Miss Wiggin’s Attic

This Litchfield Historical Society is pleased to announce the acquisition of the original sketch of the South East View from Chestnut Hill by John Warner Barber.

The drawing was discovered in an antique shop in Stonington, CT by a friend of the museum.  The staff quickly jumped into action and contacted the antique shop owner.  He was thrilled the museum was interested and the transaction was quickly finalized.

John Warner Barber (1798-1885) was born in East Windsor, CT.  He learned the art of printmaking and opened his own business in New Haven, CT.  He is most noted for his engravings of Connecticut towns.  These were compiled into a book by Barber in 1837  called Connecticut Historical Collections. The book sold 7,000 copies in its first year even though it cost three dollars, then an average weeks pay.

Barber started with rough pencil sketches and developed them into more detailed wash drawings. He then transferred the drawings directly to small blocks of boxwood on which he engraved the designs.

Above is the published engraving of his original pencil drawing.   It is often thought Barber inserted himself into his prints.  The gentleman in the foreground of the completed print is thought to be Barber.

The Litchfield Historical Society is thrilled to add this rare piece of material culture to the museum’s permanent collection.

James P. Woodruff to Lillian C. Bell

Telegrams may be a thing of the past, but they appear in our present with some regularity.  While accessioning[i] a new donation I came across this gem.

If you are having trouble with the script, it is from James Parsons Woodruff to Lillian Churchill Bell dated one day prior to their wedding date.  It says:

“Have started wait for me don’t take the best man.”  For more about J.P. Woodruff, see this entry in Taylor’s Legislative History and Souvenir of Connecticut 190-.

[i] Accessioning is the process by which a donation is formally added to the collection.

James MacFarland emigrated from Scotland to Lunenburg County, Virginia where he had a son, William.  William Hamilton MacFarland was born in February 1799 in Lunenburg County.  He was educated at Hampden-Sydney College in 1815, William and Mary in 1816, and at the Litchfield Law School in 1818.  William distinguished himself as the president of the Farmer’s Bank of Virginia (1845-1865), as the secretary for The American Colonization Society, and as a member of the Provisional Congress of the Confederacy, and he even was a counsel for Jefferson Davis during his treason trial.  People either loved or hated MacFarland.  Judge George L. Christian described MacFarland as: “the curly-headed poodle from Richmond, nearly overcome with dignity and fat.”[1] In contrast the senior warden of his parish described him as “of pure and lofty character.”[2] However, before the civil war broke out and before the Farmer’s Bank of Virginia was burned down, he owned James Madison’s Montpelier.

MacFarland owned Montpelier only in 1854-5 but this time is noteworthy.  Charles Thomas Chapman, research coordinator at Montpelier, brought MacFarland’s year to light as part of his master’s thesis, Who was Buried in James Madison’s Grave?: A Study in Contextual Analysis.  Chapman illuminates a motive of MacFarland to own Montpelier; he wanted to own Madison’s remains.  MacFarland was a fan of Madison (he gave Madison’s eulogy in 1836), but professional ties were perhaps a great influence on the decision too.  MacFarland was a trustee and a member of the board of directors of Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, VA.  Hollywood Cemetery wanted to acquire the remains of the three Virginian presidents (Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe).  The cemetery was able to acquire Monroe’s remains but Jefferson and Madison were still missing from their collection.  Because of the nature of the deed, MacFarland believed that by owning Montpelier he also owned the Madison family cemetery and Madison’s remains and could give the remains to Hollywood Cemetery.  So, on January 4^th, 1854 MacFarland purchased Montpelier from Benjamin Thornton.  Hollywood Cemetery was not able to obtain the president’s remains and MacFarland sold the house on March 21^st, 1855 to Col. Alfred Vernon Scott of Alabama.  Hollywood Cemetery settled for helping build an obelisk monument for Madison’s grave which was at the time unmarked, fulfilling the wish of the local people to have Madison’s grave marked.

Contributed by LHS intern Benjamin Bradley

[1] Christian, George L.: Reminiscences of Some of the Dead of the Bench and Bar of Richmond. Richmond, 1909 p. 6

[2] Weddell, Elizabeth W. Saint Paul’s Church Richmond, Virginia Its Historic Years and Memorials. Richmond, Virginia: The William Byrd Press, Inc. 1931 Vol. 2 P. 452.

My name is Emilie Kracen and this summer I have had the opportunity to intern at the Litchfield Historical Society under archivist Linda Hocking.  Today being my last day with the Historical Society, I have decided to write a post to tell you a little about what I did here.

My main task has been to process collections and create online finding aids for them on Archon.    The process begins with the raw collections in the state in which they arrived at the archives, in little or no order.  I started by reading through most of the documents and organizing them so they are easy to use.  Creating the finding aid was an interesting task, as I was forced to think like a researcher and create descriptions that would illustrate the important aspects of the collection while helping the reader determine if the documents would be of use in their investigation.  Since Archon is essentially an online, searchable card catalogue, I tried to keep in mind specific search terms that would lead researchers to the correct collections.  The process would have been simple, but for a new version of Archon and various updates which took place during the summer, giving those working with the program a crash course in re-learning how to navigate the site!

The most interesting and rewarding part of the process was handling and reading the actual documents.  I am a historic preservation major, and I plan to attain a museum studies minor and pursue a career in artifact conservation.  Working with the old documents, and even the newer ones, gave me more insight into this aspect of the museum field.  The first collection I worked on was the Grant Papers, dated in the mid-nineteenth century, and the documents were somewhat damaged and very fragile.  I felt privileged to be able to work with the documents first-hand, since after the processing much of the physical collection will be off-limits to researchers due to fragility.  It is exciting to be able to handle objects that people who lived decades or centuries ago used every day!  I also learned some basic and valuable conservation techniques along the way.  For example, I learned that simple objects like newspapers (which are very acidic), paper clips, tape, and staples can, over the years, cause damage to the documents around them.

The content in the collections was very interesting as well.  The letters in the Grant collection, for example, give a very detailed and fascinating account of a traveling teacher/preacher, including a fair amount of culture shock when he moved from the relatively small New England town of Litchfield to pre-Civil War Virginia.  The second collection I worked with, the Captain H. S. Jones Collection, included information on the creation of the historic district in Litchfield.  As a historic preservation major, it was interesting to read through the struggles of launching a historic district in an area where none previously existed.

Finally, I enjoyed researching the creators and creating biographies of them, putting together in one place the various pieces of information, including my own findings from the collections themselves.  My research skills were improved, and even though scrolling through reels of microfilm for an obituary or a marriage announcement was tedious at times, it was exciting when I would stumble upon the very information I was looking for and add it to a more complete account of the lives of these historic figures.

Overall, my work at the Historical Society has been fun and rewarding, giving me an up-close and personal look at the workings of a small museum.

The Litchfield Historical Society is pleased to announce the award of an NEH Sustaining Cultural Heritage Planning Grant.  This grant will enable an architect, engineer, and conservator to visit the Historical Society’s four buildings and assess each structure

• Determine if the HVAC systems are working properly and at maximum efficiency
• Examine the envelope or exterior of each buildings for any damage
• Make suggestions on how the buildings can be made more energy efficient while respecting their historical integrity

The Historical Society has partnered with

• Faesy-Smith Architects of Wilton, CT
• Fuss & O’Neill, a full-service engineering consulting firm, in Manchester, CT
• Richard Kershner, Director of Preservation and Conservation at the Shelburne Museum in Shelburne, VT.

Joe Gunther, owner of Accutemp Heating and Cooling, is the Society’s HVAC maintenance specialist.  He will be working closely with each consultant to explain the HVAC systems in each building.

The grant is already off to a roaring start.  Bob Faesy and Rich Vaill of Faesy-Smith Architects visited the museums two weeks ago for their building inspection.  They are already familiar with the History Museum as they have been working with the Society for over a year to develop a plan to replace the roof on this structure.

This week a Joe Marcucio and Dave Jackson from Fuss & O’Neil arrived at the museum.  Joe has already spent one full day at the History Museum and plans to return this week to spend time at the Tapping Reeve House, Litchfield Law School and Copeland Curatorial Center.

Richard Kerschner is scheduled to visit in September.  He will work with the curators to determine the optimal environment for the artifacts and archives.  Kerschner has already made a name for himself in the field by advocating looser parameters for temperature and humidity control in museum buildings.

Each consultant will provide the staff with a report.  These reports will be integrated into one inclusive document that will guide the maintenance of the HVAC systems and buildings for the next ten years.  The staff will create an immediately priority list and long terms goals as part of this plan.

The Historical Society hopes to apply for an NEH implementation grant in November in order to begin working on some of the buildings most immediate needs.

Lewis B. Woodruff Map of the United States, 1820

The Historical Society recently purchased the papers of New York City banker and businessman Samuel Flewwelling (1774 or 5-1849) primarily relating to property held by his wife, Julia Elvira Canfield Flewwelling (1791-1868), and him in the Western Reserve, later Ohio. Following Samuel’s death, the properties were managed by William Mackay (1795-1873), a New York City businessman and the husband of Caroline Emma Canfield Mackay. The collections includes indentures, agreements, leases, deeds, statements and accounts, and correspondence.The papers are arranged chronologically in one series and consist mostly of documents concerning the conveyance land in the Western Reserve. The earliest document outlines the partitioning of land Judson Canfield and others purchased from the Connecticut Land Co. in 1799. Flewwelling acquired land from Canfield as early as 1815. Some of the later sales were among members of Flewwelling’s family, including his father-in-law Judson Canfield, his brother-in-law Henry J. Canfield, and his brother- and sister-in-law Frederick Augustus Tallmadge and Elizabeth Canfield Tallmadge. Flewwelling provided mortgages to some of the purchasers of land, and the agreements contained in the papers spell out the payment terms. The finding aid, completed by Leith Johnson, is already available online.
Johnson also completed the finding aid for a related collection, the papers of Judson Canfield. The collection consists primarily of legal documents, including agreements, deeds, executions, receipts, statements, and correspondence. The papers also include a small collection of correspondence and writings relating to Walter Ferriss, whose daughter married Canfield’s son.
The study of Connecticut’s participation in settling the Western Reserve lands will certainly be enriched by access to these collections.

The Historical Society is pleased to announce the acquisition of several important collections of civic records. St. Paul’s Masonic Lodge, the Litchfield Garden Club, and the Litchfield County University Club have all voted to donate their records to the Society.

The records of St. Paul’s Lodge and the Litchfield Garden Club have been on deposit since the 1970s, and a collection of books once used by the Lodge as a lending library have been on loan since approximately 1906. The Litchfield County University Club, founded in 1896, recently located several scrapbooks of records dating to the earliest days of the Club. One of the club’s first vice presidents was George C. Woodruff of Litchfield, whose papers are in the Society’s collection.

If you are a member of a civic group whose records we have yet to document please consider donating your materials. If you would like to discuss it with the archivist, call Linda Hocking at 860-567-4501 or e-mail archivist@litchfieldhistoricalsociety.org.

As many of our readers know, the Historical Society closes from the end of November through mid-April to the public.  The research library remains open during this time but the Tapping Reeve House & the Litchfield Law School and the exhibits at the Litchfield History Museum close for the winter.

This may give the perception that the staff is resting their feet on their desks and lazily checking email but in fact winter is a very busy time of year for the Historical Society.  Closing the exhibit galleries allows the staff the staff to break down and install the main changing exhibition.

Each year the Society opens a new temporary exhibition.  The show runs the duration of the time the museum is open to the public for the year, focuses on a local topic and uses objects and archives from the Society’s collection to illustrate the themes and ideas of the exhibit.

Each December the previous exhibit is taken apart and the room prepared for the new exhibit to be installed.

In November 2009, the Historical Society closed the highly acclaimed exhibition To Please Any Taste: Litchfield County Furniture & Furniture Makers, 1780-1830.

Slowly the furniture was moved out of the room and the stands and decorations piled into one corner.

The Historical Society relies on the help of Guy Livolsi and Tom Rinkus to assist the staff in moving platforms and cases in and out of the exhibit spaces.  Here they are taking a load of platforms over to the Tapping Reeve House where they are stored until needed for the next exhibition

As different rooms are worked on, materials are piled in unused spaces until they can be placed in the appropriate gallery or taken to storage.

After all of the objects and archives are removed from the exhibit, the room is given a fresh coat of paint.  The needed cases and platforms are brought in and arranged.   Below you see the History Gallery where the 2010 exhibition Goods for Sale! Cash, Credit & Trade in Litchfield, 1790-1850 will be installed over the next six weeks.   The walls have been painted a vibrant red color and the platforms are ready to be placed in the room. 

The museum hires John Kilbourn, a local professional painter, to paint the galleries each season.

The Historical Society hosts an annual Preview Party for members.  This year the event will be held on Friday, April 16th at 6:30pm.  If you would like to attend this sneak preview of the exhibit please become a member of the Society today to receive your invitation.   The exhibit will be open to the public on Saturday, April 17, 2010 and remain on view through the end of November.

As you may have heard, the State of Connecticut is selling the Litchfield County Jail. Our collections document some of the jail’s history, but there are few exterior photographs of the structure and no interior shots. A recent open house provided staff with an opportunity to document the interior in its present state.

According to the Historic Resources Inventory, the Litchfield County Jail was originally constructed in 1812. Since that time, there have been several alterations to the building. The survey notes the addition of a cell block in 1846 and a three story brick wing with additional cell blocks at the end of the 19th Century. A Colonial Revival veranda was removed in 1987.

Perusing the town’s historic newspapers is a great way to learn about the jail’s history. An event that took place in November of 1822 is described in the American Eagle as “a high-handed riot.” The prisoners were said to have been given liquor from someone outside, and when it was gone demanded more. When this request was denied, they are said to have torn up the floor, broken chairs, and physically attacked the jailer.

The following year, the American Eagle published a notice that the “gang of noisy fellows” dispensing liquor to prisoners and disturbing the neighbors would be made public examples if their behavior persisted. Earlier in 1823. the same paper published a notice that a reward would be given for two men who escaped. A separate article described their escape:

After removing the stone under the floor of the prison, near the underpinning, and then with or without assistance from the outside, took out one of the stones from the underpinning, which it seems were not doweled together, into the hole they had made under the floor, and so made their escape through the aperture.

The October 22, 1846 Litchfield Republican printed the By-laws for the Regulation of the Litchfield County Work-House. The rules prohibited the prison keeper from holding any other office, and required him to reside at the prison. His wife was to be responsible for the welfare of the female prisoners. Required labor was expected of all prisoners, and they were expected to attend “divine service” on every Sabbath. The regulations also provide for the cleanliness of the prisoners and their bedding, clothing, and housing as well as their rations.

The building continued to operate as a prison for some time. A 1992 escape eventually led to the conversion of the facility to a drug treatment center for men. According to a 1994 New York Times article, a year later then Governor Lowell P. Weicker Jr. ordered it shut down. It reopened in 1994 as McAuliffe Manor, a rehabilitation center for women which closed earlier this year. Please let us know if you have photos or stories to share.

A big part of the mission of the Historical Society is to make the collection accessible to the public.  This is done through exhibitions at the museum’s two sites, the website, educational and public programs, and publications.

The Historical Society is often contacted by academic researchers and historians who are writing books and wish to use some item in our collection as an illustration in their work.   Some of our more popular requests are for the Ralph Earl portraits of Benjamin Tallmadge and Mary Floyd Tallmadge as well as needleworks and embroideries produced by students attending the Litchfield Female Academy.

The writers and publishers they are working with need high quality images to use in the publications.  To serve their needs and also to have quality images of items in our collection for other uses, we work with professional photographer David Stansbury of Stansbury Photography in Springfield, MA.

David generally visits the museum at least once a year for a full day of work.  This is a fairly time consuming process as space has to be set aside in the museum for him to work, objects have to be pulled off display or out of storage and ready for their moment in front of the camera and then everything has to be returned so the visiting public is unaware any changes every took place.

David Stansbury at right in the winter of 2008 as the Historical Society prepared for the publication of the exhibition catalog To Please Any Taste: Litchfield County Furniture & Furniture Makers, 1780-1830

David travels with a van load of equipment and is challenged with creating a mock photography studio in one of the museum’s rooms.  Flood lights, back drops, and tripods are arranged and adjusted as each artifact is placed in front of the camera.

David as he adjusts an image on his computer

His work is impeccable and the images he has created for the museum have been used countless times in all manner of publications.

The photographer sessions are often held in the Liggett Gallery of the Litchfield History Museum.  The large gallery provides ample space for the equipment

David will be visiting the museum again soon after we close for the season at the end of November.  He will be photographing many of the materials related to the Litchfield Female Academy and Litchfield Law School that have not already been captured.  These images will be used in future exhibitions, educational programs and in the upcoming Litchfield Law School and Litchfield Female Academy database which will be released in 2011.