuries ago.  When entering Cloverfields' attic, say in January or July, before the 2019 installation of climate control systems, it would also be difficult for the visitor not to be struck by the unpleasant temperature. 

Our difficulty imagining sleeping in such conditions reflects a very modern expectation of being able to carry out our daily activities in a comfortable climate-controlled environment.  Before the middle of the eighteenth century, “comfort,” when used as a noun, usually had emotional or spiritual connotations.  It was primarily a state of mind, rather like joy.  Children, for example, brought comfort.  In physical references, comfort usually meant relief from distress.  Almshouses provided so-called comfort to the indigent, but one suspects they were not comfortable places.

“Ease” was the more frequent term for the appreciation of physical amenities.  Samuel Johnson's seminal 1755 English dictionary defined ease as "a neutral state between pain and pleasure."  When Philemon Hemsley built Cloverfields, the notion of a life free of disagreeable physical conditions was novel and achieving it was elusive, even without sleeping in the attic. 

Only after the 1790s, and the widespread adoption of fireplace design improvements by American-born physicist and British spy Sir Benjamin Thompson Rumford, or Count von Rumford, could a large room be kept something approximating evenly warm with a fireplace.  (Benjamin Franklin's Franklin Stove, invented in 1742, was an improvement but never achieved popularity due to serious design flaws.)  Philemon Hemsley's massive 1705 fireplaces were undoubtedly drafty smokey creations where most of the heat went up the chimney. 

Many eighteenth-century diarists write of laundry freezing while hanging only a few feet from the fire and ice forming in their wash bowls.  Others complained of the smoke and the self-defeating need to crack open a door to create a smoke-lifting updraft.  Fortunately, Chesapeake winters tend to be mild and relatively short, and warmth can be found.  The inescapable heat, humidity, and biting disease-carrying bugs synonymous with the Chesapeake summer presented a far greater challenge for those seeking a good night's sleep. 

For further reading on American homelife and the material culture of comfort before modern heating and air conditioning systems, see The Invention of Comfort:  Sensibilities and Design in Early Modern Britain and Early America by John E. Crowley and Our Own Snug Fireside by Jane C. Nylander.

Into the Attic

If your home has an attic, you likely spend as little time there as possible.  The attic (or garret as the space was known in the eighteenth century) is an uncomfortable place in the absence of modern lighting and HVAC systems.  In fiction, they are an insalubrious space, giving quarter to impoverished artists, criminals on the lam, and deranged spouses.  In Pride and Prejudice, Mrs. Bennett, who is house-hunting for her daughter, rules out Pervis Lodge, where "the attics are dreadful."

Mrs. Bennett did not elaborate on what made the Pervis Lodge attics particularly objectionable, but except for the cellar, this uppermost space delivers the least agreeable accommodations within a house.  They are hot in the summer, cold in the winter, with sloped ceilings that limit headroom, and small windows that provide unsatisfactory light and airflow.  Structurally incompatible with modern ideas of comfort, they are now used primarily for storage.  Despite their traditional spartan quality, attics have often served as lodging space.

Because attics were out of sight, there was a tendency for neglect, meaning they changed very little compared to other spaces.  This is true at Cloverfields, where the main attic has not undergone significant alteration since completion in 1705.  Because it retains so much irreplaceable original material, the CPF team elected to preserve and stabilize the fragile fabric but not restore it to an earlier appearance, as doing so would destroy the centuries-old historic patina. 

ABOVE: THIS SERIES OF HISTORIC AMERICAN BUILDING SURVEY (HABS) IMAGES BY DAVID BERG SHOW ATTIC CONDITIONS AFTER CONSERVATION MEASURES. THE GOAL WAS TO PRESERVE THE MAXIMUM AMOUNT OF ORIGINAL MATERIAL RATHER THAN PRESENTING A “LIKE NEW” APPEARANCE.

The 1705 attic area divides into three rooms, plus a landing area in front of the stair.  Two considerably smaller under-rafter spaces -- barely deserving to be called rooms – date to the 1760s, when the back of the house was raised to two stories and re-roofed.  As surviving Hemsley correspondence does not mention the attic, our understanding of its usage derives from physical appearance, estate inventories, and what is known about room usage in similar households. 

Evidence indicates the three 1705 rooms provided lodging space, most likely for domestic workers whose duties required proximity to the family.  In the 1813 estate inventory, “garret” contents consist of three low-post bedsteads and three beds, meaning three frames and three mattresses in modern parlance. 

One's status determined where one slept, whether family or servant.  While garret rooms were usually unheated, only the most trusted and valued workers had formal accommodations inside the main house.  Other house servants typically slept in the kitchen lofts or another outbuilding.   In some households, enslaved workers made do sleeping on pallets in passages, closets, or other out-of-the-way spaces.

Sometimes the need for space superseded the social implications of being relegated beyond the high-status "polite" space of the main house.   Col. William Hemsley (1836-1812) had at least twelve children by his first two wives, though only ten made it to adulthood.  At most, the main house had six sleeping chambers, but more likely five, less given that CPF's architectural historian believes the family used one of the first-floor rooms as a study or family parlor. Certainly, space for household business and demands of hospitality took precedence over the sleeping arrangements of children and servants.

Hemsley's was a large household that also included in-laws, free and enslaved domestic servants, and extended-stay guests who filled the house to the rafters.  Even for a family such as the Hemsleys, it was common for family members, particularly children, to have sleeping quarters in the attic.

The graffiti and math problems in the south attic room convey a juvenile quality.  Most of it dates to the eighteenth or early nineteenth century, but "Nirvana" scratched on one 1705 partition wall indicates the attic provided a retreat for at least one young fan of 1980s grunge rock.  This room is particularly interesting for its hand-fashioned wall hooks, attached with rose head nails, hand-forged door hinges, and ceiling access to a rare surviving cockloft.  Despite a name suggesting a space for the housing of poultry, a cockloft was an unfinished storage area beneath the ridge of the roof.   We shall, however, see that pork and beef (but no lnown chicken) were kept in the adjacent room.

Although unheated, Cloverfields' garret was not unfinished.  Construction details clearly show that the Hemsleys intended this space for habitation rather than safekeeping goods.  Two of the three 1705 rooms have plaster walls and ceilings, while the smaller center chamber is partitioned with tightly fitting lapped vertical boards.   Beaded (rounded edge molding) partition boards and collar beams supporting the riven-clapboard ceiling provide a small but distinct degree of refinement.  Limewashed walls helped to brighten the space.  All pointless effort in a utilitarian storage space.  Furthermore, all three rooms have doors that secure from the inside, indicating the rooms' occupants enjoyed some level of privacy and security.

The small 1760s rooms flanking the staircase also have plaster and limewash.  These awkward, roughly 6 ft. x 12 ft. spaces, have a steeply pitched roof and floor space interrupted by the protruding feet of the 1705 bent principal rafters.  A small casement window just above floor level provides little light and airflow.  Here too, box locks mount on the inside, though these doors were repurposed to this location and not necessarily indicative in this context. 

One of the doors has a roughly six-inch-diameter opening (later covered over) in the bottom panel.  This feature recalls the so-called "cat holes" at Monticello.  Thomas Jefferson had two upstairs doors with similarly sized openings, which paint analysis concludes were as old as the doors themselves.  Interpreters at the estate believe they were created to provide ingress and egress for Monticello's mousers.

At first glance, the small 1760s rooms' blackened surfaces and charred floorboards suggest a past fire.  Kenneth Carter, a member of the last family to reside at Cloverfields, claimed the appearance was the result of smoking meat, an unlikely assertion he quickly substantiated by pointing to a spot on the wall showing a tally of hams, shoulders, and muttons that once cured within. 

Such usage certainly post-dates the Hemsleys' tenure at Cloverfields.  The 1798 Federal Direct Tax assesses William Hemsley for a 12 ft. x 24 ft. meat house.  Furthermore, in 1784 the family completed work on a new kitchen.  The Hemsleys situated the structure at the far end of the service wing to limit fire risk and keep domestic chores outside the main house.  Smoking meat in the attic was not only imprudent but also inappropriate for a genteel family such as the Hemsleys.

At first glance, the small 1760s rooms' blackened surfaces and charred floorboards suggest a past fire.  Kenneth Carter, a member of the last family to reside at Cloverfields, claimed the appearance was the result of smoking meat, an unlikely assertion he quickly substantiated by pointing to a spot on the wall showing a tally of the hams, shoulders, and muttons that once cured within. 

Such usage certainly post-dates the Hemsleys' tenure at Cloverfields.  The 1798 Federal Direct Tax assesses William Hemsley for a 12 ft. x 24 ft. meat house.  Furthermore, in 1784 the family completed work on a new kitchen. 

The Hemsleys situated the structure at the far end of the service wing to limit fire risk and keep domestic chores outside the main house.  Smoking meat in the attic was not only imprudent but also inappropriate to a family of the Hemsley’s elite status.   

But why would someone smoke meat in the attic on such a large farm where there is ample space for a traditional meat house?  Security, perhaps.  Eastern Shore farm families struggled during much of the nineteenth century, including descendants of the colonial gentry.  An outside meat house may not have been secure in a time of want.  Whatever the reason, the incongruous usage in such a fine house reflects the arc of Cloverfields' transition from a fashionable eighteenth-century powerhouse to a declining nineteenth-century farmhouse and the changing fortunes of those who lived there.

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]]>In This Edition, a New Art Acquisition, and Reconsidering the AtticSherri Marsh JohnsTue, 07 Jun 2022 13:15:48 +0000https://www.cloverfieldspreservationfoundation.org/newsletters/historical-landscaping-n6m995a0605c7d7bdce81a96393c7:5a78a3eb53450a1a08defc3c:628e53a44ce2726316134167The dazzling bloom of 80,000 bulbs against a backdrop of evergreens completely erased the last vestiges of winter. Gardens designed by Kimmel Studio Architects and planted by McHale Landscaping. Enjoy this virtual garden tour by Joe Stevens and StratDV Video Production.

The above image shows Kimmel Studio Architect’s depiction of the eighteenth-century gardens, part of which has been recreated. Archaeological testing and ground-penetrating radar provided the basis for Kimmel’s parterre and terraced design. Revisit the April 2021 newsletter for interviews with Devin Kimmel of Kimmel Studio Architects and Chris Joseph of McHale Landscaping. _______________________________________________________

Spring Guests

Over the past month or so, CPF had the pleasure of welcoming a variety of guests, including members of the American Institute of Architects (Chesapeake Chapter), Friends of Old Wye Mill, Queen Anne’s County History Consortium, two garden clubs, and students from the University of Delaware, Department of Anthropology.

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Historically Accurate Interior Decorating: How the Professionals Figure it Out

Now that the restoration phase has concluded, CPF turns its attention to collecting the type of art, furniture, and household objects that would have filled Cloverfields’ rooms in 1784.  After careful consideration, CPF chose that year as the focus for the building’s restoration and interior decoration.  That date is significant as it represents the final phase of Col. William Hemsley’s (1736-1812) decades-long construction and remodeling campaign.

The Treaty of Paris, ending the American Revolution, was signed the previous year, allowing Col. Hemsley to return to private life.  After a nearly fifteen-year construction hiatus precipitated by the war, Hemsley oversaw the construction of a new kitchen and service wing, rebuilding of the front porch, and installation or completion of the elaborate terraced garden.  Following the conclusion of these ambitious projects, no significant changes took place at Cloverfields for another six decades.

The 1784 date also reflects the time when the house, gardens, and family were at their height and witnesses to the momentous political and social happenings of the time.  At Cloverfields, the Hemsley’s entertained prominent politicians and persons influential in the American Revolution, including “Financier of the Revolution” and business associate, Robert Morris; Declaration of Independence signer and neighbor; William Paca; and George Washington’s famed Aide de Camp and Hemsley cousin, Tench Tilghman.  In the ensuing decades, however, Cloverfields gradually transitioned from an elite powerhouse to a middle-class farmhouse.

Directing the furnishing project for CPF is Ms. Rachel Lovett.  Ms. Lovett, who serves as curator and assistant director for the Hammond Harwood House in Annapolis, is now applying her considerable decorative arts and museum experience to formulating a collection plan that will guide the selection of period-appropriate objects.  CPF’s goal is to accurately portray daily life in the crowded household, consisting of about ten family members and numerous servants. 

Lovett’s approach combines the techniques of a scholar with those of an interior decorator to understand the taste and lifestyle of the household members.  Clues come from various sources, including a careful reading of family correspondence and, especially, estate inventories.  The latter, taken after death by court-appointed appraisers as part of the probate process, provides a comprehensive descriptive list of the deceased’s belongings, including their condition and value.  Inventories often offer the most important source of written information for developing a furnishing plan.

Two inventories survive for Col. William Hemsley.  The unknown author of the partial unofficial list found at nearby Poplar Grove* conveniently itemized belongings room-by-room, starting with “In Mrs. Hemsley’s Room.” In contrast, preparers of the complete and official estate inventory submitted to the Queen Anne’s County Orphans’ Court elected to group and value objects by type, i.e., textiles, ceramics, and furniture.  While logical, that arrangement is far less helpful, requiring more guesswork when creating a furnishing plan.

The documents’ dates present another complication. Both inventories were written in 1813, nearly twenty years after the 1784 target date, by which time life at Cloverfields was quite different. Col. Hemsley was approaching eighty; the Hemsley were children grown; William’s wife, the former Sarah “Sally” Williamson, deceased; and he remarried for fifteen years to his third wife, Anna Maria “Nancy” Tilghman.

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*Poplar Grove Plantation in Queen Anne’s County became the home of Col. William and Sarah “Sally” Hemsley’s daughter, Anna Maria, after her marriage to Thomas Emory in 1805. During a 2008 field study at Poplar Grove, Adam Goodheart, Director of the Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience at Washington College, learned about a large trove of papers stored in a dilapidated outbuilding. Poplar Grove’s owner, James Wood, donated the historic documents, dating from the 17th through 20th centuries, to the Maryland State Archives for conservation and digitizing. The Hemsley inventory fragment was among the eighty boxes of documents recovered that form The James Wood Poplar Grove Collection, Maryland State Archives Special Collection 5807.

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Historic Interior (continued)

To better determine which items listed in the 1813 document were present in 1784, Ms. Lovett compares the Hemsley inventories with others from closer to our period of interpretation, focusing especially on those of other Eastern Shore families, comparable to the Hemsley’s in wealth and status.  

Once the furnishing plan is complete, Lovett and CPF supervising agent, Jim Barton, will collaborate on finding and acquiring the specified furniture, decorative arts, and household objects. More on this as their work progresses.

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An Abundance of Windsor Chairs

Among the many items of interest in Col. Hemsley’s 1813 estate inventory are the entries for four groups of Windsor chairs that collectively total forty-two pieces.  Even for a large family inclined to entertain, this seems a surfeit of seating.  Yet, when one considers the number of tasks and situations to which the Windsor chair was well suited, the number seems more reasonable.

This eponymously named wooden chair type originated in Windsor, England around 1710.  Light-weight, sturdy, attractive enough for company, yet affordable, the Windsor emerged as an American seating staple, popular with families across the economic spectrum. While Windsors varied considerably by region, common characteristics include splayed turned legs, a slightly reclining spindle back, arms made of a single, bent piece of wood, all of which were driven into a solid sculpted seat. 

Windsor chairs were easily moved from place to place as circumstances required, and because they were often painted, the chairs achieved a degree of weather resistance that suited them to outdoor use.  George Washington ordered thirty such chairs for his piazza at Mount Vernon with other examples found in the study and little parlor.

Philadelphia cabinetmaker Francis Trumble crafted one hundred Windsor chairs for the Philadelphia State House (Independence Hall).  It is almost certain Col. Hemsley took a seat in one of Trumble’s pieces when representing Maryland at the Continental Congress (1782-1783).

Philadelphia served as a major American center for Windsor chair production. The Hemsleys regularly traveled to Philadelphia on business and to visit relatives. Clothing, the family’s carriage, and even decorative woodwork for the dining room, all came to Cloverfields from the City of Brotherly Love, so it is reasonable to believe much of their furniture did so as well.  

Appraisers of the Hemsley estate divided the forty-two Windsor chairs into four groups, ranging from new to old.  The family would have reserved the best pieces for indoor gatherings, with those in middling condition taken to the garden for relaxation and outdoor entertaining, while the most worn and weathered examples likely found their way to the kitchen yard, workspaces, or otherwise out of the public eye.

Inventories and genre paintings indicate Windsor chairs remained popular well into the nineteenth century and afterward periodically returned to fashion with nostalgic waves of the Colonial Revival style.

By: Sherri Marsh Johns For: Cloverfields Preservation Foundation

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]]>Spring at Cloverfields. Plus, How to Recreate a Historic Interior and Why Did the Hemsleys Have So Many Windsor Chairs?Sherri Marsh JohnsMon, 24 Jan 2022 14:03:29 +0000https://www.cloverfieldspreservationfoundation.org/newsletters/dormer-restoration-rjn9r-mnjrg5a0605c7d7bdce81a96393c7:5a78a3eb53450a1a08defc3c:61eeb1458ea7530d9dc8dcecA Meeting About Floor Repair Leads to a Remarkable Discovery

At the end of last October, architectural historian Willie Graham, along with John Gaver, Matt Culp, and Joel Jaimes with Lynbrook of Annapolis, gathered upstairs at Cloverfields to discuss floor repairs. They pried up a few boards from a patch in the southwest chamber to inspect the condition. Secured with what appeared to be hand-forged nails, Graham initially thought the floor repair dated to the eighteenth century. The first surprise of the morning came when the nails turned out to be hand-headed, but with a specific type of machine-cut shank that indicated a manufacturing date no earlier than the 1830s. Next, on the wall beneath the floor patch, the group saw a diagonal line of plaster above the ghost for a missing baseboard, clear evidence of a former stair. By a stroke of luck videographer, Joe Stephens, who has documented the restoration for CPF from the start, was on site that day and talked with Graham about the unexpected discovery.

Building Archaeology 

Historic buildings read much like archaeological sites, with layers of accrued material serving as a timeline for change. After examining the layers, Graham determined that the future Col. William Hemsley (1736-1812) put in the southwest corner stair in the 1750s, likely at the same time he added a second story to the two rear rooms his father constructed in 1728. As Graham explains, physical evidence proves the stair was present before 1769 when, according to dendrochronology, Hemsley enclosed the doorway connecting the dining room and the southwest room.

A further examination of the building fabric also allowed Graham to conclude the staircase's removal and enclosure of the opening took place no earlier than the 1840s. Supporting this conclusion are technological time stamps, such as the previously mentioned nails of a type not available until the 1830s. Furthermore, plaster repairs made to the walls after removing the stair used circular-sawn lath as the base. As circular-sawn building fabric first came into use in this area in the 1840s, the earliest date for removal was pushed forward into the following decade.

The Formans at Cloverfields

The 1840s removal date makes sense when examined in the context of family history as it coincides with the coming of age and marriage of William H. Forman (1820-1868), the grandson of Col. Hemsley. Forman and his younger brother, Ezekiel, inherited Cloverfields while still young children. According to county tax records, the boys' guardian, Judge Ezekiel Chambers, rented out the farm on the childrens' behalf until at least 1841.

By 1847, William had married, returned to Cloverfields, and taken up the much-need repair and remodeling of the aging building. Having divided the estate with his brother and taken possession of the house, William remained at Cloverfields until his death.

Neither physical evidence nor family history reveals why Forman removed the staircase, but it was nearly a century old and potentially in poor condition.

Cloverfields in Winter

Take an aerial tour of Cloverfields after the season's first snowfall.

By: Sherri Marsh Johns

For: Cloverfields Preservation Foundation

Video By: Joe Stephens, StratDV Video Production

Social Climbing: Staircases and Status

Why did William Hemsley build a steep, narrow, and winding set of stairs when the second floor was accessible by the much more elegant and easy-to-ascend main stair located just a few feet away? (For information on the 1705 staircase, see the March 16, 2020 newsletter). Graham contends it was not put in, as one might think, primarily for servants' use. As the new stairs connected a small first-floor room (probably a private study or parlor) with a second-floor sleeping chamber, servants hauling ash buckets or chamber pots would be less likely to interrupt the family by carrying out such tasks via the main staircase.

The new stairway undoubtedly offered convenience. The bedchamber's occupants could reach the study during the winter months without going through the unheated stair tower. It also protected modesty. During the heat of the summer, should the Colonel choose to remain in his linen dressing gown or Mrs. Hemsley opt to loosen her stays, they could discreetly alight up the stairs before an untimely visitor discovered them in an embarrassing state of semi-dishabille.

Social historians would argue that there was more to this new architectural feature than practicality. Specifically, the 1750s stair was part of William Hemsley's overarching effort to restructure the way his grandfather's house functioned. The close proximity of two sets of stairs — one private and one public – plays into a changing social consciousness and ideas about comportment taking place after Philemon Hemsley built Cloverfields in 1705 and the time William Hemsley reached adulthood and entered public life.

The notion prevailing in William's grandfather's day that the rooms of an aristocratic mansion could serve as the combined locus for public entertaining, private pursuits, and work functions was obsolete. Increasingly, architecture reflected English-imported attitudes about gentility by creating formal specialized spaces for each of these activities. High-status families such as the Hemsleys placed a premium on entertaining and public appearance. As polite architecture was about what the visitor did not see as much as what they did, the family moved domestic work and, along with it, domestic workers to buildings in the back of the house.

The Hemsleys 1750s-1769 remodeling of the 1705 house included the creation of a first-floor center passage on either side of rooms specifically restyled and furnished for formal dining and entertaining. The family also transformed one of the two large second-floor sleeping chambers into a drawing room for after-dinner amusements. After a thorough redecoration, the wide passage at the top of the main stair became a convivial sitting area. All told, this remodeling effort saw three-quarters of the first- and second-floor space of the 1705 house given over to hospitality.

This excessive fixation with presentation seems vain, but consider how many current homes have a formal living and dining room, despite most aspects of family life now taking place in the kitchen or family room. The retention of these barely used shrines to gentility says a great deal about the paramount importance of such spaces when entertaining provided a primary means of signifying status and exercising influence.

The Other Use for Stairs

Another distinctive hallmark of gentry architecture was a handsomely constructed center staircase. Thomas Jefferson famously criticized this architectural feature as a conspicuous waste of space. Jefferson's censure notwithstanding, by the mid-18th century most elegant houses included some variation of this imposing feature. Via the stairs, finely dressed family members descended to the first floor to greet guests or alighted after dinner with company to a second-floor reception room.

The Hemsleys creation of second-floor entertainment spaces meant the 1705 staircase would be, at least on occasion, part of the public sphere and need to bear up to scrutiny. Unlike in other rooms, here, the family chose not to retrofit. While Cloverfields' 1705 quarter-turn stairway was not the straight-flight rise of stairs then the height of fashion, the Hemsleys concluded its width and pitch, combined with a gracefully turned walnut balustrade projected sufficient dignity and craftsmanship to warrant keeping. Instead, they elected to update the space by plastering the walls, which were scored and then limewashed to imitate sandstone.

Ironically, contemporaries would have found the Hemsleys' new winder staircase old-fashioned. Since the early colonial period, occupants in most homes moved between floors by way of that type of steeply pitched enclosed stairs. Usually situated in a corner or beside the fireplace, this purely functional design took up a minimum of space. The doors at each end blocked noise and, more importantly, limited heat transfer. While practical and convenient, leading esteemed guests up such a narrow space would have been out of the question.

The new corner stairway connected the small southwest room with a second-floor bedchamber. The former, a cozy well-lit room, would have been a prime spot for the family to gather informally. Should an unexpected visitor call when someone was untidy, unwell, or uninclined for guests, that person could discreetly relocate to the room above without any embarrassing encounters in the passage.

The Formans at Cloverfields

After the American Revolution and death of Col. Hemsley in 1812, Cloverfields fell into slow decline like many former colonial powerhouses. When William H. Forman and his wife, Marcia Watts, took over in the 1840s, the house had fallen into such disrepair that the northwest corner had either collapsed or was in imminent danger of doing so. The Formans embarked on a campaign of repair and modernization that returned the house to respectability. Their changes included the removal of the corner staircase. The Formans' other costly repairs and improvements show that the removal (rather than rebuilding) was driven by choice and not financial considerations.

Cloverfields, no longer the imposing seat of one of the region's leading families, ceased to function as a setting for entertaining the rich and powerful. On the Eastern Shore, that era had ended or become so dilute as to be scarcely recognizable. The Formans' domestic needs differed significantly from the Hemsleys. William H. Forman was a successful farmer, and during his lifetime Cloverfields transitioned from mansion into a large and elegant farmhouse and would remain so for nearly 170 more years.

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]]>Recreating a Missing StaircaseDevin KimmelMon, 26 Apr 2021 16:57:25 +0000https://www.cloverfieldspreservationfoundation.org/newsletters/historical-landscaping5a0605c7d7bdce81a96393c7:5a78a3eb53450a1a08defc3c:607ef70afd76100c55301413Kimmel Studio Architects and McHale Landscaping collaborate on an impressive and challenging task: restoring the terraced gardens at Cloverfields. Planting nearly 700 boxwoods in December of 2020, the team transforms the barren winter space into an architectural and historical feat brimming with green. With research gathered from archaeological discoveries, ground-penetrating radar, and period writings, the Cloverfields restoration team establishes a garden that no one knew existed just below the surface.

History Meets Horticulture: A Landscaping Perspective

Chris Joseph • McHale Landscaping

Chris Joseph of McHale Landscaping discusses his inspiration in restoring the terraced gardens at Cloverfields: 

[We’ve got] six hundred and ninety-two greenmount boxwoods going in the ground over the next day and a half. It’s a pretty impressive project. You know, it’s amazing to be a part of -- seeing the level of detail these guys are taking with the restoration of this property and being able to be a part of pulling that detail of the interior, outside of the gardens and really focusing on all of the little minutiae is a lot of fun. Especially when you kind of extrapolate that across a broad scale like a project of this magnitude.

A project of this magnitude comes with specific challenges. According to Chris, the team must juggle environmental and design concerns while also preserving historical accuracy:

There’s some unique challenges to working with a garden this size and trying to be as conscious of the historical accuracy as possible, but also trying to work around the parameters of species and varieties and cultivars that are going to work well in this climate as well. You know, it may not be 100% historically accurate, but still trying to make that effect happen is a very unique challenge.

To tackle this challenge, the restoration team approaches the garden from numerous angles. The interdisciplinary research spans architectural, archaeological, horticultural, and historical fields. Chris talks about the unique collaboration between McHale Landscaping, Lynbrook Carpentry, and Kimmel Studio Architects:

Typically [McHale Landscaping] does high-end residential, but it’s a lot of fun being involved with a project that’s more of a museum quality. This really is a historic recreation, something that was here, and it’s well within our wheelhouse to be able to turn something like this around. Partnering up with Lynbrook on this and them bringing us in is a match made in heaven as far as I’m concerned. The work they do is architecturally certainly on par with what we like to do outside. So working with Devin and Brian has been great, you know, I have a working relationship with Brian going back a few years now, and so being able to be out here and have conversations with him about their expectations and his knowledge of the project has been indispensable.

Gathering Inspiration for the Gardens: A Historical Perspective

Brian Hjemvik • Kimmel Studio Architects

Brian Hjemvik, Landscape Architect at Kimmel Studio, discusses the role of ground penetration radar and archaeological discoveries in the garden’s recreation:

We spent a lot of time organizing these spaces although they were already here for us, which is unique and special about this project. Being that, through ground penetration radar and archaeology, we had a lot of evidence as to where these gardens were here at Cloverfields. So, although we were tightening up the geometry and making this all work for today’s gardens, we have a lot of evidence to go from, so that was exciting and unique about this project.

Kimmel Studio studies journals and letters from the period to inform the garden’s design, developing a prime recreation of 18th Century craftsman and gentry gardens:

Looking at case studies of the gardens -- how they would’ve been laid out, [reading] journals and letters that had been sent in the period which also explained how they were done and things that people in the craftsman gardens and gentry gardens were doing at the time. These letters were describing the gardens, and we would take those ideas and we would draw those interpretatively, and come up with what we thought was the best representation for today’s gardens.

According to the historical writings, “sugar cone” holly was used in the original garden to provide a sculptural element on a vertical plane. The team plants Dee Runk boxwoods, which are tall and conical, as well as hollies to recreate this vertical geometry:

The boxwoods and the hollies that are already in the ground, which are representative of the ‘sugar cone’ holly that was also very much described in these letters and these writings was that the way that these hollies were pruned very sculptural which instantly adds that vertical element to the gardens. So as you’re arriving today, and being able to see that, and the ‘Dee Runk’ boxwoods, the boxwoods that are standing very proud in the garden which mark that geometry and help describe the garden that way. 

The team expands its perspective on the geometrical design by examining the garden from the second floor drawing room:

And even viewing from the drawing room from in the building a lot of this is viewed from the second floor of the building, so a lot of that geometry was coming through from that angle, which is really interesting.

Parterres and Perennials: An Architectural Perspective  

Devin Kimmel • Kimmel Studio Architects

Devin Kimmel, Principal Architect and Landscape Architect at Kimmel Studio, plays with center points, focal points, and space using a variety of plants. The upright boxwoods and holly trees give height to the garden, whereas the low hedges and perennials create patterns within each parterre:

The boxwoods that are going in are instantly changing the parterres because it’s the middle of December and it’s not green out here, but now it is with all these boxwoods. The thought is, each parterre is a different type of pattern, and some have low hedges that will then contain perennials. And we’ve used upright boxwoods throughout to give height to the garden, to create center points and focal points. And then up on the main entry-level to the garden, we have holly trees which will create focals and spaces and different garden rooms. 

Devin elaborates on the axial relationships between the garden rooms and how the boxwoods reinforce these architectural elements:

The gardens have these axial relationships: the cross-axis through the front entry court, and then each garden itself has a different series of axes and garden rooms within it. Boxwoods make up sort of the architectural elements of the garden.

The architects at Kimmel Studio create bloom diagrams for the seasonal bulbs and perennials, charting a master plan of color and beauty throughout the year:

Right now in our office, we’re diagramming out the bulbs that will be planted out here, the seasonal bulbs. So we have a whole series of colored bulbs that will go in, bloom at different times, and then we’re laying out how those patterns and how they’ll work together. So as you go down to the garden in the spring, you’ll have warm colors, cold colors, how those all lay out. Each garden parterre will have a series of bulbs in it, densely planted and then after that the perennials will come up and they’ll have their flower. So, we’ve drawn diagrams of the bloom times, the different bloom times for each garden, and what you’ll see in each garden.

Devin and his team carefully choose period-specific plants or similar hybrids to establish a sense of historical accuracy as well as beauty:

All of these plants relate to history and would’ve been available in the period 1784 or we’ve got a hybrid that works better or isn’t invasive. We’re not doing any invasive plants, so we’ve eliminated those from the list. The garden is an interpretation of what would’ve been planted here or could’ve been planted here in the period.

The recreated garden therefore reflects what the Hemsley’s would have experienced and enjoyed in their time at Cloverfields:

You could see the Hemsley’s in 1784 flowing out of this house into this garden and spending a lot of time here and bringing furniture out, and this would’ve been a big part of their life. Being able to reestablish it this many years later is really a special thing.

Devin also discusses the significance of ground penetrating radar in the garden’s discovery:

There are many people that have been in this house that really didn’t know that this garden was even here until we dove in with the ground penetrating radar and found it. Then we did some archaeology, and with those things that it revealed we can recreate it, so it’s here again.

Finishing the Foliage

The collaboration between Kimmel Studio Architects, Lynbrook of Annapolis, and McHale Landscaping results in over 600 boxwoods, 70,000 bulbs, and 6,000 perennials taking root in the terraced garden, with roses and fruit trees to come. The exemplary restoration of the Cloverfields house now expands beyond its walls, making the former Hemsley home a must-see in every season.

By: Devin S. Kimmel, of Kimmel Studio Architects

For: Cloverfields Preservation Foundation

Videos By: Joe Stephens, StratDV Video Production

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]]>Recreating a 1784 Terraced Garden: Historical Landscaping at CloverfieldsDevin KimmelTue, 16 Mar 2021 19:33:23 +0000https://www.cloverfieldspreservationfoundation.org/newsletters/dormer-restoration5a0605c7d7bdce81a96393c7:5a78a3eb53450a1a08defc3c:602bf08e7452133362c122f3Restoring 1705 Dormers on the Main House

In this newsletter, Matt Culp, a carpenter at Lynbrook of Annapolis, restores the dormers on the front of the house using a 17th Century roofing style and original hardware. A dormer is a type of roof window that projects beyond the roof plane, often used to increase the usable space in a loft or attic and to add light.

First Generation Clapboard Roofing of the 17th Century

According to Matt, the clapboard roofing at Cloverfields is the first generation of that style. The exposed interior of the middle dormer provides evidence of the original structure:

So what we’re going to point out today on the dormers on the front side of the house is that the middle dormer actually has an exposed interior. The other two side dormers are in plastered rooms and they’re going to have a plastered ceiling at the collar ties above the top plate. But this particular one was actually exposed because the interior of that room is all exposed wood paneling. And what we wanted to do was actually recreate what would have been the first generation of the clapboard roofing style. There’s some evidence of that in other parts of the attic space before the catslide went on. And that’s how we know that was an original roofing that was originally installed there.

Matt uses 17th Century materials and methods to create an overlapping clapboard roofing pattern - a design which provides additional protection from the elements:

So we sourced out some of the same material and the methods that are used to create this material, which is basically a tapered wedge and it’s considered clapboard roofing with an overlapping pattern. So, it serves a purpose early on to get you somewhat waterproof before the actual shingles go on; so it’s almost a roof under a roof.

Using four pieces of uninstalled clapboard roofing, Matt demonstrates how a 17th Century quartersawing process creates stable, strong structures for the roof:

So, what we have here are about four pieces of the clapboard roofing before it was installed and after it’s been processed. Essentially what the method would be is an entire log and then it’s split like you’re quartersawing it, so you get a nice quartersawn wood which is very stable and strong. It’ll support your weight and everything so on. And it’ll stay straight because of the quartersawn effect.

In the period Cloverfields was constructed, carpenters would split a large log into pie shapes using a tool similar to a draw knife. They would move from the top of the log towards the center, splitting the wood into naturally tapered wedges. They would also dress the exterior of the log, removing the bark and creating a “chamfered edge.” The boards would then seamlessly adjoin upon construction due to the transitional nature of the chamfered edge. Matt discusses the process of creating hand split clapboards in 1705:

So if you could imagine a log that’s round like this and they just come in a bunch of pie shapes on it. And they just come down, going towards the center. Now this is a draw knife, but I could imagine that it’s something similar like this, and they’d start it off right at the top of the log going towards the center. And then once you get through the log a little bit, they’re going to tap that thing down, and they’re actually splitting it. And what it does is since the outside diameter of the log is obviously the larger part, it creates naturally a tapered wedge pie shape to each piece. So, this is the thick leading edge. So, ultimately this is going to go down and split this in half. Before all that’s done though, they’re going to dress this edge so that all of the bark is going to be pulled off with the draw knife. So, you can see some of the evidence there of some maybe of the darker, deeper gouges that come from this direction where that draw knife dug in a little bit more than intended. But, ultimately they are dressing the edges up with this draw knife and pulling down and actually dressing – just giving yourself a little bit of a chamfered edge to the clapboard roofing.

The chamfered edge helped 17th Century builders conserve nails, which would have been expensive. By feathering the board’s edges, carpenters created overlapping boards that were adjoined every five feet:

So I have two pieces here that are scrap cut-offs of what we were using. You can again see this chamfered edge is where the draw knife would have created that edge on the exterior diameter of the log. If you put these two pieces together, it’s really remarkable how consistent the edges are, and the thickness from front to back. So, in a lot of scenarios, you have a roof that is entirely too long to cover with an entire piece. We were lucky and fortunate with this one to cover it with all one entire piece. But typically about a five-foot piece would have been used. So every five feet, roughly every third rafter, you have to do a half-lap joint. It’s a feathered edge joint. And ultimately what that does is it allows you to use less nails, because nails would have been very expensive.

Matt demonstrates the method of feathering two boards together. Taking two boards of the same thickness, he cuts away the top of one and the bottom of another. This creates a beautiful, functional overlay which limits nail usage. With feathering, only one nail is needed to adjoin two boards:

I’d like to just show a little bit of the method of what they would have done to feather these two together. So again, I have two pieces that work together right… that are the same thickness. So what I want to do is I want to take some off the top of this one, and some off the bottom of this one. 

So now you can start to see how the feathering comes into play. And the opposite side of this one. And then ultimately the overlay. And again this allows the carpenter to use less nails. By doing this this way, they’re only using one nail to nail two boards down. Saving one nail for every single course, every five feet.

Reusing 17th Century Nails and Joints  

In addition to recreating the 1705 clapboard roofing style, Matt reuses period nails found on site to preserve historical accuracy in the dormer restoration. By using nails from the original Cloverfields construction, Matt ensures the final dormer retains as much of the period style as possible:

Through the process here, we’ve found a numerous amount of nails that we always save that are original 1705 period nails. And then we want to reuse those in the house as many times as possible. We’ll put them back in wherever they may have shaken loose from. We actually have one that we are going to reinstall into this right here. Including the ones that are coming through the clapboard roofing here that most likely were, that came from the roof seeing as how they were in my pouch when we were doing this, because I saved every single nail that might fall to the ground and so on. So we do want to use as much of that 1705 product as much as possible, and keep it period correct.

The original slip joints at the dormer’s peak are structurally sound, so Matt keeps them in place for the final product. An interesting discovery in the paint dates the slip joints to pre-1800:

The slip joints that are at the peak of these rafters right here are still surviving from the 1705 period and are still structurally sound, resting on solid material above and below, including this peg that never was cut off. For some reason this one was cut off on both sides, this one was existing and you can still see some paint from the period of whenever they painted a lot of these rafters, and probably this entire room. Which we were actually able to find a signature on top of the paint that dated into the 1800s. So we know that the paint is at least earlier than the 1800s.

With clapboard roofing, 1705 period nails, and original slip joints, Matt completes a historically accurate dormer recreation, enhanced with early hardware from Cloverfields’ initial construction.

It is inspirational to see talented carpenters recreating the dormers. The historic house keeps revealing fascinating details and giving preservation specialists the opportunity to showcase their talents and to learn about Eighteenth Century architectural history.

By: Devin S. Kimmel, of Kimmel Studio Architects

For: Cloverfields Preservation Foundation

Video By: Joe Stephens, StratDV Video Production

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]]>Cloverfields as of March 2021: The Main House 1705 Dormer RestorationDevin KimmelThu, 18 Feb 2021 18:54:16 +0000https://www.cloverfieldspreservationfoundation.org/newsletters/cellar-door-hardware5a0605c7d7bdce81a96393c7:5a78a3eb53450a1a08defc3c:602bd6f1d7c47337a73cce63The complex restoration of Cloverfields’ seventeenth-century cellar door requires collaboration across four disciplines: architectural history, blacksmithing, carpentry, and millwork. Architectural historian Willie Graham, blacksmith Peter Ross, carpenter Matt Culp (Lynbrook of Annapolis), and millwork specialist Jack Abeel (Jack Abeel Custom Millworks) combine their expertise to construct an historically accurate, functional door for the Cloverfields cellar.

Forging Wrought-Iron Hardware

The Cloverfields Preservation Foundation contracts Peter Ross of North Carolina for his expertise in early historic blacksmithing. After 25 years’ as master blacksmith for Colonial Williamsburg, Peter founded the company Peter Ross Blacksmith and Whitesmith. He specializes in using tools and methods of the 17-18th Centuries to create English-American wrought-iron pieces. Willie describes Peter as a “master” of early historic work:

Peter was the master blacksmith at Colonial Williamsburg, and I would say 80-90% of the blacksmiths today that are doing historic work in America… were either apprentices to Peter, journeyman, or have taken some kind of training from him. He really is the master at doing this work. 

Peter forges three elements of 17th Century hardware for the cellar door -- strap hinges, pintles, and rosehead nails, all wrought-iron -- as well as two ad-hoc tools for the door’s installation.

Strap Hinges

The team models their work from a wrought-iron strap hinge discovered at a late 17th Century archaeological site in Talbot County. With the eye in front, the model hinge closely resembles the contemporary style used in doors today, in which doors are seated into a rabbet or doorstop instead of directly onto the jamb. According to Willie,

The thing that makes this fairly distinctive, for a late 17th century hinge type, is that the eye is on the front of the hinge. You can tell on this hinge that [Ross] intended the eye to be on the front because he has beveled the sides of the hinge to give it a little bit of finish and refinement showing that this is the front of it. In some earlier hinges, the eye was actually on the rear, and that allowed the hinge to sit on the door, and the door would sit just on the face of the door jamb. It didn’t sit into a rabbet or a stop like we do in a modern door today. This was made for a more modern door even though it's of late 17th century origins.

Despite its modern construction, the Talbot County strap hinge matches the style of a 1705 cellar door because, as Willie points out,

The styles of hinges don't change that fast. Something made in the late 17th century would have been perfectly fine for a house built twenty, thirty, forty years later even.

Peter hand-forges the hinges by wrapping the wrought iron around the eye and welding it on the rear. The two pieces of iron meld together in a feathered seam visible to the observant eye. This attention to detail sets the cellar door hinges apart from cruder pieces, where the iron may not be welded at all. Willie comments,

What’s interesting about the hinge is that when Peter made this, he wraps the iron around the eye and forge welds it on the rear. And if you look real carefully, you would see a slight line where he has forged these two pieces together and feathered it. In cruder work, you often see where the eye is wrapped around on the front and welds on the front, or in some cases they’re even wrapped and not welded at all, it's just wrapped around the eye.

Peter adds an element of beauty to the replica hinges, reminiscent of architecture used well into the 18th Century. Willie describes the strap hinges as “distinctive” and detailed:

[The strap hinges] are kind of heavy on the end. They have these big flattened out, rounded-in finials on them. But it has a kind of a nice little step that feathers the material out real fine on the end, like you would see on any kind of strap hinges throughout the 18th century.

Pintles

Peter also forges wrought-iron pintles to carry the strap hinges. Historic pintles were driven into the door jamb with the hinges seated on top. Willie describes the function and design of the restored pintles at Cloverfields:

The hinges get carried obviously on a pintle… the pintle would be driven into the door jamb. The hinge sits on the pintle and would rotate on the pin that sticks up. These are made in the same way as the hinges -- they're made out of wrought-iron, they’ve been hand forged.

Peter splits the pintle ends so they can be clinched after installation. Clinching provides additional durability, according to Willie:

If you look carefully, you would see a seam where Peter took that piece of metal and wrapped it over the eye and forged it together. He then split the ends of it so that Matt could eventually take these things and clinch them after he drove the pintle through the door jamb, he could clinch the ends of them to lock it in tight. Not all pintles clinched like this, but it was one good way to make sure they didn’t pull out.

Ad-Hoc Tools

Peter makes two historic tools specifically for the pintle installation. The first tool -- an iron with a tapered profile similar to the shape of the pintle -- is heated and pushed into the door jamb, leaving a perfectly shaped hole for the pintle installation. The second tool -- a hammer-like device with the same diameter as the pintle’s nestles -- drives the pintle into the jamb once installed, protecting it from damage. According to Willie, these tools make a significant impact on the accurate reconstruction of the door:

This is a real fascinating recreation of how it was done in the period. We are not fooling anybody by using all period tools, but where it makes sense, Matt is using those tools and otherwise he is facilitating a recreation to make it look just like it did when Hemsley had it first done in 1705.

Rose Head Nails

Peter forges rosehead nails for the strap hinges, setting the cellar door apart from other projects at Cloverfields. Wrought iron nails are expensive and difficult to obtain, so mild steel nails are used in most of the restorations. The hand-forged rosehead nails provide an exceptional and authentic accent for the cellar door replica.

Installing the Custom Hardware

With the blacksmithing work complete, carpenter Matt Culp of Lynbrook of Annapolis installs the reconstructed hardware according to Ross’s drawings and design.  

Step-Drilling the Door Jamb

First, Matt drills pilot holes in the door jamb where the pintles will be. This ensures the pintles will not skew up or down during installation:

I'm going to go through a few steps here, on how I go about drilling the hole through the jamb with a flat and flush, basically going through level and plumb and square and every way you could think. So that way, when the pintle does get driven through, it doesn't skew one direction or the other, or up or down. Mainly up or down because if it skews up or down, then we can have an issue with the door operating properly (Culp).

Although Peter states the pintle could be installed with one pilot hole burned straight through the jamb, he warns it could lead to sloppy results. Matt therefore takes additional care, using a step drilling process to accommodate the ever-changing size of the pintle:

Starting out with a ¾ inch forstner bit, then moving down to ⅝ inch forstner bit, ultimately a ½ inch after that, and then finishing it with a ⅜ to a ¼ on the other side. And the reason for doing all that is that the pintle is ever changing in dimension. If I measure out from approximately where it wants to be set and then the thickness of the jamb -- right here where it finishes out is roughly a quarter of an inch thick and still about eleven sixteenth to three quarters an inch this direction, up here seven eighths of an inch and here about three quarters of an inch (Culp).

Matt alternates drill bits to create a gradient effect in the pilot hole. He moves from a ¾ inch forstner bit on the outside (where the thickest part of the pintle rests in the door jamb) to a ¼ inch on the inside (where the arrow-like point of the pintle will push through the doorway). This attention to detail makes it easier to use Peter’s custom iron in the next step.

Using the Ad-Hoc Tools

With the pilot holes ready, Matt burns the door jamb with Peter’s hand-made iron. He heats the iron with a blowtorch and drives it into the pilot holes, profiling the pintle in the flaming wood. Some patina is left after burning, giving the jamb an authentic look.

 The bottom pintle seats perfectly, but the upper pintle projects slightly beyond the frame. Matt elongates the upper hole before driving the pintle. Once adjusted, he drives in the pintles, using Peter’s wrought-iron device to protect the nestles from the hammer:

I'm going to start to tap this pintle in. Now, I’m pretty happy with that. This is the main reason why Peter Ross has supplied that driver to us. As you can see how mushroom that is, that would have been all that damage on the end of that pintle, which wouldn't be as attractive.

Peter’s custom tools are in good hands -- Matt’s diligence results in perfectly placed, undamaged pintles with an authentic finish.

Positioning the Strap Hinges

With the pintles in place, Matt moves to the strap hinges. He seats the unattached strap hinges in the pintles and sets the door in the jamb, aligning them in the doorway. He uses temporary screws to secure the hinge before completing the job with rosehead nails:

The door has already been pretty fitted with the proper reveals that we're looking for. I'm going to go ahead and shim this up. And like I said in an earlier shot, we're looking about 3/16’s around the entire door. A little stronger on this than some of our others. Now the lower one has been driven to its proper depth, you can see it’s seating nicely on the thickness of the door. We don't want it to be set back too far -- initially we can always give a little extra drive, but we don't want this thing to be hinged down against the stops. Ultimately, once I get this into position, we're going to move over into the other door, and I'm going to show you what the next process is; but that’s basically drive fitting the hinge, securing it in place with a few temporary screws, and then we’ll pull this thing down and clinch over some rose heads.

With the strap hinges aligned on the door, Matt removes the door from the jamb and lays it flat on a table. Pre-drilling first to protect the wood from splitting, he then secures the strap hinges onto the door with Peter’s wrought-iron rosehead nails. The tips of the nails protrude on the other side, so he rolls them over with a needle nose plier and taps them in position. This clinches the strap hinges in place.

Clinching the Pintles

After installing the pintles and strap hinges, Matt must clinch the pintles into the door jamb. Peter left the ends of the pintles split for this purpose. This complicated process could damage the pintles and door jamb if done improperly. Matt develops a system to carefully navigate the clinching process:

I’ve used this large C-clamp here on the back side of the pintle, and a piece of stainless to prevent that from denting the door jamb where we are at. I don't think that this is really how they would have done it, but for me, this is ensuring that while I'm bending these two tabs over on the back side to clinch this pintle into place, I'm also not driving my pintle back out of the opening by any means. So this is just a preventative measure here to keep this thing seated right where I want it.

 Once the clamp is tightened, Matt notes that the surrounding brick jamb may interfere with his work. He resolves this by coaxing the pintle down slowly with different chisels before flattening with a hammer. Alternating between a cold and long chisel, he carefully works the pintle until both ends are the same distance from the jamb. He then hammers the ends of the pintle from both directions until they are flat against the door jamb:

We got a little bit of a brick door jamb here that’s getting in our way, so I basically just have a variety of cold punches that I’m going to get these things started with, and then ultimately I’ll finish it off with just a couple blows of the hammer… I’m going to use this cold chisel here to kind of get me started, and I’ll use my longer chisel on this side to give me some more room to work.... I’ve got them both about the same distance off each other, and I’m going to try and position my clamp up a little bit higher. Now a little bit of both directions [with the hammer].

Matt’s expertise in this complex carpentry work allows the team to proceed without fear of complication or damage.

Choosing the Model: Two Discoveries at Cloverfields

Before the team moves to the final step of the process, architectural historian Willie Graham reflects on two archaeological discoveries which inspired designs for the cellar door.

A Hidden Doorway

The team uncovered a 17th Century doorway embedded in a wall that was erected at Cloverfields in 1912. The moldings were almost pre-classical and did not match the plight moldings seen on the first floor of the house. According to Willie, historic cellar doors and doorways were more conservatively built than those in the rest of the house, often reflecting an earlier style:

We discovered this doorway embedded inside of a wall that was put up in 1912. Doorways to cellars and then the doors in the cellar often reflect an earlier style. You would expect this to be more conservatively built and that indeed is the case with our door frame. So we have these solid jambs that were set into a headpiece. This is a classical molding but done kind of in reverse of what you might expect, almost in a pre-classical way. So something you might expect out of the 17th century, and given that it's 1705 that's no surprise. What is real interesting is that they ran the molding of the jambs up to the head, but they didn't run the molding across the head itself. They didn't miter in the corner and enframe the opening with that molding. And that’s what’s different from the more plight moldings that you see on the first floor of the house. In the case of this door frame, the rabbet to take the door that creates the stop for the door is plained out of the frame itself. This is just one piece of wood for each of the two jambs and then the head’s a separate piece, and the sill being the fourth piece connecting this together. And we have used this then to replicate the style, the moldings, and the way the frame goes together for the cellar door openings.

The conservative, pre-classical construction of the discovered doorway made it an appropriate model for the cellar door opening. The team replicated the hidden doorway’s style, moldings, and fit of the frame for the cellar.

In the Attic

In addition to the doorway, the team discovered a model for the cellar door leaf in the attic at Cloverfields. An original door in the stairhead room provided historic evidence of 17th Century board and back door leaf design. The attic door has different hinges than the replica but is otherwise similar in structure. Matt speaks on the discovery:

[The attic] is where that profile with the board and back door leaf was basically. We determined that this would be a good match. We have that tongue and groove detail in the top, the bead profile matches the in and out of the boards, and then also the way that this batten has been put onto the back side with the relief to allow for the different plains that the door is hung in. Different hinge here, but ultimately, a lot of the evidence for our door leafs downstairs came from this.

Completing the Restoration

Gathering evidence and inspiration from the two models, Cloverfields Preservation Foundation collaborates with Jack Abeel Custom Millwork to construct the replica, a company with 30 years’ experience on historic projects. Supplied with dimensions for the jambs and door leafs, Jack fabricates doors identical to the model, complete with battens and rosehead nails clinched down. Matt states,

With all the information that we’ve gathered from different locations in the house -- on the jambs, on the door leaf -- we’ve been able to supply these dimensions to Jack Abeel Custom Millworks, where he has then supplied us with and fabricated these doors, including the boards and the battens already clinching the nails over. Just as we use the roseheads here, Jack already had these roseheads installed from his shop, so they're really just pairing up really nice. Jack has been great at accommodating the way that we're going to put these together, and we are matching how he has done it as well.

Supplied with Jack’s custom doors, Matt completes the meticulous reconstruction project by checking the cellar door’s functionality. It needs to operate properly in the reconstructed door jamb. He seats the finished product onto the pintles -- a perfect fit. The interdisciplinary collaboration at Cloverfields results in a fully functional 17th Century cellar door, crafted with historical accuracy and architectural precision.

By: Devin S. Kimmel, of Kimmel Studio Architects

For: Cloverfields Preservation Foundation

Video by: Joe Stephens, StratDV Video Production

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]]>Cloverfields as of February 2021: Recreating and Installing a Seventeenth-Century DoorDevin KimmelTue, 26 Jan 2021 16:24:19 +0000https://www.cloverfieldspreservationfoundation.org/newsletters/plaster-restoration-9b5mg5a0605c7d7bdce81a96393c7:5a78a3eb53450a1a08defc3c:5fdb62e049e8de759fb912e3The Ashlar Treatment, or on How to Make Stucco Look Like Ashlar Stone Blocks

Preservation specialists are now working on the final details of the Cloverfields restoration, including finishes and paint. And they keep making some very interesting discoveries. A few months ago, the painters were working on the 1769 paint layer, when they noticed that the stucco had been scored to make it look like ashlar.

In the video above, architectural historian Willie Graham explains the historic relevance of the ashlar treatment:

This is very exciting, very interesting. It is more interesting to see what the painters have uncovered than it would be for us to freshen up the paint and paint over, and sort of mask this original finish. The fact that we are down to the 1769-paint layer here; that they were able to get us down to that is just pretty extraordinary.

I think part of what they are doing is… They’re making it look like stone blocks; “ashlar” is what they would call it. That is a particularly relevant treatment for entries and passages. They are trying to bring the indoors out, and outdoors in kind of thing, and these ashlar blocks are sort of one way to do that.

The stone imitation functions as an indoor-outdoor connection for transitional spaces. Graham continues:

The yellow color on it is also a very common treatment for these spaces, so this is probably the most literal incarnation of the ashlar treatment, where you actually score it to make it look like stone blocks. 

In the Chesapeake Bay, it is very unusual to find walls that were scored to imitate stones. Graham knows of only one other historic house where the same technique was used: a house in Anne Arundel County called “Larkin’s Hill.” Graham says:

The only other one of these that I know of in the region is a house in southern Anne Arundel County that's called “Larkets Hills” and it has a lot of this scoring kind of peeking through the walls. It's been patched and skimmed in places, but you can still see the treatment on the arches and some of the scoring of the lines to create the stone. And we have a period account where the daughter of the builder talks about the treatment and how it was made, and it seems to relate a lot to this.

But these are the only two I know of in the region where it literally is made to look like stone.

It's not the only way it's done. At the Brice House in Annapolis in the late 1760s they put a slightly textured plaster in the entry and the stair passages all the way up to the attic, and then they painted it with a yellow distemper paint but very similar to this yellow lime wash that we used here, as a way to suggest that it's stoned without going through the trouble of actually scoring it to make it look like stone.

We find sections of Cloverfields, of Larket Hills, and of the Brice House where the eighteenth-century walls are subjected to different treatments to make them look like stone. At Cloverfields and at Larket Hills they actually went through the effort of scoring the stucco; at the Brice House, they simply used lightly textured plaster.

Preservation specialist Chris Mills agrees with Graham regarding the historic relevance of the ashlar treatment:

This is a very deliberate large element. And how interesting it is that the longer you are with the building and the more it opens up the more you can discover and see, and to see this whole scale of treatment was a great find. William [Graham] had only sent me pictures of it, I had no idea the scale of it; I thought it was a small piece. We did see a little bit that is exposed downstairs but it looked like distemper and we had no idea what it was, and it looked flat so I said: “Oh! It's either a whitewash or a distemper on there,” but it is this treatment that is fabulous.

Graham then enumerates the reasons why the plaster treatment is distinct for a house of the late eighteenth century: It is exceptionally wide, the material used was of the highest quality, and the workmanship was exceptional. Graham says:  

What is really interesting about the plaster in the house from this period, the 1769 period, is very distinct.

First of all, it's put on really wide laid bits; it's split out on riven oak lath that’s really wide. It's a couple of inches wide which for this region particularly is unusual.

And then they did a very competent job when they applied it. They used good materials, they used a higher percentage of lime that you would find in a lot of houses. Although they are not using long floats to get real smooth surfaces, they have carefully worked the surfaces to get the nice and flat flush.

The finish coat is really hard and durable; that’s true for the plaster everywhere that was done in 1769. Here, the top plaster layer that creates the stucco look is treated differently; it's also hard and durable and really beautifully put on, but it has this gray cast to it, and that to me relates it potentially to the house in the southern Anne Arundel County, Larkin’s Hill Farm.

But inside, eventually, you go from this to wallpaper, and certainly, by the nineteenth century they are printing wallpaper in ashlar patterns to look like stonework, and it's common up through the middle of the nineteenth century. They eventually get more stylized and it evolves into other stuff after the middle of the century. But I think there is a tradition from about 1760 to 1850 of treating these passages in that manner.

One of the most rewarding aspects of working in a three-centuries-old house like Cloverfields is to find unexpected features or techniques. In the past we discussed, for example, how the archaeologists of Applied Archaeology and History Associates found one of the few surviving wooden eighteenth-century ice houses at the Cloverfields site. The archaeologists also found evidence of a front porch—the first porch of its kind in the Chesapeake Bay. This time, it was the painters who made an exciting discovery. They showed us that in 1769 the ashlar treatment was used to make plaster look like stone blocks.

Like the porch, the ashlar treatment creates an indoor-outdoor connection to highlight the transitional nature of entries and other sections of the house. Cloverfields was one of the first houses of the region to attempt to bring the outdoors indoors by imitating stone, an idea that was popular up to the middle of the nineteenth century. Once more, Cloverfields helps us fill in the gaps of the architectural history of the Chesapeake Bay.

Update on the Gardens

Over the past few months, McHale Landscape has been working to recreate the Cloverfields falling gardens. Kimmel Studio Architects created designs for the gardens based on ground-penetrating radar and archaeology to know where the parterre gardens were located. The falls (terrace hills) were still visible. We will provide more updates on the gardens as they develop.

By: Devin S. Kimmel, of Kimmel Studio Architects

For: Cloverfields Preservation Foundation

Video By: Joe Stephens, StratDV Video Production

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]]>The 1769 Ashlar Stucco Wall Discovery at CloverfieldsDevin KimmelTue, 25 Aug 2020 14:31:49 +0000https://www.cloverfieldspreservationfoundation.org/newsletters/the-roof-restoration5a0605c7d7bdce81a96393c7:5a78a3eb53450a1a08defc3c:5f284a8e673b4b0d2159497fAn Extraordinary Find!

In this newsletter, we learn about how the eighteenth-century roofers working at Cloverfields “swept the valley” and “combed the ridge” of the shingles they installed—and about how sometimes they did not, and instead, they used very thin shingles. These slender shingles and the way they were manipulated and installed constitute, according to historian Willie Graham, an “extraordinary find.”

In the video above, Graham starts by explaining to us how the roofing technique called “sweeping the valley” works:

So, this roof has valleys where the dormers meet up with their various roof slopes. And traditionally, they didn’t flash those valleys; what they would do is called “sweeping the valley,” and the shingles would fan as they went around the valleys, and they would cut the shingles in almost pie shapes to fit that sweeping. They put a little cant strip underneath to help ease the shingles around the corners, and it makes for a beautiful roof. It was done in the period I think, less for its looks and more as a way to avoid having to put flashing in.

There were a couple of roofs in the eighteenth century that had leaded valleys, but they were very rare. This was really the common way of doing it; it was to sweep them. To recreate that sweeping today takes a lot of practice, experimentation, and we had to do that here to get them to look just right. I think the roofer did a really fabulous job working out that detail with us.

We agree! The roofer that worked with Lynbrook of Annapolis did a wonderful job sweeping the valley. Graham then explains what “combing the ridge” means:

You’d like to think that each row would have the same radius in order to create that fanning, but in reality, that radius changes slightly from one row to the next in order to make it work out.

And then the real complicated thing is that, as you get to the top, the shingles are coming around to form the ridge at the top of the dormers. The shingles on one side need to extend past the shingles on the other side; it’s called ”combing the ridge.” Instead of putting a cap on it like you often see on shingle roofs today, they simply extend the shingles on one side a couple of inches beyond the shingles on the opposite roof. But all that’s got to come together as you are still sweeping into it, and it’s got to flatten out in the main roof. That is a very tricky thing to do.

It is tricky to do, and it may result in water damage. Because of this potential damage the Cloverfields’ restoration team decided not to imitate this particular eighteenth-century technique. As Graham explains:

We did cheat and put flashing underneath the shingles. We flashed actually between each course as we were doing the sweeping. You see none of this, but just in case something leaks, the flash between each course and the valley underneath is flashed all as a safety measure. But otherwise, we really wanted to limit how much flashing there is on the roof because you want those shingles to breathe from underneath.

Graham then turns our attention to the section of the roof that in the eighteenth century connected the stair tower in the rear of the house with the roof of the main house. It is here where we see “an extraordinary find”.

The extraordinary find here is where the roof of what had been over the stair tower, this kind of rear wing to the main house, how that roof was treated as it fitted into the back of the main roof of the house.

And so we know there is a clapboard base that was put on everything. The main roof gets a clapboard base, the wing gets a clapboard base, and where the two meet, they put clapboards that they bent to fit the valleys. Almost like the sweeping of the valleys with their shingles, they’ve done them with horizontal boards that are bent around. And to think about it, they’re bending these things that are going to be tough to bend anyway; they’re set on, you know, lapping overtop of each other just like weatherboards. They are doing all of that, and they are trying to make it watertight.

And my guess when we were looking at this roof from underneath was that the shingles followed that curve, and it swept the valley. But in fact, we discovered that did not happen, that there are no nail holes in the valley for the shingles to go through, so those valleys were exposed, and they simply tucked the ends of those clapboards that are being bent around the corner underneath the clapboards that are coming from the main roof.

In fact, as these clapboards, as I said, are 4 or 5 feet long, and at the ends of them, they feathered each along the length, they feathered the ends of them together to create a seal. One nail goes through two boards that are kind of shaved down and fitted together.

This roofing technique is one of the most unusual architectural features of the historic house:

I think in some ways this is one of the most unusual features that we have seen in this house. It’s been full of all these great surprises; it’s the part of the building that just never survives, and it is also particularly early, and you combine those two things to be able to see how craftsmen in the period resolved this.

Graham then observes how thin the original boards were:

To create those curved boards, the first thing they do is they split the boards very thinly. The thickest board I could find was just shy of 3/8 of an inch thick, so they’re very thin boards going around there, which helped them bend them, but you’d think it wouldn’t give them much life but yet they worked for at least 50 years, so you can’t argue with it; I mean that is something that was successful.

So they fit them and bend them there, and the shingles on the main roof came up and stopped short, 18 inches or something, of that valley. At least on the main roof, we don’t know if the shingles continued on over top of the stair tower roof, just because nothing survives back there, but presumably, they continue once you got beyond the valley. They were doing everything they could to make that area watertight without adding any kind of flashing or tar, or any other kind of product up there to facilitate it.

Although unusual, the roofing technique was not unique to Cloverfields. Graham points out how we can see something similar going on at “Melwood,” a 1714 Southern Maryland house:

You might think that this was an idiosyncratic case where one person figured it out, did it this way, the next guy is doing it another way. However, since we discovered it here, there is a house in Southern Maryland, a place called “Melwood” that dated from 1714, and it’s missing its rear wing just like we are here. When you go up on the roof, you can see the tell-tale signs where it had clapboards that were bent in the valley like this one, and here we are today an- hour-and-a-half drive away, and somebody solving that problem in a very similar fashion. So I think it must have been understood by carpenters in the period that this is a way to treat competent roofs at the turn of the 18th century.

Graham appreciates the originality of the roofing technique:

I think in some ways this is one of the most unusual features that we have seen in this house. It’s been full of all these great surprises; it’s the part of the building that just never survives, and it is also particularly early, and you combine those two things to be able to see how craftsmen in the period resolved this.

A roofing technique used at the Cloverfields house in Maryland’s Eastern Shore in the year 1704 was used ten years later in Southern Maryland, at Mellwood. Once again, then, Cloverfields helps us to write the architectural history of the Chesapeake Bay region; this time Cloverfields adds a section about how eighteenth-century roofers experimented with different techniques to waterproof the houses they worked on.

By: Devin S. Kimmel, of Kimmel Studio Architects

For: Cloverfields Preservation Foundation

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]]>Cloverfields as of August 2020: An Extraordinary Find In The Eighteenth-Century RoofDevin KimmelFri, 08 May 2020 19:35:18 +0000https://www.cloverfieldspreservationfoundation.org/newsletters/2020/3/13/cloverfields-as-of-march-2020-on-the-stair-tower-4nw6f5a0605c7d7bdce81a96393c7:5a78a3eb53450a1a08defc3c:5eb5a41b30b0d35aca0fdf9bThe Many Chapters of History at Cloverfields

The Cloverfields house was originally built in 1705. We are restoring it to the year 1784, when Colonel William Hemsley lived in the house. 

Although we choose to take the house back to the eighteenth century, the historians working at Cloverfields are going to great lengths to document other chapters of its history as well. 

The twentieth century is one of these remarkable periods. During this era, the house was owned by the Callahan family. Thomas Callahan acquired the property in 1897, and the Callahan family owned it for more than a century. 

In the video above, historian Sherri Marsh Johns, of Retrospect LLC, discusses the legacy of the Callahans, and their “preservationist ethic”:   

This is a major transition for Cloverfields. You know, the Callahans, Thomas Callahan and his descendants they owned it for 120 years, so this is a major period in Cloverfields’ history. They made a remarkably late footprint on the property. 

They seemed to have a preservationist' ethic from the very beginning. You know, a family at the turn of the twentieth century would have a lot of different needs than the eighteenth century, but instead of redoing the Colonel’s dining room into modern taste they added a hyphen. They took down kind of a deteriorated 15-by-20 brick section that had been already altered and put a new frame addition where they had their dining room and bedroom upstairs, and a water closet. And so the house remained remarkably unaltered during the Callahans’ period.

This preservationist spirit is even more remarkable when we consider that the Callahans’ did not buy a well preserved house, but one that had been neglected for years. As Marsh Johns explains:

From the moment the house was built to Colonel Hemsley, this was a showplace. It was one of the most fashionable houses on the [Eastern] Shore and it represented the wealth and status of the family. But a lot of that had changed by the time the Callahans come around. 

Colonel Hemsley; he dies in 1812, and if there’s ever a good time to die that was probably it, because his world was about to fall apart. You know, we have the War of 1812, and then we have the economic panic that followed that: collapsing grain prices that bankrupted many of the Eastern Shore and regional farmers. Many of his friends went bankrupt; his sons went bankrupt. So, this was a very difficult time. There were a couple of more panics and of course the Civil War, so the loss of an enslaved labor force just changed the whole social dynamic on the Eastern Shore. So we have these whole national circumstances going around that made it difficult for even the most successful and astute farmers to survive. 

But on top of that, Cloverfields for probably 40 years, maybe even 50 years of the nineteenth century, was in tenancy; it was rented out because it had been inherited by young children. So there’s this prolonged period of neglect that caused this great showplace to turn into a dilapidated farmhouse. 

So by the time the Callahans came around they were on a campaign of repair and addition to the back of the house, but again as we were saying before remarkably did it maintaining the original house. They put in the hyphen with the dining room; they enclosed the modillion block cornice but they retained it; new roof, rebuilt the porch. Things like that but nothing substantial.

The most substantial change the Callahans made was a renovation and addition to the back of the house. Because this addition was occupying the space of an eighteenth century back building, we had to demolish it. The demolition took place three months ago, on February 14th of 2020. 

This addition had to be demolished as part of the preservation process. In 1784, the back of the house had a hyphen connected to a back building. This eighteenth-century back addition was completely demolished and rebuilt at least twice during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. When we got to the house at the turn of the twentieth century only remnants of the eighteenth century structure could be found. 

Marsh Johns concludes by highlighting why this demolition had to be done. Still, she notes, it is hard to let go of layers of history: 

It’s a difficult choice you make when you are trying to determine what you are going to take a house back to because, you know, a house evolves and other material goes on that that is significant. But you know in this case we consider that Colonel Hemsley is the most illustrative of the height of eighteenth-century fashion and power, and that his activity had the most influence and the most decorative features survived from his period and that we wanted to determine the look it would have had when he lived there. 

It is hard to see layers of history go. Marsh Johns reasons: 

So it’s difficult peeling off this one layer because the Callahan dining room was very nice, was very fashionable in its own right, it was very typical woodwork, and this lowly stenciling, and this classic green aesthetic paint that you see from the period. And I guess the carpenter was quite proud of it; he signed his name to it so we know who built it, which is not always the case-- rarely the case in fact.

We are then transported to the site where John Gaver tells us about the removal of the Callahan addition. Gaver, of Lynbrook of Annapolis, is the project superintendent at Cloverfields. He was the one who coordinated the removal of the Callahan addition, Below he explains how the removal exposed a rebuilt hyphen: 

When we first arrived at Cloverfields the building had a nineteenth-century two-story structure connecting the two buildings. Through archaeology and historic research we discovered the hyphen which had been covered by the floor of the nineteenth-century structure. Archaeology and us …I couldn’t understand what John says here.. we found the remains of the original eighteenth-century structure. That’s the period we are going to, so we are rebuilding it to that. 

Gaver then shows us the different layers of the back building. 

So you can see the new construction here to the right of what we call the back building which was the kitchen when we arrived. We tied in the corner that had been removed to make more room for living space in the nineteenth-century structure. 

So with winter coming down, bearing down there’s archaeology to do, lots of masonry work. We discovered that we could build the new structure within the old structure by just removing the floor and doing some bracing. So we gutted it, did all of our construction on the inside, and then removed the remains of the nineteenth-century structure.

By: Devin S. Kimmel, of Kimmel Studio Architects

For: Cloverfields Preservation Foundation

Lots of great things happening out at Cloverfields. This month we would like to focus on the staircase in the main house. It was constructed in 1705, making it one of the oldest staircases still standing in Maryland. Ongoing efforts have been made by the Cloverfields restoration team to simultaneously keep the staircase as close to original condition as possible while restoring/preserving it and strengthening the parts that have fallen into disrepair. The stair has had more than three centuries of continuous use. As one might imagine, there is some real wear and tear, but it’s in surprisingly good shape.

In the video above Historian Willie Graham discusses the importance of the staircase and ways in which the team are preserving and protecting it during restoration:

Alight, So this is a very a early stair, 1705, I can’t think of another stair in a building, in the south, when I say the south, anything south of Delaware, that dates earlier than this and there aren’t many in America that date earlier than this stair case. But the balusters, the handrail, the framing, all of that is original. Early in the project John Gaver, of Lynbrook of Annapolis, wanted to protect the staircase from construction so it’s now enclosed with plywood and padding. One reason for protecting it is that this one of the most important staircases in America. There’s no staircase that I have been able to discover earlier than this, certainly from Delaware on south. There are pieces that you can see that are similar to the work that was done on this staircase up the road at the Quaker Meeting house that dates to 1680’s, it does have turnings in the elders bench that are very similar to the turnings used in the staircase, but the stair over there is a later replacement, and because of that It just makes this an extraordinary artifact to study, and just  an amazing part of this building.

The room that the staircase is in, was an appendage off the back of the house and that’s a very yearly form of building refined staircases. Before 1705 there weren’t many places that had really nice staircases like this with turn balusters and open sides to them, they tended to be enclosed winders, and its only when the second floor of houses become important to the family, that they start building these more refined staircases. Conceivably in this house from beginning, the second floor was not just a place to have secondary bedrooms, but potentially a special room for guests upstairs, and I think that’s why they spent so much money on this staircase. This is a closed stringer staircase which means there is a rake board that runs between the newel post and you don’t see the tread ends when you are standing outside of the stair, because of this board. That board is tenoned and pegged into the newel post, and its tenoned and pegged all the way up. So, when our guys were jacking this thing back up in place, they sort of had to jack everything together because the entire thing is a structure that is connected together. And as the stair was sagging before, it was stressing those tenons joints, but I don’t think any place came to the point where they broke, they were just overly stressed in a lot of places and compressing parts of the joints in some places and opening up some of the others, but pegs were still intact. All of that gave that stair some if its rigidity, whereas I think today what we would do is put saw tooth like stringers in place, we would support each one of the landings, and each run was kind of thought of separately. In this case, its all one big structure.

Willie Grahm continues by talking about how the stair would have functioned and how that fits Maryland history:

Another kind of unusual thing about the staircase is that it runs finished all the way up into the attic, there are servants rooms to begin with upstairs and why would you use a refined staircase to get from the second floor to the attic floor if its not polite space, its not where the family or guests are going to go, so that’s pretty interesting. It’s a tradition that seems to carry on in Maryland and Pennsylvania, throughout the Eighteenth Century, this just being a very early example of it. A little further south into Virginia and North Carolina you would not expect to see a refined staircase going up stairs. In fact one of the biggest and flashiest houses built in Virginia in the Eighteenth Century, a place called Blanfield, built by Robert Beverly, about 1770, he had two pairs of staircases coming up to a second floor passageway, just really grand staircases, and then once you got to that passageway there was simply a ladder stair that ran from there up into the attic. So, this was very much a regional thing to do, to spend the money to run it up into the attic. It just makes this an extraordinary artifact to study and just an amazing part of this building.

Carpenter Matt Culp (of Lynbrook of Annapolis) then discusses how the stair was put together:

Over 315 years’ worth of people walking up and down these stairs, they’ve really dropped a lot, so at this point we’re trying to jack them back to a level platform, each landing being level and plum, newel posts being plum, handrails being plum, and doing so we have to do that in unison because the way they were constructed was so unique in the sense they have all these joints that go into each newel post, for a stringer, for a riser, handrail, and so on. There are multiple connection points in there, and there really done very well. We have had a structural engineer obviously look at all the connection points, the lifting points that we are going to be using, and the system that was drawn up and approved was a quarter inch galvanized cable. So the cable system is going to come through the floor joists that are in this landing, it will have a turn buckle inside, so we are coming back here behind the lath and all the way up through the top newel post which is on the second floor landing. Then it goes through our new steel beam carrier. We should be able to put the tension on that, and that is then going to carry the load from this newel post, which this is just a temporary jacking post, obviously, it’s going to carry the load from here up to the new steel beam and also keep the stair together as it should be. So, the cable system is rated for 6,000 lbs, we should only be putting about 1,000 lbs on it.

By: Devin S. Kimmel, of Kimmel Studio Architects

For: Cloverfields Preservation Foundation

In the video above, architectural historian Willie Graham tells us about a recently reconstructed beehive oven. The oven can be found in the also reconstructed back kitchen.

The Cloverfields house was built c. 1705, and we are restoring it to the year 1784. Rebuilding the back kitchen and its beehive oven was one of the most challenging aspects of the restoration, mainly because at the beginning of the process we had so little information about them.

The back kitchen was added to the house in the early 1780s. A hyphen (small enclosed structure) connected the kitchen to the back of the house. By the 21st century the kitchen and the hyphen had been demolished, so all we knew about it derives from archaeological and documentary research.

We knew of the existence of a back kitchen because a 1784 tax report mentioned it. The tax report was found by historian Sherri Marsh-Johns, who is still conducting research on the history of the house and its inhabitants. The kitchen was added in the 1780s and was demolished in the 19th century.

The archaeologists of Applied Archaeology and History Associates excavated in the area in the back of the house where the kitchen once stood and found the footprint. Then the architects of Kimmel Studio Architects worked with the archaeologists and with architectural historian Willie Graham to produce the floor plans and the other construction documents necessary to recreate the kitchen.

In the video above, Graham tells us how the team put all the information together:

So, we have several pieces of evidence that give us the full arm of the back kitchen. And obviously the big one was the archaeology; we got the footprint from archaeology; we have the footprint of the chimney.

We had a couple other features that showed up with the archaeology and fortunately we also have some documentary research that points to what was taking place back here in the kitchen. So the best thing we have is the 1798 direct tax and it lists all the parts of the building, their sizes; we know how many dormers, you know, the back building had, we know the door.

So, we had these pieces to put together with the archaeology to kind of create a 3D, a real 3D, you know, full-size version of what had been here.

Kimmel Studio Architects also produced the 3D rendering of the historic kitchen that you can see below:

The rest of Graham’s presentation concentrates on the beehive, or oven of the kitchen. During the eighteenth century, ovens like these ones were exceptional; in the 1870s, most ovens were located outside. Graham tells us how he figured out that the firebox was actually a beehive.

So, in terms of the fire box, we know that it was as wide as we reconstructed it. We know the size of the jambs on either side of it. And there was this unusual brick feature that was located on this side [right] of the chimney, that the archaeologist uncovered. It was very fragmentary, but it looked just like the base of what you would expect for an upscaled gentry kitchen to have, that is a base for a beehive oven. Not all kitchens have ovens, that’s clear, but if you’re going to have another masonry piece that goes with a kitchen, outside a firebox, the next most common thing is an oven. And in fact, the location of this brick feature, the way it’s set back from the front of the fireplace, fits nicely within the pattern of where beehive ovens were located in kitchens in the Chesapeake in the 18th century. 

Graham then goes on to explain how the beehive was rebuilt using 18th-century construction methods:

 We tried to replicate exactly how they would have built the beehive oven. This beehive oven is fairly complicated, you have the oven itself which has a dome over it, and that dome was created, the masons built a big pile of sand on the floor of the oven and then they shaped it, and then they laid their bricks for the dome on top of the sand, and then once that set they pulled the sand out of it. So that’s how they actually created the dome.

He then tells us how and why the preservation specialists working at Cloverfields decided to make the fireplace and oven functional:

In the kitchen we’ve decided to make the fireplace and the oven functional. The rest of the house we are not going to burn fire in the fireplaces because we want to make sure we don’t burn the house down, it’s not good for collections, there’s a lot of reasons to not build fires in the place. But here in the kitchen we decided to make this one fireplace, it’s reconstructed, it’s at the end of the house as far away as everything else as possible, away from where antiques might be placed or ones that are or would be negatively impacted by having these fires go on. So, this fireplace and its oven could be used should museum staff decide to do that later on.

Finally, Graham tells us about the wood lintel:

To have a big fireplace like this you got to find a way to span it, but it’s a kitchen so they want to do it in a very cost-effective manner, and using traditional ways to solve those kinds of problems ends up being the cheapest way to do it. And so, they could have built a big brick arch over this thing, put iron lintels in somehow and carried a big brick arch and done it. But, that’s much more complicated, it requires getting these iron lintels in and wood lintels are the very early way of spanning openings anyway. In 16th century English houses, you’re going to find wood lintels, and actually if you go into early Maryland houses, you’ll find wood lintels over fireplaces, just like we have them in the main house here in 1705. Those originally, those fireboxes were spanned with wood lintels, it’s just a simple way of doing it.

The wood lintel is kind of cleverly designed, it looks like it’s a large, you know, 9 by 12 hewn timber that sits across the opening. But in fact, the back side of it is beveled to help, you know, with the smoke, it’s helping to guide the smoke up into the flue. It’s square on the two ends where it rests over the masonry, but it bevels behind that. It also sits on these smaller wooden members that are buried into the brickwork that are called tassels and those tassels gave it something to sit on, it’s another traditional way seating these lintels.

Ongoing Restoration At The Site

The images below illustrate how the restoration process is moving along.

By: Devin S. Kimmel, of Kimmel Studio Architects

For: Cloverfields Preservation Foundation