In This Edition, a New Art Acquisition, and Reconsidering the Attic
/A 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.
Rose hill in cecil county, maryland, was home to generations of the forman family. photo by Michael Bourne.
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.
Grave marker of Mary Hemsley FOrman at Cloverfields. Courtesey Cloverfields Preservation foundaiton.
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.
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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.
Sir Benjamin THompson (1753-1814), Count von Rumford: American-born pioneer in thermodynamics. Engraving by T. Muller.
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.
Colonel Joseph Forman (1761-1805), by Charles Balthazar Julie Fevret de Saint-Memin (1770-1852). Forman married Colonel William Hemsley’s eldest daughter, Mary “Polly” Hemsley. Their young grandsons inherited Cloverfields in 1825. Courtesy Cloverfields Preservation Foundation.
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.
Poor Poet: An Old Man Lies in an attic, 1839 by Carl Spitzweg (1805-1885) paints a dismal picture of attic accomodations. Courtesey Altes Museum.
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.
Conservator Chris Mills stabilizes the fragile 1705 plaster by injecting a consolidating solution. Photo by Willie Graham.
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.
Hand-carved hooks remain firmly secured on the beaded partition wall. With the exception of a 1980s tribute to rock group Nirvana, the wall’s graffiti dates to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. PHoto by David Berg.
Both the missing box lock and existing slide latch secure from the inside. photo by Willie gramahm.
The circular openng in the bottom of the door recalls the “cat holes” at Monticello. It was likely covered over when the space was converted into a smoke room in order to keep smoke in and small carnivores out. Courtesy Cloverfields Preservation Foundation.
One of Monticello’s two so-called cat holes. Image courtesy Monticello.
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.
Ken Carter, whose grandmother Martha Callahan Carter lived at Cloverfields until the 1980s, stands to the right of the count of mean curing within the attic chamber. Photo by Pete Albert.
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.
blackened rafters and charred floorboards remain from usage as a smoking chamber for preserving meat.
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.