Spring at Cloverfields. Plus, How to Recreate a Historic Interior and Why Did the Hemsleys Have So Many Windsor Chairs?

The dazzling bloom of 80,000 bulbs against a backdrop of evergreens completely erased the last vestiges of winter. Gardens designed by Kimmel Studio Architects and planted by McHale Landscaping. Enjoy this virtual garden tour by Joe Stevens and StratDV Video Production.

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

Spring Guests

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

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Historically Accurate Interior Decorating: How the Professionals Figure it Out

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

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

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

Ms. Rachel Lovett, Assistant Director and Curator at the Hammond Harwood House in Annapolis, Maryland, is creating CPF’s Furnishing Plan for Cloverfields and will guide Collections development.

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

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

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

Above: A page from one of two estate inventories prepared after Col. William Hemsley’s death listing household contents, starting on the second floor in Mrs. Hemsley’s Room. Source: Maryland State Archives, James Woods Poplar Grove Collection.

Below: In addition to being hard to read, this copied excerpt of Col.William Hemsley’s official inventory is difficult to use for creating a furnishing plan because it groups objects by type rather than location, starting with the amount of cash and stocks, before continuing to wearing apparel, books, and house linens, etc. Source: Maryland State Archives, Queen Anne’s County Register of Wills, Inventories.

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

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

A section of the South garden in April, 2022. Photograph by Pete Albert.

“If Winter comes, can spring be far behind? - Percy Bysshe Shelley North Garden in April 2022. Photograph by Pete Albert.

Spring makes a stark contrast to the Frost-covered landscape during Winter 2020-2021. Photograph by Devin Kimmel.

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Historic Interior (continued)

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

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

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An Abundance of Windsor Chairs

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

Above: According to the official 1813 Inventory, forty-two Windsor chairs were at cloverfields at the time of Col. Hemsley’s death. Of that number, assessors described a dozen as new, nine as old, and The remaining pieces recorded without comment.

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

English-born artist, William Williams, shows New York merchant WIlliam Denning (1740-1819) seated outdoors in a windsor chair beside his young daughter. Source: Orlando Museum of Art.

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

Reproduction Windsor Chairs at Mount Vernon. Source: Image Courtesey of George Washington’s Mount Vernon.

The 1783 painting of the Ramsey-Polk Family of Carpenter’s Point, Cecil County, Maryland by James Peale shows Ruth Ellison Polk seated on a Windsor-style garden bench overlooking the Northeast River.

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

In Congress voting Independence by Robert Edge Pine ( completed by Edward Savage), Shows the Interior of the Pennsylvania State House, better known as Independence Hall. Signers Robert Morris, Jr., Benjamin Franklin, and Maryland’s Charles Carroll of Carrollton appear seated in Windsor Chairs.

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

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

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

By: Sherri Marsh Johns For: Cloverfields Preservation Foundation