Over the past years the Davenport House Museum has produced a notable number of Junior Interpreters (JIs) who have gone on to become stand-out students in high school and later in college. To acknowledge this record, the Davenport House presents a scholarship annually to an outstanding high school student who demonstrates qualities which put the museum and its community in the best light. This year’s award will be presented to Savannah Christian Preparatory School senior Carlie Ayn Williams at the Davenport House’s Annual Garden Party on Thursday, June 7th. The Davenport House Endowment Director’s initiated the scholarship program in 2011. The Critz Family is the sponsor of the 2012 Davenport House Service Scholarship.

The Davenport House (DH) began the Junior Interpreter program in March 2003 to provide an educational and a service-oriented program for students in grades nine through twelve. During summer 2003 the first group of JIs completed training and began giving tours of the museum house. In the fall of 2005 the Davenport House and Savannah Arts Academy began offering the JI program in the evening to sophomore American history students. Since 2003 over one hundred and forty young people have participated in the DH’s JI programs.

Carlie Ayn Williams, the only child of Mr. Charles and Dr. Deborah Williams of Guyton, GA, came to the Davenport House during the summer of 2010 for Junior Interpreter training. From the beginning, her mastery of the history discipline was clear. She was the summer’s DH Jeopardy champion. She enjoyed giving tours and was good at it. In October 2010 she was hired as a staff docent and has given tours at the museum on Sundays ever since. She is reliable, thoughtful and committed. Possessing a maturity beyond her years, visitors remark on her tour guiding skills and often ask her if she is a college student.

In addition to her work as a staff docent, she continues to volunteer at the Davenport House.

She is also a gifted photographer. For the past two years she has been the museum’s photographer for Valentine’s Day Weddings. She was also a volunteer photographer at the 2011 Savannah Garden Expo. See the attached photos. She takes hundreds of photos for each event, selects the best and edits them as necessary before donating them to the museum.

She has been accepted to Georgia Southern University’s Honors Program which she will begin in the fall. At Savannah Christian her grade point average is 3.7 and she is ranked fifth out of a class of one hundred and one. She is senior class secretary, National Honor Society secretary, National Beta Club secretary as well as a member of the French Honor Society. At the school’s awards program held on May 1, she received the Advanced Placement European History Award, the Advance Placement Environmental Science Award and the Presidential Award of Academic Excellence.

The Davenport House community hopes that Carlie Ayn will cherish the friendships she has made at the museum and will use the skill she has developed here to do good things.

Early Bird’s Preservation Walking Tour of the Landmark Historic District’s East Side

Saturdays in April 2012 (except April 28)
[Program dates and time: April 7, 14 and 21 at 7:30 a.m.]
90 minutes
2.5 miles
Admission: $20
Reservations recommended.
Take an early morning walk through one of the oldest and most varied neighborhoods to learn how historic preservation has revitalized downtown Savannah. Coffee and treats in the Davenport House garden to follow.

Tea in the Garden at the Davenport House

Thursdays and Fridays in May 2012
[Program dates and times: May 3, 4, 10, 11, 17 and 18 at 4:30 p.m. and May 24 and 25 at 5:00 p.m.]
Admission: $18
Reservations recommended. Limited attendance.
Learn about tea traditions and experience an early 19th century tea in Davenport House’s beautiful courtyard garden. Patrons will visit areas of the home where tea service took place and will participate in an afternoon tea given with costumed interpreters in the garden.
The performance requires that guests be able to walk up and down stairs.

Discovering 1820s Savannah: Early Bird’s Walking Tour of the City Isaiah Knew

Saturdays in May 2012 [May 5, May 12, May 19, May 26]
7:30 a.m.
100 minutes. Distances 2.7 miles.
$20
See what survives of the 1820s Savannah that master builder Isaiah Davenport knew. Beginning at the Davenport House Museum (1820) participants will walk by some of the finest examples of preservation in the city and learn about what no longer remains. Topics to include the Great Fire of 1820, the yellow fever epidemic of 1820, Lafayette’s visit to Savannah in 1825 and the celebrations surrounding the 50th anniversary of the United States in 1826. Coffee and treats in the Davenport House garden will follow.

Also see our new video: The Story of Historic Savannah Foundation (abridged version for Davenport House Museum)

At this time of seasonal sweaters and holiday finery, it does us good to recall the transformation that took place almost two hundred years ago that made the constant, conscious ruminations over the production of clothing and the manufacture of cloth obsolete. When we thumb through a catalog or surf outfits on-line, we rarely, if ever, think of how or who made these items of apparel. This was not the case in the 1820s when the Davenports lived in their fine brick home on Columbia Square. At that time the household was in the midst of the textile revolution which took Americans, beginning in the late 18th century, from spinning threads and weaving their own cloth into “homespun” to purchasing machine-made fabrics such as cambric, gingham, nankeen, osnaburg, bomazeen and sarsnet at a dry goods purveyor in the port city. Yet, the women of the household still had to coordinate the production of clothing as well as the constant tasks of mending and caring for clothing and cloth items already made.

As evident in Savannah’s newspapers, the textile and consumer revolution progressed during the early 19th century with the proliferation of “fancy goods” and varieties of textiles and trimmings available. Not only are there ads for dress makers, tailors, hat sellers, boot and shoe sellers but also growing outlets for purchasing “ready to wear” including men’s cloaks and vests, workman’s and sailors suits, “fearnaughts, Monkey jackets and trowsers suitable for boatmen,” and varieties of negro shoes, negro cloth, negro caps and gloves and places to buy umbrellas, tortoise combs, etc. As a significant port, Savannah offered the world of goods available at the time. Where some fortunate Savannah ladies donned “leghorns” [hats]2 and drape themselves in imported silk shawls3, their counterparts in the backcountry continued to produce and wear homespun cloth.

In thinking about holiday finery of the early 19th century we recognize that Savannah was a good vantage point to see and understand the breadth of goods available to the early 19th century customer and what being fashionable was at the time. Newspapers carried humorous stories about the exaggerations of current fashions4 and descriptions of up-to-date apparel5. In addition to newspapers, there were hand-colored fashion plates from French and English publications illustrating the taste of the time. Textile authority Jane Nylander writes, “New styles were transmitted from city to country in a variety of ways. Fashion plates illustrating the newest styles were included in French and English magazines like Ackerman’s Repository for many years before they began to appear in American publications.” Additionally historian Jack Larson says, “High style, for Americans, emerged from fashionable houses and dressmakers’ shops of what Americans recognized as “the centers of fashion” – Paris and London. Annual changes in bonnet styles and the cut of gowns traveled in a month or so to New York, and then to other American cities, via illustrated magazines, ‘fashion plates’ or large colored engravings, private letters and stylishly dressed foreign visitors.” During the holiday season, visitors to the Davenport House will see a selection of 1820s English and French fashion plates in the museum’s Morning Room as though Mrs. Davenport were contemplating the styles of the day.

We know more about what the Davenports wore than we do about other aspects of their lives because of three silhouettes by “Master Hankes with Common Scissor,” a newspaper account of the house Mr. Davenport was visiting being struck by lightning and estate documents listing the purchase of clothing for Davenport children and slaves in the household. One assumes that the outfits worn to have a silhouette done would have been their best. Along with being preservation marvels – all three silhouettes are dated and identified with the subjects’ names and ages as well as the artist’s stamp, these three generations of Davenport women in silhouette show a remarkably fashionable trio. All created in 1828, they are of Sarah Davenport (age 40), Cornelia Davenport (age 4) and Mrs. Davenport’s mother Susannah Clark (age 67), the year after Mr. Davenport’s death and the year before Mrs. Clark died. Sarah’s shows the young widow with upswept hair and held in place with a comb. There also appears to be a feather in her hair. Her face is accented by a dangle earring. A lacy fichu ornaments her bodice. The four-year-old Cornelia dons a long sleeved frock with matching trousers. Of note are her sausage curls.6 A real revelation is the matron Susannah in what appears to be a fashionable velvet Spencer jacket, ruff collar and holding spectacles in her hand.

A June 1821 newspaper account of a lightning strike of a house the Davenports were visiting sheds light on what Mr. Davenport wore at the time. “Mr. Davenport who had a child in his arms had the skin torn from his . . . breast and one leg, and a number of blisters under his shirt, vest, pantaloons and one stocking were considerably scorched, while the child received no injury.” So we know that Mr. Davenport was in the main stream of male fashion by wearing long pants. Only the extremely conservative or at formal occasions did men wear knee breeches in the 1820s. We wish we knew if he was wearing a tail coat or a frock coat . . .

As far as we know, half of the Davenport household, the enslaved people, had little choice in what they wore. Much has been written on clothing for plantation slaves – the quantities7 and quality of material used (usually osnaburg in what was called Negro cloth), while less is known about the apparel of house servants and enslaved laborers, stevedores, etc., in the urban area. House servants who came in contact with Davenport visitors and clients would certainly not have worn ragged clothes and they probably did not “go bare footed.” Isaiah Davenport’s estate records show the purchase of “clothes for servants” and “jackets for David and Jack.” Useful resources for what enslaved people wore are the runaway slave ads which appeared regularly in the local papers. Masters closely noted the physical attributes, including earrings, scars and body markings, as well as the outfits worn by runaways when last seen. We know of one runaway from Mr. Davenport, a slave named Nancy, but her description is of a scar on her neck rather than what she was wearing.

Estate records also indicate the purchase of items for the children including “shoes for the children,” “childrens BLK stockings,” “cap for Isaiah,” “clothes for Cornelia” (maybe her silhouette clothes), “plaid cloak for Isaiah” and “clothes for children.”

Fashion history tells us that during the 1820s apparel was evolving from the high-waisted, flowing dresses of the early 19th century for women. Bright colors returned to fashion, waistlines were lowered, skirts were fuller, puffed sleeves puffed out and corsetry achieved an hourglass shape (though not tightly laced – that came later). Fashionable men, believe it or not, also prized the hourglass shape4. Pants were long and tight. Tail coats were shorter at the waist and frock coats were growing in popularity. One expects that port city residents knew about these trends.

As we contemplate the latest thing this holiday season, it is illustrative to remember a time – as presented in the Davenport House – where the choices were fewer, where the consumer culture was beginning and where the end of year celebrations meant sharing “a cup of kindness” and a good meal – possibly, but not probably, in a new dress.

Holiday Evening Tours by Candlelight

December 26 -30, 2011

6 to 8:30 p.m.

Admission: $8 adults in advance, $10 at the door; $5 children in advance, $7 at the door

Glistening by candlelight, the Federal-style home welcomes visitors to an experience emphasizing the end-of-year celebrations of early 19th century Savannahians, including the Davenport household, who lived in the fine brick home on Columbia Square. Light refreshments, music and skilled interpreters, who show visitors through the home, are among the highlights of the presentation.

The performance requires that guests be able to walk up and down stairs and maneuver in the candlelit rooms.

Notes:

1 “The ladies of the Cabinet in their best bibs and tuckers. Most of them in new dresses just from Paris.” p. 248. Margaret Bayard Smith, Forty Years of Washington Society.

2 Mrs. C. Judah. Would inform her friends and the public generally, that she has taken a store in Luccna’s buildings, in the rear of Broughton street, where she has on hand a general assortment of HATS and BONNETS, of the latest fashions. She would also inform the Ladies that she alters and cleans Leghorn in the most fashionable style. January 19, 1820. Columbia Museum.

Hats – “While straw bonnets and gypsy hats began to be imported from Italy in large numbers, except in periods of war and embargo, New England women and girls mastered the skills of straw braiding so successfully that it is impossible to distinguish between an American and European straw hat. Indeed, the term `Leghorn’ bonnet was used for women’s straw hats regardless of their origin.” Nylander.

3 By Watts & Joyner

Tomorrow, (Thursday,) 2d inst,

Will be sold at 10 o’clock precisely, at their

Auction room, without reserve, a large and generous

Assortment of

English, French, German, and Domestic

Dry Goods,

. . .Silk Hdkfs and Shawls – thread Laces. March 1, 1820. Columbia Museum.

4 From the N.Y. National Advocate 25th ult.

Dandy Hats — Our city has been much amused with a low tripod kind of hat, made of fine beaver, and worn by our Bang ups. __ Some call the Touch, others the Gape and the Stare, the real name is the Bolingbroke. It is about 6 inches in crown, and 4 in rim, shaped like an inverted cone. It is real tippy. We yesterday saw one of the fancy dressed quite unique, blue frock, black silk Wellington cravat, buff waistcoat, Cossack pantaloons, high heel boots, black ribbon and eye glass, bushy hair frizzed and surmounted with one of these little tippy hats. He looked like an hour glass, and minced his steps along Broadway in the real Jemmy Jump style. The ladies were highly amused, and more glasses were directed toward him, than would be to the Emperor Iturbide, had he just landed; while our [boy] insensible to all this curiously danced up the street, humming the favorite air of, “Look dear mad’am, I’m quite the thing; natius hay, tippity ho!”

October 7, 1823. Savannah Republican.

5 London fashions for February. –

Opera Dress – dress of white sattin with chinamsters, set on three rows without stalks—next to hems, a clochette trimmed of crape, forming full platts or quiltings. The bust trimmed with bouffant puffings of silk net confined by bows of white satin Andalusian mantle of pink satin, trimmed with ermine without spots – a high standing up collar, lined with spotted ermine finishes the cloak. – The hair arranged in long ringlets, and ornamented with small red roses, and white Spanish bows, the latter very sparingly adopted. Necklace of two rows of very large pearls.

Walking Dress – Pelisse of gros de Naples the colour of the marshmallow blossom, festooned down the front with three large wrought buttons. Black velvet bonnet, tied with marshmallow-coloured ribbands, and crowned with a large full-bloom rose and bows of velvet. Long black Chantilly lace veil; the pelisse is made with narrow French collar, surmounted by a double frill of Urling’s lace. A double gold chain with a watch depending. Black kid half-boots, and yellow gloves.

March 26, 1824, The Georgian.

6 “After breakfast I went forth on a shopping expedition and procured most of the winter clothing for the family, self included. One article I could not get, — curls, French curls, parted on the forehead, you know how. You must get them for me either in New York or Phila. Now remember CURLS!” Margaret Bayard Smith, Forty Years of Washington Society p. 142.

7 “On most plantations for which records survive, field slaves received only two suits of clothing per year, one for winter and another for summer. A man’s winter ration usually consisted of a waistcoat with sleeves, breeches or trousers, and two shirts. A woman generally received a jacket, petticoat, and two shifts. For summer, female slaves who worked outdoors received linen petticoats to wear with their shifts; men got summer breeches or trousers with shirts.” Baumgartern.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

PRIMARY RESOURCES.

Cornelia Augusta Davenport, 1828; Sarah Rosamond Davenport, 1828; Susannah Clark, 1828. Silhouettes. Master Hankes with Common Scissors.

Estate Inventory. Isaiah Davenport. 1828.

Fashion Plates. Davenport House Collection.

Index card box. Susan Mason Mays. 1994.

Columbia Museum and Savannah Gazette, 1820.

Savannah Republican. 1820-1828.

The Georgian. 1820.

Margaret Bayard Smith. Forty Years of Washington Society. T. Fisher Unwin, London. 1906.

Mrs. Basil Hall. The Aristocratic Journey: Being the Outspoken Letters of Mrs. Basil Hall, written During A Fourteen Mouths’ Sojourn in American 1827-1828. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York. 1931.

SECONDARY SOURCES

Lynne Zackek Bassett. Textiles for Regency Clothing 1800-1850: A Workbook of Swatches and Information. Q Graphics Production Company, Arlington, VA. 2001

Linda Baumgarten. What Clothes Reveal: The Language of Clothing in Colonial and Federal America. Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Williamsburg, Virginia. 2002.

Jack Larkin. TheReshaping of Everyday Life, 1790-1840. HarperPerennial. 1988.

Jane Nylander. OSV Documents – Notes on 19th Century Clothing. 1980.

Blanche Payne. History of Costume: From the Ancient Egyptians to the Twentieth Century. Harper & Row, Publishers, New York. 1965.

Timely Tresses. Georgian and Romantic Era Fashion Plates, 1820-1839. 2008

Ackermann’s Costume Plates: Women’s Fashions in England, 1818-1828. Dover Publications, New York. 1978.

Joseph Frederick Waring. Cerveau’s Savannah. The Georgia Historical Society, Savannah, GA. 1973.

See additional research on 1820s Clothing

In October for the ninth year the Davenport House Museum will stage a recreation of Savannah’s yellow fever epidemic of 1820. Every Friday and Saturday evening the garden and interior of the house are transformed into a theater set conveying the emotions surrounding the time.

Each year the performance has focused on a different aspect and point of view while maintaining the basic story of the dreadful pestilence which transformed a bustling seaport into a ghost town, devoid of the majority of its population.

This year’s performance promises to take its visitors where it has not gone before. Using the restored Kennedy Pharmacy as a stand-in for the city’s public gathering place in 1820, the Exchange Long Room at the foot of Bull Street occupied by City Hall today – the controversial war between Savannah newspapers which occurred in the weeks preceding the outbreak of yellow fever and which continued well into the epidemic, will be re-created in the first part of the evening’s performance.

The editors of the Columbia Museum and Gazette and the Savannah Republican battle of words and ideas over the nature of the fever, the extent of its severity, and the possible malfeasance by the Mayor and Council in the handling the outbreak of the disease. In addition to the editors of the newspaper battling out, the Mayor, Thomas Charlton, will be present.

As in past years, the fate and experiences of the uncounted half of the city’s population, both free and enslaved Africans, will be explored by the talented performer Jamal Touré.

With so much death and sickness, thoughts of the inhabitants naturally turned to contemplation of their own mortality and the destiny of those many souls who were victims of the malignant fever. This year features a discourse on the nature of phantoms and spirits, supernatural happenings, and the ultimate nature of the soul, as a typical person in the 1820s thought of them as expressed by a young lady of Savannah by candlelight, in the bedchamber of the Davenport House Museum.

At the conclusion of the evening, each visitor will participate in a “Lottery of Life and Death.”

Performing in the 2011 production of “A Mortality Prevails!” Savannah Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1820 are: Iain Woodside as Mr. Fell, Jeff Freeman as Mr. Bartlett, John Leonti as The Mayor, Lauren Purcell as Miss Hestia Robinson, Tiffany Miller as Miss Portia Doughlass, Jody Christie as Mrs. Theodosia Johnson, Jan Vach as Mrs. Susannah Humphries and Shannon Wichers as Charlotte.

Details about the production:

REVISED! A Mortality Prevails! Savannah’s Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1820
Friday and Saturday nights in October 2011 (October 1, 7, 8, 14, 15, 21, 22, 28, 29)
Two performances: 7:30 p.m. and 8:45 p.m.
$15 in advance for adults, $10 in advance children (ages 8-17) and $17 for adults and $15 for children at the time of the performance
Reservations recommended. Limited attendance.

For information or to reserve a place please call 912/236-8097, email info@davenporthousemuseum.org and see the museum’s website www.davenporthousemuseum.org

60 minutes
Not suitable from children under 8 years of age.
The performance requires that guests be able to walk up and down stairs and maneuver in the candlelit rooms.

- 30 -

New! DH Harvest Lecture Series at the Kennedy Pharmacy

Monday, November 7 at 7 p.m. Dr. Tim Drake from Clemson University, “Death and Burial Customs in the 19th Century”

Monday, November 14 at 7 p.m. Dr. Veronica Gerald from Coastal Carolina University, “All Shut-eye Ain’ Sleep.” Burial Customs and Homegoing Customs of the Low Country”

Free to the public but reservation for seating are requested. 912.236-8097

The lectures will be held in the Kennedy Pharmacy at 323 E. Broughton Street, Savannah.

Fireplaces and Home Fires at the Davenport House

Are we oblivious??!! One wonders, if we were stripped of our modern necessities – running water, central air and refrigeration – would we be able to manage?!! This isn’t rhetorical pontification. As we turn our thoughts to the upcoming winter months and impending holiday celebration, could we build and maintain a fireplace till spring? In the 19th century the winter hearth was a necessity in daily living as well as a comforting center of the home during the colder months and yet, what reference do we really have to it — really?

In thinking of a topic to concentrate on for holiday research, the DH settled on home fires and fireplaces as a way to amp up interest in past daily living and holiday celebrations. Who doesn’t like a roaring fireplace?! And, for many of us our only frame of reference to an open fire in the home is during the holidays. But for 19th century Savannahians, wood fires were a daily necessity – that is if one wanted warm, cooked food – even in the summer.

During the Davenports’ time the need for wood for cooking was year round while the need for wood to warm the body was seasonal with the most consequential months usually being November through March. Because of the abundance of wood, this was the fuel of choice. Newspaper ads and inventories indicated that coal was available—imported from England in the 1820s. The fireplaces in Isaiah Davenport’s fine home were originally wood burning. It was only after the Civil War that coal was commonly available for Savannahians. In 1823, Shadrack Winkler and W. C. Wayne sold firewood and would deliver it to their customers in Savannah.

One assumes Winkler would have pulled his wagon up to the lane gate of Mr. Davenport’s utility yard and one of Davenport’s slaves – maybe Ned or Davy– would have unloaded the oak or hickory (which are better burning woods than pine) and put it on the woodpile. Actually with the carriage house, well and privy there was not a lot of room on the 60 X 90 foot “tithing lot.” But, wood was a necessity to be stored handy to both the kitchen and warming fireplace use. Making sure wood was a burnable size (which might mean chopping wood), hauling it through the house, igniting and maintaining fires was a time consuming and labor intensive job for the servants of the household.

Charlie Seton Henry Hardee’s “Recollection of Old Savannah.” [Georgia Historical Quarterly. 1928 (His recollections go back to the 1830s)] revealed much about daily living in Savannah. Hardee remembers as a boy how fires were lit – both for the kitchen and for warmth – saying, “The flint and steel method, which must have been brought into use in very ancient times, was still in use when I was a small boy [1830s], and many years afterwards. The apparatus for producing fire with the flint and steel was very simple, and consisted of a receptacle for holding some kind of very inflammable (sic) substance, called `tinder.’ This receptacle was nothing more nor less than the lower part of a small cow’s-horn, and the tinder was made of scorched cotton, which is very inflammable (sic). A red hot spark struck off by the flint and steel was caught in the tinder and blown upon gently until kindled into a flame larger enough to ignite a few splinters of what the negroes (sic) call `fat lightwood,’ [kindling] and a blazing fire was kindled in less than no time. The whole outfit was called a `Tinder Horn.’” So to build a fire at the Davenports’ or anywhere else, one needed starter – flint, steel and the scorched cotton as noted by Seton – to ignite the fire; tinder – such as wood shavings, pine cones, or corn shucks, to accelerate the fire; “fat lightwood” or kindling to get the larger split logs burning. All of this was necessary whether for kitchen or drawing room.

In a household like the Davenports’ tools were available to perpetuate this process. A well drawing chimney was important. The andirons or firedogs held the split logs above the fire-starting floor of the hearth. Bellows were used to fan the fire. Tongs and pokers were used to manipulate the wood to its best burning advantage and shovels were for moving coals about and removing ash. Fenders kept cinders from blowing onto the floor outside the hearth. Only in the 20th century did these become romantic symbols of the Colonial Revival with no practical application.

There are twelve fireplaces in the Davenport House. One on the basement level would have been the primary cooking hearth while all eight on the parlor and bedroom levels were for warmth. In the American South the cook fireplace had not changed much since the colonial period and manning the station required fortitude and stamina. The adult female slaves in the Davenport Household, Bella, Peggy or Nancy, did this work. “Stooping, bending, lifting, holding, reaching, pushing, stretching, leaning . . . the poor housewife [in the DH’s case a household servant] went through a back-breaking ritual to get her pots and kettles (usually wrought iron) into and out of that flaming cavern.” We assume, though there is no current evidence to prove it, that Davenports had an oven as part of the cooking hearth. “The oven had a separate ritual all its own. A fire had to be built within the oven cavity at the front of the fireplace and allowed to get its hottest. When the bricks were suitably bright in color, it was time to remove the fire and its ashes using a long, flat-bladed shovel. The brick bottom of the oven was then brushed clean with a broom of hemlock twigs, and in went the brown bread, beans, pudding, pie, or cake to bake directly on the hot bottom bricks. ”[Merritt Ierley. Open House.]

During the Davenports’ time there were four fireplaces in the basement level and one or all of them could have been used for cooking. The fireplace in the gift shop, though altered, retains its original proportions and is reminiscent of the cooking hearth – though some experts believe the largest hearth was the one on the southwestern corner now covered with a false wall. Up in the main part of the house are four fireplaces on both the parlor floor and the bedroom level. Along with those in the basement, these fireplaces have inner-workings – dampers, smoke chambers, etc. – in the walls required to let in air and take out smoke – all making the fireplaces operate as planned. The house has four chimneys -each containing three flues – one for each of the corresponding fireplaces per floor below. There are no fireplaces on the attic level but the area could have been kept warm by the accumulated heat from the rooms below (remember from 4th grade science that heat rises).

The fireplaces on the south side of the house in the public rooms convey status and the emerging aesthetic of the Greek Revival. The one in the Office is reminiscent of a November 7, 1820 ad in The Daily Georgian listing five marble mantles for sale and imported by Joyner E. Fenno on the recently arrived Sloop Cotton Plant. The ad read, “No. 3, containing one Italian Statuary Marble Chimney Piece, with mummy heads, unique caps, carved freezes”. The ad illustrates the importation of European mantles through the port of Savannah which were available to master builders such as Davenport. The fireplace of “green and pink” marble and featuring ionic columns in the Drawing Room, which was the most public of rooms, was intended to make a statement of tastes and style. As one 20th century historian writes, “In the domestic dwelling house of the period [early 19th century], the entrance doorway became the prime exterior architectural feature, telling one and all of the material success of the master of the house; in the interior, the fireplace wall further established his success and invited the guest to share in the physical warmth it offered.” [Henry Kauffman. The American Fireplace. 1972.] The remaining mantles in the family living quarters are made of wood and each is of a similar but different design featuring flat, fluted, paired or single rounded columns or pilasters. All are handsome and exhibit refined craftsmanship.

Later in the house’s history, residents used coal for heating as illustrated by both the Morning Room and Dining Room fireplaces’ appearance. In discussions about how to interpret the house, it was determined that returning these to their original wood burning appearance would be too costly and might cause structural damage. Their appearance indicates a later period in the house’s occupancy than the primary period of interpretation. The other fireplaces convey the wood burning origins of the house- when the family and friends would gather by the fire for warmth, illumination, conversation, entertainment or work.

One of the museum’s often asked questions is, “Does it get cold down here?” This is answered with an historical reference from a visitor to Charleston, SC, “. . . as the duke of Saxe-Weimar Eisenach pointed out, `one suffers no where so much from cold as in a warm climate, since the dwellings are well calculated to resist heat, but in nowise suited to repel cold.’” [Elisabeth Garrett, At Home] So, “yes,” it did and does get cold “down here.”

During the 1820s, household staff were instructed each evening to prepare for the next day’s fireplace duties, “In the first place, make it your business to have plenty of wood, coal, or whatever fuel you burn, in its proper place over night, as it will save you a great deal of time in the morning, as the mornings are so short at this season of the year, and it is a great advantage to have these necessaries in readiness, where perhaps you have three or four fires to make, and the grates and fire irons to clean before the family rises.” [Robert Roberts, Roberts’ Guide for Butlers & Other Household Staff. 1827.] Throughout the day the fires were attended to. As the household cycle moved to twilight, there was a period between sundown and when servants placed candles around as related by Margaret Bayard Smith, “We had a blaze kindled on our hearth and enjoyed our first autumnal fire. The sopha was drawn in its usual place, and I took my accustome’d corner. You know how I love this twilight, or rather fire-light hour, which makes winter dear to me.” And, “Virginia Randolf Trist similarly reminisced of winter evenings she spent with her grandfather Thomas Jefferson at Monticello. `When it grew too dark to read, in the half hour which passed before the candles came in, as we all sat by round the fire, he taught us several childish games, and would play them with us.’” [E. Garrett.]

As Henry David Thoreau writes, “I lingered most about the fireplace, as the most vital part of the house;” there is as much sentiment about the hearth as being the center of the home and the place where families gathered particularly in winter. But, while this must have undoubtedly been true in New England where the hearth-side conjured up ideas of Puritan mothers cooking and Pilgrim fathers stoking the warm winter blaze steeling the family for the harsh winter, one wonders its place in the heart of Southerners, particularly those living in the “Deep South,” where it is warm most of the year and where the traditions of cooking by the fireside were ordained as the laboring space of the enslaved servant for all but the yeoman household. Those working at a blazing cooking hearth in summer in south Georgia surely conjured up thoughts far from the comforting hearthside of winter.

Certainly Mr. Davenport would have remembered the welcoming and warm winter fires of his boyhood in New England and one hopes that there were congenial and hospitable feelings for all those who gathered in Southern homes during the damp and raw season. We think of them and respect their fortitude as we toast this season in the comfort of our climate controlled world. Here’s to gratitude and the remembrance of our forbears!

______

ISAIAH DAVENPORT
Inventory (1828)
1 pr. andirons shovel & tongs etc 6.00
1 pr firedogs & 1 desk 5.00
Sale of Personal Property (filed 1829)
1pr andirons, shovel, tongs & fender 4.00
1 pr. firedogs 1.50

FROM THE PAPERS
Fire Wood.
The subscriber will deliver good Fire Wood from his yard, at the residence of any purchaser in the city, at 5 dollars an d a half cash per cord, by sending an order for the quantity wanted. And four dollars and seventy five cents per cord, delivered at the yard, which is situated on the west end of West Broad-street, above Waynes wharf.
W. C. WAYNE.
Wood will be sawed at fifty cents per cord at the yard.
June 2, 1823, Savannah Daily Republican.

COAL,
Of superior quality, landing from British brig Jessie, at Anderson’s lower wharf, for sale very low if taken from the vessel, by
JOHN H. REID & Co.
January 12, 1823. Savannah Daily Republican.

Fire Wood
150 cords very prime Oak and Hickory
50 do Ash and Oak
For sale very low by
SHADRACK WINKLER.
Mayor’s Wharf next above Wayne’s
Waggon and horses at all times in readiness to convey it to any part of the city at short notice.
January 3, 1823. Savannah Daily Republican.

Fireplace Additions to December
Interpretation:
All fireplaces except the Morning Room and Dining Room have split wood on andirons.
Office: On the mantle is a steel grip and flint and some charred cloth and hemp which would be used to start the fire.
By the hearth is a basket of wood shavings which could be used for tinder.
Drawing Room: By the hearth is a basket of kindling and tinder.
Morning Room: A foot warmer is beside the hearth
Boys Room: A wood plane, wood block and shavings are by the hearth to simulate the Davenport boys making shavings for tinder.

“HISTORY OF THE FIREPLACE,” MAY 3, 1845–CHAMBERS’S EDINBURGH JOURNAL
“So little good have all modern contrivances really effected, that we of the present hour suffer the same inconveniences as the occupants of the Welsh fireside in the dark ages: when we remain near the fire, the part of our bodies nearest to it is liable to be roasted, whilst our back feels freezing, so that we are obliged, when `one side has lost its genial heat, to turn about and give the chilly side to the fire.’ No invention has as yet enable us to preserve a uniform and genial artificial climate in every part of our dwellings—and art in which even the Romans excelled us. Yet this is the age of ingenuity and luxury.”

By Jamie Credle, Davenport House

Have you noticed when visiting one of the fine 18th century houses such as those in Colonial Williamsburg the arrangement of small cylindrical glasses with colorful jellies and creams inside that centers the festive table? In the grandest of homes, such as the Governor’s Palace, these glasses are often arranged in a dessert pyramid of glass salvers. Sometimes placed around the jellies and creams are sweetmeats and cakes. Because of their placement one expects that they were a highlight both for the eye and as well as the appetite.

And then you wonder, “What is that gelatinous mixture? Is that Jell-O?” Without refrigeration or electric mixers or prepackaged gelatin, how did that work? The two “treats” noted by historians and historic cookbooks as filling these glasses are fruit flavored jellies and syllabub, both of which have long culinary histories and may be completely unfamiliar to the modern foodie.

One source notes that syllabub, served either as a frothy dessert or beverage, was a 16th century invention. The determination on whether it is a drink or a dessert is how much wine is used in the recipe. Less would get you a spoonable dessert and more would result in a sweet drink of punch. Authorities have noted that the “bub” in syllabub “was a medieval slang for a bubbly drink.” The usual ingredients in syllabub are cream, whipped egg whites, lemon juice, lemon zest, sugar, nutmeg and an alcohol (cider, wine or champagne). One food historian writes “a range of methods were used to produce syllabub of quite different character,” as is indicated by the great variety of wines that are noted in recipes such as “dry white wine, brandy, cider, port, sherry, Madeira, or a combination of two.” It can be assumed “the sheer range of alcoholic choices indicates the chef used whatever was readily available.” The beverage most often noted is white wine.

Two fascinating points in early syllabub recipes are it is to be made directly “by the cow” and there is often no specification about the temperature of the concoction. In “American’s first cookbook” Amelia Simmons’ American Cookery (1796) notes the recipe “To Make a fine Syllabub from the Cow” which calls for “Sweeten a quart of cyder with double refined sugar, grate nutmeg into it, then milk the cow into your liquor . . .” What?! Could that taste good?

A hands-on food historian writes:

I can . . . confirm from my own experiences, that milking a cow straight into a bowl of sweetened cider, ale or wine produces a result that differs radically from the 20th century expectations of what a syllabub should be. Although a bubbly froth initially forms on the top of the liquid, this quickly subsides and the mixture separates into a creamy whey below a floating mass of clotted, stringy curd, of a kind more likely to grace a baby’s bib than a regal banqueting table. Unless your syllabub cow is extremely well-groomed, the congealing milk will also be garnished here and there with cow hairs and the odd speck of bovine dandruff, a most unappetizing prospect, at least to our modern eyes. (Ivan Day)

The writer goes on to say that he eventually was successful at making a fine frothy syllabub made “under the cow.” It took practice, determined research and being able to read in between the lines, as old recipes often leave out points that we would find necessary. Hannah Glasse in Art of Cookery directs us to “pour over the Top half a Pint or a Pint of Cream.” Another recipe notes to remove the curd. Another recipe calls for adding cream to the wine in advance and shake before being finished “under the cow.” By the 18th century “whipt syllabubs” became the most popular form of this type of concoction and is probably syllabub early 19th century Savannahians would have recognized.

To make a whipt syllabub, cream was poured into a wine mixture and beaten with a birch rod, willow twigs or a chocolate mill. Whisks made with rosemary branches were popular as they contributed a flavor to the cream. The resulting layer of slightly oily bubbles were carefully skimmed off with a spoon and transferred to a dish or horse-hair sieve to drain. The mixture was whisked again to produce more foam and the process repeated, one layer of bubbles being heaped upon another. Although it might take an hour or so, a whipt syllabub made from a pint of cream produced an enormous quantity of insubstantial suds – enough to fill a gallon pancheon. . . . After a long period of draining on the sieve – up to a full day – the foam was transformed into a much drier, extremely light fluff. This was usually spooned onto sweetened wine, or coloured whey, and served in wide topped glasses. (Ivan Day)

Later in the 18th century, “it was discovered that lowering the proportion of wine and using a thicker cream, enabled whipt syllabubs to be made without the tedious process of spooning off the bubbles as they rose. After a short period of vigorous whisking these thicker mixtures set into a uniform lather, rather like modern whipped cream. A certain amount of liquid might form at the bottom of the bowl, but these `solid’ syllabubs were firm and stable enough to last for a number of days.” (Ivan Day)

Now that we understand syllabub, what about jellies?

The whole jelly discussion is intriguing and we were delighted to find in the Telfair Family Papers housed in the Georgia Historical Society clear evidence of the jellies consumed by early 19th century Savannahians. In the historic documents are two recipe books from approximately our time period. The smaller of the two is entitled “Recipe Book for Puddings” and includes hand-written recipes “to make jelly,” “Strawberry Jelly,” “Orange Jelly,” and “Transparent Pudding.” It also provides the wonderful citation “nostrums that are used at fashionable entertainment” noting desserts and treats served mentioning “creams – orange, lemon, ice &c/ jellies, orange, quince do & swine’s foot do.”

Swine’s food jelly? Just in case you didn’t know it, before prepackaged gelatin, cooks boiled calf’s feet to obtain the coagulated consistency of jelly! It was a tedious and time consuming affair to scrape hair from the feet, boiling them for hours then simmering to clarify the broth and filtering through jelly bags.

One on-line food historian writes, “Calves-foot jelly has two forms: sweet, common in 19th-century Britain and America; and savoury–called petcha, a standard of Ashkenazi Jewish cooking. Both dishes start with a long braise of split cow’s feet. The latter adds garlic, onion, salt and pepper, and usually retains the meat that falls from the feet; the former adds sugar, Madeira wine, brandy, cinnamon and citrus, and discards the meat. In both cases the stock is chilled until it sets, and the fat that rises to the top is skimmed off.” (Jon Fasman)

He continues on the unfamiliarity of the tastes to contemporary palates: “Both forms of calves-foot jelly seem wrong now: the sweet because we rarely use meat in desserts, and the savoury because we associate gelatin’s wobbliness with pudding.” (Jon Fasman)

Instead of the thickening agent produced by boiling hog’s feet, a couple of the Telfair recipes call for “isinglass,” which is a clear gelatin formed from the air bladder of certain fish including sturgeon and cod. Though rarely used today it was certainly used in the desserts and confections such as fruit jellies and blancmange, which is sweet dessert commonly made with milk or cream and sugar thickened with isinglass and is mentioned in the Telfair recipes.

The Davenports’ was a very different “food world” and we can only imagine the labor and pandemonium that went on in the kitchen of the home while preparing a tasty syllabub or fruit jelly such as swine’s food jelly in the 1820s. Though we do not know for sure that they were served in their home, certainly they were part of the gracious tables of friends and neighbors. So in recognition of “jellies past” during the month of December, the side board in the Davenport House dining room is graced with faux jellies in a pinkish hue in reproduction glasses all custom made by an English Company Replica Warehouse. And, I suspect many of us would prefer to enjoy the glistening gelatinaity instead of actually tasting the historic mixtures!

SOURCES:
Untitled book and “Recipes for Puddings”, Box 8, Manuscript Collection 793, Georgia Historical Society.
ReplicaWarehouse. CO.UK. 200 Main Road, Goostrey, Cheshire, CW 4 8PD, England
Email: lesleyedwards@replicawarehouse.co.uk www.replicawarehouse.co.uk

Historic cookbooks:
Mrs. Child, The American Frugal Housewife. Boston: Carter, Hendee, and Co. 1833. (Old Sturbridge Village reproduction)
Mary F. Henderson, Practical Cooking and Dinner Giving. 1876. (on-line)
Sarah Rutledge, The Carolina Housewife. 1845 (University of South Carolina Press, reproduction).
Mary Randolph, The Virginia House-wife. 1824 (University of South Carolina Press, reproduction).
Amelia Simmons, The First American Cookbook: A Facimile of “American Cookery,” 1796. (Dover Publications)
Louis Eustache Ude, French Cook, A System of Fashionable and Economical Cookery. 1829. (on-line)

Websites and Internet resources:
“Calf’s foot jelly,” Barron’s Educational Services, Inc.
Ivan Day, “Further Musings on Syllabub, or Why Not `Jumble It A Pritie While’?”, Petits Propos Culinaries 53 (1996).
Elizabeth Fries Ellet, The New Cyclopaedia of Domestic Economy ,and Practical Housekeeping.
“Isinglass.” Definition.
Tim Lambert, “A Brief History of Sweets, Biscuits and Puddings”
The official website of Colonial Williamburg – Dessert Pyramids. http://www.history.org/Foundation/journal/

Jellies and Other Glasses in the Savannah Inventories:

Isaiah Davenport (1828)
4 doz cut and plain wine glasses – 7.00
2 doz cut and plain tumblers – 5.00

Joseph Clay (1805)
1 Glass Pyramid & 3 doz Glasses

Francis Doyle (1817)
1 table set of glass-ware 30.00
1 plated stand and castors 5.00
2 plated and gilt goblets and stands – 10.00

Oliver Sturges (1824)
1 cordial stand
1 plated stand
1 glass stand for jellies
3 doz. jelly glasses

Gardner Tufts (1824)
A set of crockery and glassware 100.000

Philip Brasch (1825)
2 doz. Glass sweetmeat saucers – 10.00
1 glass cake plate 4.00
1 cordial stand with bottles 12.00
1 ½ custard cups 1.50
1 doz. finger glasses – 3.00
4 jelly moulds .50

William Henry Greene (1828)
1 lot glassware – 20.00

Herman D. Greene (1828)
1 doz wine & 1 doz cordial glasses 5.00

William Davies (1829)
Glassware, decanters 40.00

Joseph Habersham (1832)
2 glass pyramids – 2.00
2 doz. jelly glasses – 2.00

Alexander Telfair (1833)
6 doz jelly glasses 18.00

Nostrums that are used at
fashionable entertainments
Butter cake iced plain do caraway
Oranges/in winter season in summer
Peaches nectarines figs melons
Grapes &c – No2 chestnuts
Filberts (serbert?) & cordials
Anniseed, perfect Amour, cimmon,
And peach cordial, wines, white
& red, sweet do punch do &
Mead wine
Dried fruit/raisins almonds prunes

Creams – orange, lemon ices &c jellies
Orange, quince do & swines foot do
Recipe Book of Puddings. Telfair Collection. GHS

Transparent Pudding
Beat 8 eggs, put them into a stew pan,
With ½ lb. sugar, the
Same quantity of butter with
Some nutmeg, sit it on the fire
Keep it stirring until
Thickens set . . .
Recipe Book of Puddings.
Telfair Collection. GHS.

Season the milk with sugar and white wine,
But not enough to curdle it; fill the glasses nearly full, and crown them with whipt cream seasoned.
Mary Randolph. The Virginia House-wife. 1824

Strawberry Jelly
Put some strawberries into an earthenware pan
Squeeze them well with a wooden spoon
Mix some pounded sugar with the fruit and
Let them infuse for an hour that the sugar
May draw out the juice, next pour
in a little water. If the strawberries
are very ripe, squeeze the juice of
2 lemons. Put all this into a bag
that is nearly new that the juice
may be clear
Mix some melted isinglass with
The juice but mind that the whole
Is very cold – put a spoon full into a
Mould over ice to try it if thick
Enough put the whole into a mould
Cover it with ice.
[almost word for word – from French Cook. A System of Fashionable and Economical Cooking. 1829]
Telfair Collection. GHS.

To Make Jelly From Feet
(Calf’s or Swine’s Foot Jelly)
Boil four calf’s feet, that have been nicely cleaned and the hoofs taken off; when the feet are boiled to pieces, strain the liquor through a colander, and when cold, take all the grease off and put the jelly in a skillet, leaving the dregs which will be at the bottom. There should be from four feet, about two quarts of jelly; pour into it one quart of white wine, the juice of six fresh lemons, strained from the seeds, one pound and a half of powdered loaf sugar, a little pounded cinnamon and mace, and the rind thinly pared from two of the lemons; wash eight eggs very clean, whip up the whites to a froth, crush the shells and put with them, mix it with the jelly, set it on the fire, stir it occasionally till the jelly is melted, but do not touch it afterwards. When it has boiled till it looks quite clear on one side, and the dross accumulates on the other, take off carefully the thickest part of the dross, and pour the jelly in the bag; put back what runs through, until it comes quite transparent; then set a pitcher under the bag, and put a cover all over to keep out the dust—the jelly looks much prettier when it is broken to fill the glasses. The bag should be made of cotton or linen, and be suspended in a frame made for the purpose. The feet of hogs make the palest coloured jelly, those of sheep are a beautiful amber colour when prepared.
Mary Randolph. The Virginia House-Wife. 1824.

To Make Jelly
Soak 1 and ½ ounces of the isinglass
For 25 minutes in cold water – take it out and
Let it cool and add the beaten
Whites of 4 eggs – the juice of 3
Lemons – the peel of one a little cinnamon one pint of wine,
And one lb of loaf sugar – stir it well
Boil it about a minute – strain it
Through a jelly bag into moulds
& leave it in a cool place to
Jelly – the jelly bag is
Made of flannel eight or ten
Inches cross the opening
About half a yard deep &Narrowing to a point at the bottom.
Telfair Collection. GHS.

Parents: Jonathan Davenport (1748—1785) and Sarah Thurston

Siblings: Dudley (1781-1862), Samuel (b. ? – d. Sav. Aug. 1820), Thomas

Occupation: “Carpenter”: Apprenticed: In New Bedford, MA

Arrival in Savannah: approx. 1808 (appeared on tax records 1809)

Marriage: Sarah Rosamund Clark on March 15, 1809; Minister: Dr. Henry Kollock

Lease: from Edward Stebbins—Lot 14 in Columbia Ward

Civic Life: 1810—firemaster for Greene and Columbia Wards, appointed to the Board of Health for Columbia Square (1824)

Additionally: purchased a top chair (tax records)

Buildings: worked for the city; Isaiah Davenport – Known Buildings,

1809 – June 19: a two story dwelling house (materials not specified) and “sundry out buildings” on lot 14 Columbia Ward, the lot rented on 7 year lease for Edwards Steffins on June 19, 1809. These buildings he sold to Steffins on 2 Nov. 1812 for $2,500 – and moved to a ½ lot 8, Washington Ward (which he had bought), 1810 – 122 Houston Street (lot No. Greene Ward), 1812 – Martello Tower at Tybee, 1814 – 124 Houston Street, 1817 – house for John McQueen, Jr. on Warren Square; He built but did not design this house, — his mansion on Columbia Square, – house for William R. Holland on Broughton Street, N.B. in yr. narration treat McQueen & Holland houses together – say better show them 2 his work but his chief . . . is the Mansion!

Offices: Elected to the Board of Alderman to represent Mechanics, 1817-22

Troubles: 1823—cited for obstruction of public ways; delinquent taxes

Church: Independent Presbyterian Church—pew #60 ($450)

Children: Susannah E. (1810-Oct. 8, 1814), Sarah R. (1812-June 12, 1813), Thurston W. (1813-May 8, 1814), Isaiah, Jr. (Feb. 27, 1815—Oct. 17, 1868), Benjamin Russ (June 25, 1817), Archibald Clark (1819-1892), Henry Kollock (Dec. 10, 1820-Aug. 18, 1872), Hugh McCall (Aug. 16, 1822-Aug. 1, 1881), Cornelia A. (1824-1853), Dudley (1827-1860)

Originally buried at what is now Colonial Cemetery; moved to Laurel Grove

Parents: Susannah Tippin Sutter of Charleston, SC (grandmother came to SC in 1750s) and Archibald Campbell Clark of Scotland

Mother: Moved to Savannah in 1810; lived with the Davenports?; died in 1829 (68)

Marriage: 1809 to Isaiah Davenport (21 years); 18 years together

Children: Susannah E. (1810-Oct. 8, 1814), Sarah R. (1812-June 12, 1813), Thurston W. (1813-May 8, 1814), Isaiah, Jr. (Feb. 27, 1815—Oct. 17, 1868), Benjamin Russ (June 25, 1817), Archibald Clark (1819-1892), Henry Kollock (Dec. 10, 1820-Aug. 18, 1872), Hugh McCall (Aug. 16, 1822-Aug. 1, 1881), Cornelia A. (1824-1853), Dudley (1827-1860)

Occupation: Wife, mother, boarding house keeper (Davenport House until 1840); lived in several houses in Savannah—1864 northeast corner of Barnard and West Taylor, in 1866 ran a boarding house on the north side of Broughton St. next to the Marshall House Hotel; at the time of her death was a resident of Jones Street. 1860 she owned 11 slaves.

Buried: Laurel Grove Cemetery

*Sarah Rush Davenport — born 1812; died June 12, 1813; age 14 months, 12 days; of teething & bowel complaints; residence (at time of death) “her Father’s [house], Washington Ward” in Savannah

*Thurston W. — born August 1813; died May 8, 1814; age 9 months; of dysentery; residence (at time of death) “his Father’s [house], Washington Ward” in Savannah

Isaiah, Jr. — born February 27, 1815; died October 17, 1868; married Martha E. Fairfax; 4 children

Benjamin Rush — born June 25, 1817; died April 14, 1866; teacher Effington, county South Carolina

Archibald Clark — born 1819; died 1892 (Savannah, GA); married Mrs. Jane E. Postell in 1870; no children; Confederate veteran; occupation customs inspector

Henry Kollock — born December 10, 1820; died August 18, 1872 in Franzenbad, Bohemia; married Jeannie Brent Graham in 1847; 4 children; US Navy; career navy, made ship captain in 1868—died of hepatitis

Hugh McCall — born August 16, 1822; died August 1, 1881; married Martha Ann Elizabeth Stone; 2 children; Confederate veteran; occupation merchant and customs inspector

Cornelia Augusta — born 1824; died 1853; of child bed fever; age 29; married Henry Rootes Jackson in 1844; husband became General/Ambassador to Mexico/ Ambassador to Austria

William Dudley — born 1827; died 1862; Union veteran