Court Records Research

In an earlier post, we explained the concept of “provenance,” and how we use it here at Montpelier. Tracking down an object’s provenance often requires documentary research. In this post, we would like to expand on a type of research we touched on in our last post – documentary research with court records, and how it is helping us better understand the Madisons and their lives at Montpelier.

Court records provide us with a unique approach to comprehending the Madison family through legal transactions. We utilize probate records such as wills, inventories and accounts of estate sales for many Madison family members to create a better understanding of what each person inherited, owned, bought and sold. We then build on this knowledge by examining the records of lawsuits for Orange County, Virginia which are housed at several repositories across the state, including the Orange County Courthouse, the Library of Virginia, and the State Record Center.

These records are spread across several courts, for example, courts for different jurisdictions, such as county and district. Making this a bit more difficult are changes to the structure of the court system itself as the 19th century progressed. Since we want to collect all information possible for James and Dolley Madison, his parents, her son John Payne Todd, and other close family members, we are systematically going through the records of each court in chronological order. It is a slow process, but more thorough than relying just on indexes or making random searches on years of suspected activity. While we are specifically interested in mentions of furniture and interior decoration in our current research, we record all cases for future reference. We have uncovered many court cases that have helped shed light on the history of the Madisons, their changing financial status, the individuals with whom they did business, their slaves, and so much more.

One interesting case involved Dolley Madison and a merchant named Thomas Vial. He brought suit against her for nonpayment of accounts, submitting as evidence a list of all the items she had purchased from him in 1842 and 1843. This list provides us with information on what types of beverages and food she purchased. It also raises more questions for us: Did Dolley buy items from Mr. Vial in other years? If so, were her purchases for entertainment or for the everyday management of the household? Do any records of Thomas Vial’s business survive? In this manner, court documents can provide answers as well as questions that will hopefully lead to further discoveries.

The Fourth of July

Although July 4 was not designated as a federal holiday for almost a hundred years after the Declaration of Independence was signed and drafted, it was considered by some a day of celebration from the very first anniversary. The way people chose to celebrate varied from place to place, some holding big parties and others holding prayer meetings.

Two hundred years ago, on July 4, 1809, citizens of the town of Pittsfield, Vermont, chose to celebrate the anniversary of American Independence by writing a letter to their President, James Madison. That letter now belongs to the Library of Congress, and you can see and read it for yourself.

The language of the letter is more formal, and certainly more flowery, than most people today would use, even when writing to the President. The underlying message, on the other hand, still applies today. While these citizens of Pittsfield voted for James Madison, and wanted him to succeed, they closed their letter by celebrating the “Sovreign Lord” of the United States: the People.

Read about us in the Times!

The New York Times, that is. Last Friday’s paper featured a column in the Art and Design section about historic sites interpreting slaves and servants in addition to the homeowners. We are mentioned and there are audio links to an actor speaking the words of Paul Jennings; this is the same audio which you can hear during tours of the house. The first recording, “I was always with Mr. Madison,” can be heard in Mr. Madison’s study (M104), the room in which Madison died.

Jennings was a slave of the Madisons who worked in the White House during Madison’s presidency and later returned to Washington, DC, with Dolley Madison after James’ death. It was in Washington that Jennings earned his freedom. At the end of his life, an interview with him was turned into a short book, A Colored Man’s Reminiscences of James Madison. Our own Beth Taylor is currently conducting extensive research into the life of Paul Jennings; you can buy a copy of A Colored Man’s Reminiscences in our gift shop to help support her research.

Mr. Madison's Study

Shutters

All of the shutters have now been fitted, hung, and stamped with their location information. However, before we can hang them permanently, they need a little more work. We are sending them off to have all newly cut and fitted edges primed and top-coated and for all shutters to receive a copper cap, to get a final coat of paint, and then dry over the next couple of weeks. We will let you know when they come back and are hung again.

In Brief: Court Records

Another area of research we are investigating is court records. These can be helpful in a number of ways: to find lists of Madison property; track family inheritance and land ownership; and trace social and business connections by looking at who was involved in suits with, or against, the Madisons.

We started by looking at the records for the county in which Montpelier is located – Orange County, Virginia. The county courthouse has copies of the original deed and will books, which recorded the wills, inventories, and deeds of sale for the whole county. However, we are also searching through court proceedings to find mentions of the Madisons, some of which were moved to Richmond during the 20th century. There is a lot of material to sift through, complicated by the fact that how courts were organized changed more than once during James Madison’s lifetime. So far we have found some good leads, which are followed up by even more research in the court records!

Recently we were fortunate to have four furniture experts from The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation come on-site to consult with us on furnishings at Montpelier, both from our permanent collection and items on loan. The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation staff who came were Ron Hurst, vice president for collections and museums; Tara Gleason Chicirda, curator of furniture; Christopher Swan, conservator of furniture; and Albert Skutans, conservator of furniture.

Staff from The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation and the Montpelier Foundation discussing and taking notes

Chris Swan examining one end of a daybed.

Their expertise helped to further confirm much of the research that we have already done on several of our pieces, and led us as well to many new avenues of research. They identified the types of woods used in the construction of many objects, and hypothesized about their likely dates and regions of origin. This information has allowed us to do even more pointed research, and has already helped us begin to decide which pieces are most suitable to represent the furnishings at Montpelier during James and Dolley Madisons’ residence.

Albert Skutans examines the construction of a drawer.

Some of the details that Ron, Tara, Chris, and Albert looked for in determining the origin of pieces such as beds and tables included the types of joints holding pieces of wood together, the patterns of detailing such as turnings and inlay, and nearly-microscopic evidence of paint residue or upholstery on stripped pieces.

Many times their expert opinions helped to prove the possibility that James and Dolley could have owned a piece based on the period of construction. However, there were also a few objectswhich were judged to have been of a style or form that did not come into being until after James died and Dolley left Montpelier, therefore making them inappropriate for display at Montpelier.

Albert Skutans and Tara Gleason Chicirda examine drawers of a desk-bookcase

Chris and Albert, whose specialty is furniture conservation, spoke with us about the condition of many of the pieces, and advised us on what kinds of treatment to consider for objects which need to be stabilized and conserved before they can be safely put on display.

Ron Hurst explains to Cheryl Brush that the depth of the case, plus the short shelves, means this might be a china press.

The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation staff wore these headset magnifying glasses

Rediscovering the Furnishings of James and Dolley Madison

Today, on Dolley Madison’s 241st birthday, The Montpelier Foundation announced the launch of the second phase of the restoration of James Madison’s home—A PRESIDENTIAL DETECTIVE STORY: Rediscovering the Furnishings of James and Dolley Madison.

Montpelier marked the completion of a five-year, $25 million architectural restoration of Madison’s home on Constitution Day, September 17, 2008, at the National Restoration Celebration. Because Dolley Madison sold Montpelier eight years after James’ death, much of the furniture and household objects were sold at auction, given away, or passed on to extended family members. Now, the Foundation is embarking on the next chapter in this detective story—discovering and returning the interior decor and furnishings of the home during James Madison’s retirement years.

To accomplish this ambitious goal, Montpelier’s curatorial department is conducting a major research project to locate, understand, and provide context for Madison furniture and decorative arts. Montpelier is gathering a top-notch team of researchers and curators to embark on this new Presidential Detective Story. The nation’s preeminent experts on everything from wallpaper and draperies to sofas and sideboards are being consulted to ensure that furnishing the home achieves the high level of authenticity for which Montpelier has become known. Curators will continue to add more objects to the mansion over the coming months and years.

“The Montpelier Foundation is very pleased to begin the work of restoring the interior decor of the home of James and Dolley Madison,” said Montpelier President Michael C. Quinn. “This initiative will embody the same excellence in scholarship, authenticity, and quality that we brought to the architectural restoration, and will return the style of the Madisons at home.”

“We are today beginning a journey that is nothing less than recovering the presence of James and Dolley Madison. Their furnishings have been spread far and wide over the last 150 years, but the painstaking process of re-assembling them at Montpelier will give all Americans an opportunity to engage the mind, the character, the personality—the humanity of the Father of the Constitution and the nation’s defining First Lady,” said Quinn.

Lynne Dakin Hastings, Montpelier’s vice president for museum programs, estimates that the research and furnishings of this multi-year research and acquisition undertaking may cost an estimated $10 million.

“I believe that it is impossible to understand the essence of James and Dolley Madison without an holistic understanding of the environment in which they lived. The colors and forms that they chose, the objects with which they surrounded themselves, speak volumes about who these people were within the larger world. Recreating portions of the Madisons’ interiors at Montpelier will help produce realistic images of their domestic felicity and hospitality, as well as the setting and opportunities that fostered one of the greatest Founding Fathers. Images of home, however humble, engage us all, and present symbols with which we may identify and empathize.”

Montpelier President Michael C. Quinn previewed the announcement to around 300 attendees at yesterday’s fourth annual Dolley Madison Legacy Luncheon at Montpelier. The Luncheon attendees have been the leaders in the refurnishing effort. Beginning with the inaugural event in 2006, they have raised significant funds to furnish the mansion while honoring Dolley Madison and her influential role in shaping the political conventions of a fledgling democracy, and her many contributions as a preeminent hostess in both the nation’s capital and at Montpelier. Additional lead donors are: The Estate of Paul Mellon, Nancy Woodson Spire Foundation, The Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation, Institute of Museum and Library Services, and an anonymous donor.

With funds from these lead donors the Presidential Detective Story has begun, and some objects have already been discovered! To date the Foundation is exhibiting the following objects:

Pan, Youths and Nymphs, by Gerrit van Honthorst, circa 1630s.
This massive oil on canvas graced the Madison’s Drawing Room, which has been described by visitors as museum-like and served as the main room in which visitors were initially greeted and entertained.

Mrs. Madisons Memorandum for Mr. Zantzinger.
This is a “shopping list” prepared by a purchasing agent, itemizing household objects Dolley Madison wanted Mr. Zantzinger to procure, including “two [large] Looking-Glasses,” “100 yds best carpeting,” and “one dozen fanciful but cheap snuff boxes.” Dolley, like many women at this time, enjoyed taking snuff.

A silver cake basket, circa 1803.
According to family tradition, this silver basket was used by James and Dolley and descended through the Macon family. In 1809, society reporter Margaret Bayard Smith wrote, “The long dining table was spread, and besides tea and coffee, we had a variety of warm cakes, bread, cold meats and pastry.”

A silver vinaigrette, 1806 owned by Dolley Madison.
A vinaigrette is a small container with a perforated metal top that holds lavender or fragrant oils to mask unpleasant odors or smelling salts for fainting spells. Women would carry a vinaigrette in a pocket, handbag, or attached to a chatelaine (chain holding household keys).

A William Worthington sofa, circa 1805–10.
This is a period piece, representative of a sofa bought by James and Dolley for use in the White House and at Montpelier.

Constitutional Exhibit

Now open in the south wing room of the house (M118), which is accessible from the back yard, is our exhibit “James Madison: Architect of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights”.

Those of you who visited Montpelier prior to April, 2009, may have seen the exhibit in our Education Center. The exhibit is self-guided, with commentary available on the audio tour. The exhibit describes James Madison’s role in the development, writing, and implementation of two of America’s most important documents – the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. In addition to text, the exhibit uses images and excerpts from historical documents.

The room is arranged so that you can view the exhibit at your leisure and utilize the chairs.  We hope our visitors will discuss the exhibit, the Constitution, or James Madison with each other.  In the future we would like to have staff lead discussions with our visitors that would include topics relevant to how the Constitution affects us today.

Shutters

The shutters continue to be hung. This week they are installing more shutters on the front of the house

Gene Lyman stamps the top of a shutter.

Since the shutters and their fittings are handmade, each shutter only fits in one window of the house. Thus, both window and shutter are assigned an identifier code.  Stamping the shutters allows them to be removed to be repainted or fixed and then be returned to their correct location.

What better time than Mother’s Day to consider how the design and furnishings of Montpelier reflected the presence of the matriarch of the Madison family – James Madison’s mother Nelly Conway Madison – and how one family accommodated two generations under the same roof. Montpelier was built by James Madison senior in the 1760s to house his immediate family. In 1797 when James, Jr. took a temporary hiatus from politics and moved home with his bride Dolley, father and son added a two-over-two room duplex with a side passage to house the younger couple. When, following his father’s death, James junior enlarged and remodeled the building once again, he did the opposite carving out a suite of rooms on the first floor for his widowed mother.

Nelly Conway Madison was a remarkable woman. She oversaw the domestic management of her husband’s plantation, gave birth to twelve children, helped to educate them, and lived to age 98. In recognition of the important role she played in the Montpelier community and to illustrate the inclusion of two households under one roof, Mrs. Madison’s Best Room (M112) is one of four rooms which have been singled out for refurnishing.

Mrs. Madison’s “apartments” encompassed two rooms from the 1763 house and two rooms and storage areas in the adjacent wing James junior added between 1809 and 1812. Visitor James Paulding remembered that this wing was “appropriated to the mother of Mr. Madison then upwards of ninety years of age. The Old Lady seldom joined the family circle but took her meals by herself, and was visited everyday by Mr. & Mrs. Madison…”^[1]

Our challenge will be to show how different Nelly Madison’s apartments were from the rooms occupied by her son and daughter-in-law. Even when empty, her Best Room shows a fondness for the past retaining features from the 1760s era house including a high wainscot which lines the walls and the British-made sandstone fireplace surround with its weighty egg and dart carving.

Our next hurdle will be recreating the décor and furniture remarked on by quite a few Madison guests. Margaret Bayard Smith paints a picture of James’ mother, the room in which she entertained, and the sense that visitors had when entering her rooms that they were, in effect, entering the previous century:

Under the same roof, divided only by a partition wall, was thus exhibited the customs of the beginning and end of a century; thus offering a strange but most interesting exhibition of the differences between the olden and the present age. By only opening a door, the observer passed from the elegancies, refinements, and gayeties of modern life, into all that was venerable, respectable, and dignified in gone-by days. From the airy apartment – windows opening to the ground, hung with light silken drapery, french furniture, light fancy chairs, gay carpets &c., &c., — to the solid and heavy carved and polished mahogany furniture darkened by age, the thick rich curtains, the other more comfortable adjustments of our great-grandfather’s times. It was considered a great favor and distinction by the gay visitors who thronged Mr. Madison’s hospitable mansion, to be admitted to pay the homage of their respects to his reverend mother. The last time the writer of this article enjoyed that privilege, she was then in ninety-seventh year. She still retained all her faculties, though not free from the bodily infirmities of age. She was sitting, or rather reclining on a couch, beside her was a small table filled with large, dark, and worn quartos and folios, of most venerable appearance. She closed one as we entered, and took up her knitting which lay beside her. Among other inquiries, I asked her how she passed her time. ‘I am never at a loss,’she replied; ‘this and these,” touching her knitting and her books, ‘keeps me always busy.’^[2]

Smith’s account is full of information, but where to start?

We have decided to begin implementation of the “soft furnishings” – curtains and carpets – in the four target rooms for initial consideration. Why those? There are many Madison documents and purported Madison objects still to research, and we do not want to get ahead of ourselves in making decisions on the furnishings for recreated rooms. However, we already have in hand clues to a number of the soft furnishings – some in the accounts of visitors, some in other period documents, and some in the physical structure of the house itself. For now, let’s just look at curtains in Nelly Madison’s Best Room.

Initially, we look at clues and inevitably, more questions arise, and we tackle those, too. The research on curtains is a work in progress, and this is the first installment of documenting our efforts.

First, we turn to primary documents. We are fortunate to have three legal documents which provide insight to the senior Madisons’ belongings:

1. An 1829 inventory, a rather straightforward listing of the items she owned.
2. An 1829 account of sales, meaning that some of her possessions were sold at a public auction where each object, the price it sold for, and its purchaser were recorded.
3. The estate inventory of her husband James senior taken in 1801, presents a picture of the furnishings that filled the rooms when he died.

At that time, the couple occupied both floors of the original house. Unfortunately, neither of the inventories were taken room-by-room.

Inventory of James Madison, Sr. The James Madison Papers at the Library of Congress

James senior’s inventory mentions pairs of curtains made of “Calico” and “Stuff.” The term “stuff” was usually synonymous with wool.

This raises many questions for us:

• Does this correspond to the “thick rich curtains” which Smith mentions? Neither Nelly’s inventory nor the account of sales list curtains at all.
• Does this mean there were no curtains at the windows when Nelly died? Unlikely, since Smith’s account suggests she saw curtains at least in the room in which Nelly received visitors.
• Were any curtains attached to the windows considered part of James junior’s possessions as legal owner of the house in 1829?
• Were the curtains in such poor condition from so many years of wear and not worth listing or selling?
• Were the thick rich curtains even the curtains mentioned in James senior’s turn-of-the-century inventory?
• When James junior remodeled the house in 1809-1812, virtually all of the windows were replaced, so that they would match throughout the house. How much did the size of the windows change?
• Could Nelly have re-used the curtains from the original house or were new ones made?

Stay tuned for more information on what we are learning regarding curtains in this and other rooms in the mansion. Is there physical evidence of early curtains on the window frames? If so, what do furnishing textile experts make of this? And could scraps of fabrics harvested by rats and mice for their nests offer any clues?

1 James K. Paulding, “An Unpublished Sketch if James Madison,” Ralph Ketcham, (ed.), Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, vol. 67:4, October, 1959, 432 -437.
2  Margaret Bayard Smith, “Mrs. Madison” in National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Americans (New York, NY 1836), 1-10.

The restoration crew has started to hang shutters on the exterior of the house.

Rear of the house, from the Architectural Record, Vol VI (July 1896-June 1897).

The shutters are modern reproductions based on Madison-era shutters found in a barn here on the property. There were 31 shutters found in the barn, 12 for the second floor and 19 for the first. They retained their original paint coating, a green made from verdigris pigment, which is made from weathered copper. We’ve painted the reproduction shutters the same green, basing the coloring on research by Dr. Susan Buck (see this post for a picture of the process)

Most of the surviving shutters have standard, fixed-position slats, but two of them had moveable slats. These moveable shutters date to 1810-1812, and would have been mounted on the tall, triple-sash windows of the Drawing Room (M108).

These triple-sash windows open from the bottom in such a way that the windows could function as doors onto the back porch of the house. We think that the special shutters for these windows are the ones mentioned in a bill from James Dinsmore, Madison’s carpenter:

3 pair moveable venetian blinds @ 60 [shillings]

The “moveable venetian blinds” have slats which are mounted to two pieces of wood which have wavy edges. One piece of the wood, the one which would have been closest to the wall, is fixed, and the wavy edges allow the other piece to slide up and down. The slats themselves are attached with pegs, which allows them to shift as the moveable piece slides. The pictures below show new shutters waiting to be hung and the venetian blinds hung on the Drawing Room windows.

We will post an update with photographs once all the shutters are hung, for those of you unable to come and see them for yourselves.

After our last update, we were asked: what is “curatorial research” and how do Montpelier’s researchers go about figuring out whether an object belonged to the Madisons or not. Curatorial research can be very involved, but let’s start with “provenance” and continue from there over the next few posts.

So what exactly is provenance? You may have heard the term if you have visited a museum, watched “Antiques Roadshow” or “History Detectives”, or collect antiques. A good definition for “provenance” is, “a history of who owned an object”. As you can imagine, at Montpelier, we are very interested in objects that were previously owned by James and Dolley Madison; one way to describe these pieces is to say that they had “Madison provenance”.

Figuring out an object’s history often starts with finding out how the current owner acquired it. From there, many times we can work backwards from one owner to the next – and, if we are lucky, we may be able to trace the piece all the way back to James and Dolley Madison. For some objects, we are able to easily determine provenance because others have already documented it or a clear chain of ownership exists. For other pieces there are gaps in the chain of ownership. Our goal then becomes filling in the gaps.

So where do we find provenance information? There are several types of sources we can examine. In many cases, a mention of the object can be found in a previous owner’s will, which may also state who is to inherit it. If it is not mentioned in the will, an inventory of the deceased’s estate may have been taken, and the object may appear in that document. If there was a sale of the contents of the estate, we may be able to determine who purchased the object.

In other cases, there is a strong family tradition that an object belonged to the Madisons. Quite a number of pieces on our radar screen are said to have been acquired at sales that took place at Montpelier or at the sale of Dolley Madison’s estate in Washington D.C. following her death. The object may then pass down from one generation to the next in the family of the new owner. While often there is no direct documentation for this tradition, confirming names and life dates for family members believed to have acquired the object can sometimes prove or disprove a provenance. Auction records, old newspaper accounts, family letters, bills of sale and similar records are also extremely helpful in providing provenance information.

As an example, we have listed the full provenance for a well-known Madison object: the portrait of James Madison by Gilbert Stuart. First, the provenance as narrative: Stuart painted four portraits of Madison but only one was done from life. This was painted in 1804, along with a companion portrait of Dolley. It is now in the collection of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, but during Madison’s lifetime it hung in the Drawing Room at Montpelier (M108). When Dolley moved to Washington, she took the portrait with her, and it appears in several inventories which were taken of her Washington house. Following her death, a newspaper account of the sale of her estate notes that the portrait was purchased by Edward Coles, Madison’s former private secretary, a distant cousin of Dolley Madison, and Governor of Illinois from 1822-1826.^[1] The portrait descended to Coles’ son, Edward Coles, Jr., then remained in the family until Coles’ granddaughter donated it to the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in 1945.

Reproduction portrait as seen in the Drawing Room, property of the Montpelier Foundation. The original, James Madison by Gilbert Stuart, property of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

Written as formal provenance, which you might see in a museum catalog entry, it would look like this:
Portrait of James Madison by Gilbert Stuart: Commissioned by James and Dolley Madison in 1804; Purchased by Edward Coles (1786-1868) at the 1852 sale of the Estate of Dolley Madison in Washington, DC; Descended to Coles’ son, Edward Coles, Jr. (1837-1906); Descended to his daughter, Virginia C. Coles (Mrs. George S.) Robbins; Donated to the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in 1945.

More soon on the work of curatorial research!

1“Sale of Mrs. Madison’s Pictures,” New York Semi-Weekly Express (New York, NY), 3/7/1851, pg. 1

I want to share with you some of our plans for upcoming exhibits within the newly restored Madison mansion. Over the spring and summer we plan to move furniture and exhibit components into the mansion along with text panels which will help explain our process.

Our first major focus will be the Dining Room (M105). As of this week, we have removed the exhibit case that featured archaeology fragments of ceramics and glassware and installed two pieces of furniture. There is a dining table (a period piece with no Madison provenance) and a sideboard with purported Madison provenance, both on furniture lifts. It was a challenge to fit the furniture and lifts in the room and still leave room for a group of 20 people, but we managed to come up with arrangement that should work.

Even though this particular set of tables does not have a Madison family provenance, the form matches the “3 folding leaf Mahogany tables” that were listed in the 1836 Inventory of the Dining Room.^[1] The end sections are obviously from the same table, with the center section having been substituted at a later time. All three tables are period and similar to what the Madisons might have owned.

“in the center of the room a square mahogany table…”  -George Shattuck, Jr., 1835

“a large long and wide well polished mahogany table…” -Mary Cutts, Recollections, ca. 1850

According to the 1836 Inventory of the Madison Dining Room “2 Mahogany sideboards” (1 “old” / 1 “new”) were listed. Curatorial staff are currently conducting research on multiple sideboards with purported Madison provenance.

This particular sideboard was donated to The National Trust for Historic Preservation (Montpelier) in 1986 with a strong family history of purchase at an early Montpelier sale. At this time we do not have any record or advertisements of sales taking place at Montpelier during Madison ownership of the property, or in the post-Madison period until 1881.

A large sale took place at Montpelier in April, 1881, in which the “valuable personal property” of the recently deceased Frank Carson, occupant and brother of Montpelier’s owner, was auctioned off. A broadside advertising the sale included “a large quantity of HOUSEHOLD AND KITCHEN FURNITURE/ some very superior, Mirrors, Paintings,…a handsome portrait of President Madison, and other relicts of President Madison, one grand piano…”^[2] While the broadside is unclear as to which, if any, furniture was owned by James Madison, it seems likely that the association of the sideboard with Montpelier could have easily been linked to the Madisons.

The Madisons had two sideboards in their Dining Room; the date of this sideboard places it potentially in the category of “new” sideboard. We will place photographs of the other sideboards that we are researching in the room and ask the question “which one of these do you believe may be the Madisons’ ‘old’ sideboard?”

“…on one side of the door was an old sideboard.” -George C. Shattuck, Jr. 1835

-Montpelier Curatorial Staff

1 “List of articles in Dining Room at Montpellier” and “Engravings in dining room,” July 1, 1836, box 1, folder 1831–1839, Papers of Dolley Madison, MS 18940, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
2 Madison, James. Letters and Documents at the Library of Virginia. Miscellaneous reel 4276. “Broadside announcing an auction at Montpelier in Orange County, Virginia on April 13, 1881.”

In the early years of the new United States, Presidents and Ex-Presidents had pride of place among the celebrities that attracted public interest. The fascination with James Madison stemmed from the notable role he played in the creation of the Constitution, and his outliving all his compatriots to become the “last of the Founders.” Foreigners and American citizens alike were anxious to meet the man who served as President and beat a path to his door, and retirement did little to diminish this appeal.

Today, Montpelier is the benefactor of James and Dolley Madison’s celebrity and the open door policy that reigned in Virginia. Many who came to see the Madisons in retirement recorded their impressions of the famous pair, their hospitality, and the house and its contents in letters to friends and family or in articles in newspapers and magazines. Montpelier staff has determinedly been collecting these accounts for many years because, when considered as a whole, they offer some of the best insights into life in the Madison household after their retirement from public life.

 When visitors stepped through the front door they were ushered into the Drawing Room (108). Virtually every visitor entered this space in the center of the house, and it is the room which the site has selected to recreate first. George Shattuck was one of a number of guests who remarked on the view seen upon entering “. . . there are three windows to the east, reaching down to the floor and opening upon a piazza and upon a lawn.”  These tall sash windows opened upwards to form doors to the outside where young Anne Mercer Slaughter tells us “. . . jessamine and roses , . . twined around the pillars of the rear porch, and gave an air of indescribable charm to the whole scene . . .”

In 1827 the Drawing Room inspired lawyer Henry Gilpin to write:

much of the furniture of the room had the appearance of Presidential splendour, such as sofas covered with crimson damask on each side, three or four large looking glasses &c – & every thing displayed in its arrangement great order neatness & taste – for which I fancy Mrs. Madison is remarkable.

The feature of the room which garnered comments from most visitors was the many works of art – paintings and sculptures. Margaret Bayard Smith wrote in 1828 that:

The drawing-room walls are covered with pictures, some very fine, from the ancient masters, but most of them portraits of our most distinguished men, six or eight by Stewart. The mantelpiece, tables in each corner and in fact wherever one could be fixed, were filled with busts, and groups of figures in plaster, so that this apartment had more the appearance of a museum of the arts than of a drawing room. It was a charming room, giving activity to the mind, by the historic and classic ideas that it awakened.

Previous posts on this blog have offered a brief glimpse at the first element of the furnishings to be recreated – the 16 oil paintings that hung on the walls of the drawing room.^[1] This project, completed in 2008 and made possible by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, owed much to visitor accounts, which aided scholars in determining where each of the works hung. But the recreation of the paintings is just the beginning of efforts to recreate the room in its entirety. Visitor accounts will supply many clues as the site tackles research on the sculpture, furniture, carpets, curtains, “electrical machine,” and pianoforte that filled the room.

One example of what is to come . . .

Nail holes in the original plaster walls provide evidence that large objects hung on either side of the entrance door.^[2] These could have been taken as evidence of additional paintings, except for the information found in several visitor accounts. Benjamin Latrobe’s son John noted that walls were “. . . covered with paintings, save where two immense mirrors on the side at which you enter conceal large portions.”

Montpelier will use the nail hole information to compare against mirrors purported to have been owned by James Madison in search of a match. Failing that, the site can look for period mirrors with the same dimensions or commission reproduction frames that match the nail hole evidence. And, as researchers delve into a wealth of documentary sources, there is the possibility an order or letter may surface to provide more details about the mirrors.

- Montpelier Curatorial Staff

All images in this post copyright Montpelier Foundation.

1 See Peaceful Succession of Presidential Power Parts One and Two
2 For more on the nail hole research, see our post from February 11, 2009.