James Madison’s Montpelier

Not Just Paper and Glue

When was the last time you tackled a home improvement project? Painting seems quick and easy. Why, you could paint every room in the house on Saturday morning and have time for flag football and grilling in the afternoon.

Then you actually dig into the project. Moving furniture, taping doorframes, laying drop cloths, and dusting. The project could be hours old before the brush even touches the wall. A whole house in one morning, flag football and grilling in the afternoon? You’ll be lucky to finish three rooms in time for Sunday’s 4:00 p.m. NFL kickoff and takeout.

The lesson: home improvement takes time. The Dining Room wallpaper installer, Patrick Shields, arrived at Montpelier last week. We expect the whole process to take approximately ten days. Patrick will hang the wallpaper almost the same way an installer would have during the Madisons’ time.

Anyone who has worked on their own walls knows it’s much easier to paint than wallpaper. But as complicated as wallpapering is now, it took even more time and skill two centuries ago. Continue Reading…

It’s FINALLY Here!

Have you ever had to wait for a package? The excitement starts when you order the latest and greatest widget– the iPhone 4 for example. You rush home from school or work each day just hoping it’s on your doorstep. Finally, there is a brown box on the doorstep waiting just for you. You scoop the precious cargo off the steps and muscle your way through the front door, leaving a disaster in your wake. Keys, unopened mail, the newspaper, your coat, and briefcase or purse are scattered in a haphazard trail from the door to the living room while you scrounge for scissors to liberate your treasure from its cardboard dungeon. Retail therapy, indeed.

That urgent sense of waiting for an important package has captivated the Montpelier staff recently. By now, you have probably read all about our curatorial team’s efforts to carefully choose the most appropriate wallpaper for the Madisons’ Dining Room. Curators spent months consulting leading historic wallpaper experts and examining period samples that were known to exist during the time the Madisons would have originally purchased their wallpaper.

Courtesy Adelphi Paper Hangings, LLC

Once the curatorial team settled on a pattern, they placed the order with Adelphi Paper Hangings, which specializes in historic reproduction wallpaper. Fulfillment of the order was anything but simple. The technicians at Adelphi used carved wooden blocks to hand-stamp the paper layer by layer, to create the finished product you can see in our previous posts. Continue Reading…

What’s on the Wall III

You have read our initial wallpaper post, the comments on Facebook, and our answers to your questions. Now the moment of truth: what paper did our team of researchers and experts choose for the Dining Room?

Before we tell you, we want to provide some context for the choice. Remember that, as we mentioned in the last post on this topic, tastes in interior décor were different in the early 19th century. Period aesthetics showed a preference for strong colors, often combined in way foreign to twenty-first-century eyes. Patterns were popular, and there was little hesitation in using a different design for the carpet, wallpaper, curtains, and upholstery in the same room.

We know that when President Madison died in 1836 there were 36 engravings on the Dining Room walls. Today we would be loathe to hang so many prints on a highly patterned wallpaper. Not so in the early nineteenth century. Our team of experts believe that showing that aesthetic is important in creating the visual feel of this period room. They chose the circa 1815 paper with the green and buff pattern imitating draped fabric and originally made by the Philadelphia firm of Virchaux.

Another factor in the paper’s selection was its French-inspired design. The many ads for “Paper Hangings” in the National Intelligencer reveal that the local market followed the period predilection for fashionable French wallpaper patterns. Drapery papers frequently appear in the ads. Among the most popular papers available in the Washington region were those imported from France or produced by Philadelphia paper makers adapting French designs. A number of these paper makers were French émigrés like Henri Virchaux. Continue Reading…

What’s that on the wall? II

The response to our last post on the wallpaper was tremendous– particularly from our Facebook fans! We are thrilled that you are all so interested and involved in the “Presidential Detective Story!” Readers asked a lot of good questions, and we hope to address them with this post.

Many people said they like the yellow wallpaper displayed in the Madisons’ Dining Room. This paper is French or American, circa 1800-1810. Of the three papers on the wall, it seems to be the most modern. Some of you commented that the yellow paper would match Dolley’s china. Although the reproductions of James and Dolley’s Nast china are yellow tinted, the original pieces are more of a salmon color, as you can see in the photograph of the Nast tureen which Montpelier owns.

Peter Meyerhof asked, “Since a speck of original scarlet wallpaper was found in the drawing room, why isn’t there a sample with a red background being considered here?” This is a great question. We know the Madisons liked red and used it in several rooms in their house, however, it is unlikely they used it in every room.  During the Madisons’ time in the President’s  House they used several different color schemes throughout the house.  We also have other fragments of Madison-era wallpapers that were found in a rats’ nest at Montpelier. Both fragments are multicolored, but not large enough to see a pattern. These are small clues, but they lead us to believe the Montpelier interiors were decorated in a variety of colors.  If we chose red for both the Drawing and Dining Rooms – the two major public rooms in the house–we could overuse that color. Continue Reading…

Mirror, Mirror on Which Wall?

We know the Madisons had mirrors in the Drawing Room. We just aren’t sure how many  hung there. A few days ago Montpelier rounded up a team of experts to tackle this latest mystery in the Presidential Detective Story: Mark R. Wenger, architect and architectural historian, Gardiner Hallock, independent researcher and former Director of Architectural Research at Montpelier, and Lance Humphries, an independent researcher and expert on early 19th century American art collections.

The mirror trail begins with Montpelier visitor accounts. We know at least two mirrors hung in the Drawing Room. Our first witness, John H. B. Latrobe, described the room to a friend in an 1832 letter, saying “Its walls are covered with paintings, save where two immense mirrors, on the side at which you enter, conceal large portions.” ¹ Latrobe’s description referred to the wall opposite of the triple hung windows. Continue Reading…

What’s that on the wall?

If you come to Montpelier today and take a house tour, you might be surprised when you enter the Dining Room. Strips of reproduction woodblock wallpaper hang on the Dining Room walls. Each has a very busy pattern. Some of the patterns are accompanied by the border papers frequently seen in early-19th-century wallpapers. So what’s going on?

We couldn’t find any evidence of paint or white wash on the walls. This means the Dining Room, like the Drawing Room, was probably papered. Visitor accounts tell us Dolley Madison served a variety of sumptuous meals there. They also say the Dining and Drawing Room walls boasted a variety of art. Incredibly, none of these accounts tells us anything about the walls under the art!
Continue Reading…

Coming Down the Line

On the winding roads of Route 20 in Orange County, Virginia stands a century-old train depot, home to the local Montpelier Station, Virginia post office. On February 21, 2010, it became the home of James Madison’s Montpelier’s newest exhibit— The Montpelier Train Depot: In the Time of Segregation.

More than 200 people attended the February 21 opening. Emmy-award-winning journalist Juan Williams addressed the crowd. “This is a place of power…this is a place of life.…This is a place of teaching. This is a place of healing. This is a place of understanding. This is a place that can help us in terms of imagination…help understand what took place here… in terms of how we see each other across racial lines,” said Williams.

Workers laid the first tracks for the railroad line that runs past the Depot circa 1880. This was a time when trains were the fastest way to get anywhere, for both freight and passengers. In 1910, William duPont, owner of Montpelier, built the Depot to upgrade passenger and freight service. The Depot was constructed using plans from Southern Railway, with two waiting rooms – one for “white” passengers and one for “colored” passengers. Segregation was required by Virginia law. Continue Reading…

The Montpelier Train Depot—In the Time of Segregation

The past two weeks at Montpelier have been very busy. We are putting the final touches on our newest exhibit, The Montpelier Train Depot: In the Time of Segregation. Emmy-award winning journalist and NPR and Fox News analyst Juan Williams will join us to open the new exhibit at 2 p.m. on Sunday, February 21. A Reception and lectures by Peter Wallenstein, Professor of History, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University; and C. Thomas Chapman, James Madison’s Montpelier Research Coordinator will follow.

The Montpelier Train Depot: In the Time of Segregation will use the authentically restored 1910-era building to teach the public about the “Jim Crow” period of segregation in the space where it was practiced. The old segregated “colored” and “white” waiting rooms will show the reality of racism that African-American travelers confronted during this period, and let visitors examine first-hand the fallacy of the notion of “separate but equal.”

The Montpelier Train Depot will be dedicated in memory of Russell Coffin Childs, former Montpelier special projects director. It was Mr. Childs’ vision to restore the Montpelier Train Depot. Thanks to his dedication, the Montpelier Train Depot will forever be a place to educate future generations about the reality of segregation, its consequences for society, and the strength of our constitutional form of government which accommodates peaceful change.

Admission to the opening is free. Admission to the lectures and reception is $30 per person for members of the general public; $10 for Friends of Montpelier and members of the Orange County African American Historical Society. Please call (540) 672-2728 x200 or e-mail ssimpson@montpelier.org for reservations.

Stay tuned for our next post in which we will take a brief look at the history of the Montpelier Train Depot.

A Tale of Two Tales

In addition to reading the the Madisons’ personal correspondence, Montpelier’s documentary researchers read memoirs and reminiscences written by contemporaries and Madison family members. There are two particularly interesting sources which survive for the life of Dolley Madison, written by members of her family. Dolley’s niece, Mary Estelle Elizabeth Cutts, wrote a set of memoirs of the life of her famous aunt, to whom she had been very close, titled Memoir I and Memoir II. In turn, Mary’s niece Lucia adapted those memoirs into a compact and readable book titled Memoirs and Letters of Dolley Madison.

Lucia presented a romantic ideal of Dolley Madison by changing names, dates and the text of actual letters. Although Mary’s admiration of Dolley is apparent from her Memoirs, Lucia changed actual scenes of Dolley’s life and those changes are reflected in her editing of Mary’s Memoirs and her own published work. Together, these works and their creators make an interesting puzzle for documentary researchers at Montpelier. Continue Reading…

Is That a Barrel or a Kilderkin?

It might surprise you to know that shopping in bulk is not a new concept. Many of us probably remember our parents or grandparents talking about a time when they went to the market each day before dinner. People like the Madisons, who didn’t live near the market often ordered and stored large quantities of ingredients at their homes.

Montpelier recently acquired a variety of barrels that represent an assortment of what the Madisons might have kept on-hand. Like many of the objects in the mansion, there’s much more to the barrels than meets the eye.

Coopers at Colonial Williamsburg and Strawbery Banke custom made a total of eight barrels for Montpelier. Student Education Director Christian Cotz hit the road to pick up the custom orders in early December. Visitors can now see the barrels in the mansion cellars.

Barrels or casks are generic terms that describe ingredient containers during the Madisons’ time. They could have other names, however, depending on the ingredient and amount a given container held. Using these terms, here is what you can expect to see when you visit the cellars:

• 1 molasses hogshead

• 1 salt hogshead

• 2 flour barrels

• 2 port pipes

• 1 kilderkin (often used for beer)

• 1 wine barrel