The Spoils of War, in Baby Shoes & a Patchwork Quilt

When I was little, my godfather spoke often about a Meissen porcelain platter that he'd hidden in his knapsack during the last days of World War II. He'd guarded it fiercely, refusing to let it out of his sight until he could bring it home as a trophy of the war. He assured us that it had belonged to Hitler, and had been part of the Führer's own dinner service.

To be honest, I don't remember the actual platter itself. Had my godfather sold it? Did it failed to survive the Atlantic crossing back to New York? I don't know. But even then it was clear to me that the real significance of the platter to my godfather wasn't its intrinsic value, but that it represented a piece of the enemy that he'd won and kept, a trophy to be proudly discussed and marveled over for the rest of his life. It was tangible proof that when he'd fought for his country, he'd been among the victors.

Of course, my godfather wasn't alone in this. No matter how much officers frown and governments try to outlaw looting, soldiers have always brought home "souvenirs" from their battles and their enemies - the infamous spoils of war.

I thought of that when I first saw these baby shoes, right, cut from the red wool of a captured British uniform coat, and on display at the Museum of the American Revolution. The shoes belonged to the children of Sgt. James Davenport of Massachusetts, and were fashioned from the captured coat of a British soldier during the Revolution. To Davenport, who lost two brothers in the war, the shoes must have been a poignant reminder of the cost of liberty won for the next generation.

I thought of it again, too, when I saw the quilt, above, on display at Winterthur Museum. Although the quilt is believed to have been made in the early 19thc, a family heirloom from the American Revolution dominates the patchwork pattern. The unusual scarlet shape in the middle is a man's 18thc red wool cloak. The larger semi-circle would have wrapped around the wearer's shoulders, while the smaller semi-circle would have folded back around the neck into a collar. The cloak would have been worn over another coat as an extra layer of warmth and protection during a harsh winter.

Family tradition says the cloak was captured from a British soldier by an ancestor fighting in the northern campaigns, where the weather was coldest, during the American Revolution. The cloak was then likely passed down through the next two generations, and probably with a tale or two attached as well. Winterthur believes the quilt was most likely made by Myranda Codner Patterson (1808-1881) around the time of her marriage to Thomas Patterson in 1828. From there, the trail becomes a bit more hazy. There were several ancestors in the Codner and Patterson families who were the right age to have fought with the Continental Army, but it's unclear which one might have actually captured the cloak.

No matter. When Myranda (or whoever else might have made the quilt) began to cut her patchwork pieces, she left the bright red wool cloak untouched, and instead incorporated its geometric shape into her design. It's easy to imagine the stories that surrounded the quilt after that. Imagine being a child tucked beneath it, and hearing about how your brave ancestor plucked this very cloak from the shoulders of a wicked redcoat officer. Imagine touching that red wool as you drifted off to sleep, and dreaming of hard-fought victories won for the sake of liberty and America.

Much like my godfather and that Meissen platter.

Above: Quilt with inset 18thc men's cloak. Possibly made by Myranda Codner Patterson, possibly Ohio, early 1800s. Winterthur Museum. Photo courtesy of Winterthur Museum.

Right: Child’s Shoes, 18thc., maker unknown, Museum of the American Revolution.

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Alexander Hamilton's Final Medical Bill, 1805

Although too often forgotten today, Dr. David Hosack (1769-1835) was one of early America’s most prominent physicians, botanists, and educators, as well as a proponent of the use of plants for healing and health. He was also the family physician and friend of both Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, and he served as the attending physician at the fatal duel between these two political rivals on July 11, 1804 in Weehawken, NJ. By the conventions of the code of honor, he had stayed back from the duel so as not to be a witness, but as soon as he heard the gunshots, he was faced with the terrible knowledge that one or both of his friends could have been shot.

Hosack quickly realized that Hamilton’s wound would be mortal. He tended him on the boat that carried him back across the Hudson River to New York, easing his friend’s suffering as best he could, and remained with him until his death the following day at the home of William Bayard. He also performed the autopsy, determining that the fatal ball had broken one of Hamilton’s ribs, passed through his liver and diaphragm, and finally lodged against his spine.

Hoping that the shot he’d fired would not prove fatal, Burr wrote this anxious letter to Hosack, requesting an update on Hamilton’s condition. Delivered to Hosack’s house, it’s unlikely that the doctor read it until after Hamilton had already died.

Hamilton died deeply in debt, leaving little for the support of his wife, Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, and their surviving children. When a group of Hamilton’s closest friends created a private fund by subscription to help Eliza, Hosack contributed as well, buying two shares at $200 a piece.

But a year later, Hosack’s own fortunes had declined, and he finally submitted a bill for his last medical services to Hamilton’s estate. In addition to medicines for the first part of 1804, the final item for “General Hamilton” is fifty dollars due for attending him “during his last illness” - a sorrowfully understated description of an excruciating death that need never have happened.

Many thanks to my friend Victoria Johnson for her assistance with this post. For more about the fascinating Dr. Hosack, I recommend her wonderful biography of him, American Eden: David Hosack, Botany, and Medicine in the Garden of the Early Republic.

Above: Bill from David Hosack to the Estate of Alexander Hamilton for Hamilton’s final medical expenses, August 16, 1805. New-York Historical Society.

Right: Dr. David Hosack, by John Trumbull, c1810, Linnean Society of London.

Read more about Alexander Hamilton and Dr. Hosack in my historical novel, I, Eliza Hamilton. My latest novel, The Secret Wife of Aaron Burr, is now available everywhere. Order here.

Aaron Burr, a Bust of Napoleon, and Dreams of Conquest

It’s a common tradition for guests to bring small gifts to their hosts and hostesses when visiting. Today in America it’s often a bottle of wine, a dessert, flowers - small gestures of appreciation for the hospitality.

When Aaron Burr visited his son-in-law’s family in Charleston, SC, he brought the small bust, left, of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Colonel William Alston (1756-1839) was, like Burr, another member of the Revolutionary generation, serving during the war as an aide-de-camp to Brigadier General Francis Marion in the South Carolina campaigns. Also like Burr, he had been active in state politics, and supported Thomas Jefferson’s Democratic-Republican party. But while Burr’s finances were often over-extended, Alston’s inherited wealth was vast and firmly established. Known as “King Billy”, he was definitely Low Country royalty, possessing seven plantations and hundreds of enslaved workers, as well as an elegant town house in Charlestown.

Joseph Alston (1779-1816) was Alston’s oldest son. After attending the College of New Jersey (later Princeton University), he briefly studied law, but soon turned his interests to his plantations and politics. After a courtship that was largely by letter, he married Burr’s daughter Theodosia in 1801; Joseph was twenty-one, and Theodosia was eighteen. Their only son, Aaron Burr Alston, was born the following year.

While from their surviving letters, it seems likely the young couple married for love, their fathers approved of the match for other reasons. Joseph brought wealth and connections to South Carolina’s elite families, while Theodosia was the child of one of the most savvy politicians from the north. At the time of their marriage, the outcome of the presidential election of 1801 was still unresolved, and it seemed likely that Burr would become the country’s third president.

In the end, Burr had to settle for vice president behind President Thomas Jefferson. Ironically, the election also marked the end of Burr’s political power as Jefferson and his supporters effectively marginalized him from any power within the government. The scandal of Burr’s fatal duel with Alexander Hamilton in 1804 effectively ended his political career. He completed his term as vice president, leaving office in 1805.

But in South Carolina, where Hamilton and his Federalist policies regrading trade and finance had never been popular, Burr still had his supporters, led by the Alstons. Over the next several years, Burr became deeply involved in an ambitious - and highly illegal - plan to raise a private army and carve off part of the southwest territories as an empire which Burr himself will lead. Theodosia and her husband knew of the plot, and likely William Alston did as well.

With all that in mind, this Napoleonic gift from Burr to William Alston seems to take on more significance. By 1804, Napoleon had become the first Emperor of the French, and had begun his conquest of Europe. Was this little bust of Napoleon a symbol of what Burr hoped to achieve, a knowing gift between two friends?

Bold dreams, yes, but with a disastrous ending. In 1807, Burr was arrested, brought back to Virginia under an armed guard, and tried for treason. Although acquitted, he was forced to flee his enemies and creditors for exile and poverty in Europe until 1812. Emperor Napoleon, the leader that Burr had once admired, not only refused to meet with him, but also had him under surveillance as a possible enemy of the state. Burr finally returned to New York in 1812, but during that same year his young grandson died of a fever and his daughter Theodosia was lost at sea. Four years later, Joseph Alston also died. Burr resumed his work as a lawyer and lived another twenty years in relative obscurity in New York City, dying in 1836.

In a way, the little bust of Napoleon had a happier story, albeit with a few chips and nicks from earthquake tumbles. He has remained in the family to the present day, with a prominent place on the mantle, right, in the same withdrawing room that Burr visited two hundred years ago.

Many thanks to Gabriella Angeloni for her assistance with this post.

Photos courtesy of Gabriella Angeloni.

My latest historical novel, The Secret Wife of Aaron Burr, is now available everywhere. Order here.

Pins, the Georgian Post-It Used by Jane Austen

Pins were a necessity to everyday 18th c. life. Straight pins were widely used to fasten all kinds of clothing, from women's bodices to infant's diapers, and also used in hand sewing. Pins were considered so indispensable that when Abigail Adams wrote from colonial Massachusetts to her husband John Adams in London in 1775, the one thing she requested was for him to "purchase me a bundle of pins and put in your trunk for me." (Read the rest of the letter here.)

But I hadn't realized that pins were also an essential tool for 18th c. writers. Thanks to (or cursed by, depending on your point of view) computers, most modern writers submit manuscripts electronically. Rewrites and copy edits are all conducted now through the magic of track changes and transmissions. Gone are the days (when I was first published) of hauling specially-purchased boxes filled with tidy printed manuscripts to the post office. No longer are manuscripts read by editors and returned, marked up and bristling with pink "flags", the comments and queries pasted to the edges of pages for authors to answer or rewrite. I've gotten to the point where the only words on paper I see in the entire process are in the finished book – and with the growing popularity of e-books, that may one day vanish, too.

But what did writers do in the days before paper clips and Post-Its? How did an early novelist, editor, or typesetter who was already struggling to make sense of a handwritten manuscript mark revisions and additions? According to the librarians of Oxford's Bodleian Library, the answer is pins – and lots of them. All those notes and insertions and extra copy were handwritten on scraps of paper and pinned in the margin with a straight pin. The pins, above, were all plucked from the library's holdings, and date from 1692 to 1853.

In 2011, the Bodleian acquired a true Jane Austen rarity: the manuscript draft of her abandoned novel, The Watsons. (See here for more about the auction, the staggering realized price, as well as a page of the manuscript itself.) In addition to the clues to cross-outs and rewrites on the draft provide, there were also a wealth of pinned-on additions. For purposes of preserving the manuscript, these pins were carefully removed with their notes, studied, catalogued, and saved – a librarian's scholarly labor of love.

But as a fellow-writer, I like to imagine Jane at work at her small writing table. I wonder: did she use the same pins she used for her clothing, or did she have another stash of pins reserved for writing? Did she keep a pin cushion on the table with a stack of scrap-paper sheets beside her inkwell, prepared and ready to make changes? Or did she tuck them into her sleeve like a hurried seamstress might, keeping them literally at hand when she needed them?

As a side-note: All of those indispensable pins were made by hand in the 18thc. Pin-making was a specialized trade, practiced by both women and men. According to Diderot’s Encyclopédie, there were eighteen distinct steps to creating a pin from brass wire, including cleaning the wire, cutting, pointing, and heading the shanks, whitening (tinning), washing, and finally inserting the finished pins into papers to sell. Depending on the size of the pin-making workshop, the various steps were performed by different workers, a specialized division of labor that helped increase production. Although contemporary accounts vary, an average 18thc English pin-making workshop produced about 2,000 pins a day per worker. Imagine spending an entire work-life, dawn until dusk, making nothing but pins….

Above: Manuscript pins, c. 1690-1850. Bodleian Library

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Those Mysterious 18thc Masks

Since masks are back in the news - and also once again making fashion statements as well as being worn for reasons of health, I though I’d revisit this older post about masks in the 18thc. Masks frequently appear in portraits of the time, adding the necessary touch of mystery to fancy-dress costumes and general coquetry. But recent research by Mark Hutter, tailor in the Historic Trades Program, Colonial Williamsburg, and Philippe L.B.Halbert, PhD candidate, Yale University History of Art, shows that women were wearing masks for far more occasions than masquerades.

Masks as a fashionable accessory most likely originated in Italy, and made their way north to Britain during the 16thc. Samuel Pepys made note of women wearing black masks called visors or vizzards to attend the theater incognito in the 1660s, and they were often faulted for deceiving men (who of course believed they were entitled to know what kind of face was being hidden), and were also associated with prostitution.

But by the mid-18thc., flat oval masks like the replicas, below left, were being worn by women not only to protect their identities and their modesty, but also their complexions while riding or walking outdoors. The detail, right, from the 1751 Italian painting The Rhinoceros shows one of these masks worn by the woman at the top, contrasting with a masquerade-style half-mask worn by the gentleman in the lower right.

These oval masks were not considered objects of vanity, but as practical accessories. They preserved the face from sunburn, and were also useful in avoiding male scrutiny and judgement. Made of velvet mounted on pasteboard and lined with vellum, the masks were flat and plain, with openings for the eyes and nose. Some had colored glass in the eye-openings, a kind of primitive sun-visor.  The masks did not tie around the head or over the ears like modern masks. Instead they were held in place by a bead on a loop, mounted near the mouth opening, and clasped between the wearer's teeth. (See the interior of the replica mask, below left, with the bead on a blue cord.) This awkward arrangement must have helped discourage unwanted conversation with strangers, since the clenched teeth necessary to wear the mask made speaking difficult.

What's most interesting about the masks is the ladies who were wearing them. The research conducted by Mark and Philippe prove that masks weren't simply a conceit of London ladies, but were being worn by all kinds of women in the American colonies as well. They found documentary evidence of masks from New England to Charleston, North Carolina, and being worn by upper-class ladies in cities and the daughters of farmers. Masks were also being worn by females as young as George Washington's four-year-old step-daughter Patsy and as old as a seventy-year-old Quaker grandmother.

As someone who never ventures outside without sunblock, I can sympathize with the need to protect the face from the sun. But seeing one of the replica masks worn, above left, (by Sarah Woodyard, journeywoman in the mantua-maker’s trade), with real eyes glittering behind the openings, I'm afraid I found the effect creepy in a Friday the 13th way, and suspect masks like these may be one fashion-trend that won't be revived any time soon.

Many thanks to Mark Hutter, Philippe L.B.Halbert, and Sarah Woodyard. For more information about 18thc masks, please see this recent article by Philippe.

Photographs copyright 2014 by Susan Holloway Scott.

Right: The Rhinoceros, by Pietro Longhi, 1751. Ca' Rezzonico.

Read more about Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton in my historical novel, I, Eliza Hamilton. My latest novel, The Secret Wife of Aaron Burr, is now available everywhere. Order here.

Abigail Adams Disapproves of French Fashion, c1800

I'm sure it's no surprise to anyone who reads my books that I enjoy writing about the fashions of the past. It’s not only a way to dress vicariously through my characters (though this is important, given that writers whilst writing are  inveterate slobs), but it’s also a great way to show the passage of time within a story. I had particular fun writing about the women’s clothing in I, Eliza Hamilton. The story covers about thirty years, from 1777 to 1804, and what a period for fashion!

As a wealthy young woman and then the wife of a prominent lawyer and statesman, my heroine Eliza's wardrobe follows the styles of the day, from dresses worn over whalebone-stiffened stays and hoops with powdered hair in the 1770s to the airy high-waisted dresses of the early 19thc. It must have been quite an evolution, but it was also one that she embraced. As her much-more-fashionable sister Angelica Schuyler Church wrote to close a letter in 1794: "Adieu my dear Sister yours with all my heart. Remember that your waist must be short, your petticoats long, your headdress moderately high, and altogether a la Grec...."  Words to live by, indeed.

But not all American women (or statesmen's wives) were so eager to follow the latest trends. In 1800, Abigail Smith Adams was the First Lady, with her husband John serving the final year of his term as president in the then-capitol of Philadelphia. Ladies there were quick to follow the latest fashions from Paris, but Abigail was having none of it. She had recently read an article (probably something of a sermon) by a lay preacher  who "thinks there are some Ladies in this city, who stand in need of admonition, and I fully agree with him." Does she ever! Here's more of her commentary in a letter written over several days (15-18 March, 1800) to her sister Mary Smith Cranch:

"The Stile of Dress...is really an outrage upon all decency. I will describe it as it has appeared even at the drawing Room - a Sattin petticoat of certainly not more than three breadths gored at the top, nothing beneath but a chimise over this thin coat, of muslin...made so strait before as perfectly to show the whole form, the arms naked almost to the shoulder and without stays or Bodice...and the "rich Luxurience of naturs Charms" without a handkerchief fully displayed...when this Lady has been led up to make her curtzey, which she does most gracefully it is true, every Eye in the Room has been fixed upon her and you might litterally see through her....[Most of the other ladies also] wear their Cloaths too scant upon the body, and too full upon the Bosom for my fancy, not content with the Show which nature bestows, they borrow from art, and litterally look like Nursing Mothers....The Lady described & her Sister, being fine women and in the first Rank, are leaders of the fashion, but they Show more of the [word illegible] than the decent Matron or the modest woman." *

In fairness to Abigail, there's probably more going on here than fashion alone. This era marked the beginning of the two-party system in American politics. Her husband John Adams was a Federalist; the opposing party, led by Thomas Jefferson, was the Democratic-Republican Party. One of the issues dividing the two parties was the French Revolution. The Federalists abhorred the violence, chaos, and breakdown of traditional government of the Terror, while the Democratic-Republicans believed the Jacobins were simply following the precedent of the American Revolution, and the bloodshed of the guillotine was unfortunate but necessary. At the time, America was also engaged in an undeclared naval war with France, the aptly-named Quasi-War.

The unstructured, classically inspired fashions from Paris might be the latest style, but to Abigail they likely were also the clothes of the Jacobins and the French Revolution. This was a political fashion statement that she'd no wish to approve, let alone wear herself. (Her portrait from about this time is right: still stylishly dressed, and entirely appropriate for a Federalist president’s wife in her fifties.)

It's also difficult to know exactly how far the American ladies were willing to follow the French. The English fashion plate for April 1800, right, seems modest enough, and so does the portrait, lower left, of Mrs. Harrison Gray Otis (Sally Foster), whose husband was a Federalist congressman. But then there's this portrait, upper left, of a now-unknown French woman dressed in the most extreme (and extremely revealing) version of the style. One can only imagine what Abigail would have to say about her!

* Abigail Adams, “15 March 1800 to 18 March 1800,” Illustrated inventory of Abigail Adams' letters, American Antiquarian Society. If you wish to read the entire letter in Abigail’s emphatic handwriting, the original is digitized here. Many thanks to Sara Georgini, Historian & Series Editor, Adams Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society, for helping me locate this quotation.

Above left: Detail, Portrait of a Young Woman in White by Circle of Jacques-Louis David, c1798, National Gallery of Art.

Right: Full Dress for April, 1800, anonymous fashion plate.

Lower left: Detail, Mrs. Harrison Gray Otis (Sally Foster) by Gilbert Stuart, c1805, Reynolda House Museum of Art.

Lower right: Abigail Smith Adams (Mrs. John Adams) by Gilbert Stuart, c1800, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

Read more about Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton in my historical novel, I, Eliza Hamilton. My latest novel, The Secret Wife of Aaron Burr, is now available everywhere. Order here.

Eliza Hamilton as the Heroine in a Lesson on "Deceitful Appearances", 1855

Before the days of literary copyrights and wire services, the editors of American newspapers filled their pages with articles they freely adapted from other sources. While these borrowed pieces could be newsworthy - an editor in rural Pennsylvania had no other way to share important current events from New York or Philadelphia - most of these short articles are what today we’d consider “fillers": little homilies, jokes, and random historical facts, plus reports of unusual weather and two-headed cows.

And then there’s this brief lesson about the perils of making snap judgements based on a person’s appearance.

What makes this one stand out, of course, is that the main character is Eliza Schuyler Hamilton (1757-1854), widow of Gen. Alexander Hamilton. The story was making the rounds of small newspapers in the spring of 1855. Eliza had died the previous November, at the considerable age of 97, and her death was probably still fresh in people’s minds. She was respected not only for her charitable work as the directoress of the New York Orphan Asylum Society, but also as a link to the American Revolution, a woman married to a Founder, and who had known everyone, including George and Martha Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette. The tragic circumstances of her husband’s death were still scandalous two generations later. Coupled with the fact that she never remarried and continued to wear old-fashioned mourning in honor of him (from portraits and descriptions, it appears that she chose to dress in the style of 1804, the year she was widowed) for the remainder of her long life only added to the solemn air of perpetual grief and loss about her.

This version, right, of the story (transcribed with its quirks of spelling and grammar) appeared in the Vermont Christian Messenger, Montpelier, Vermont, on May 16, 1855.

APPERANCES DECEITFUL: Mrs. Alexander Hamilton on a recent visit to N.Y. was arrayed, as usual, in her widow’s weeds of the deepest cast, and those not of the newest or most fashionable pattern. She attended church, and was shown into a pew which was empty. But unexpectedly to the sexton, soon after, the owner and his family came in. Mrs. Hamilton looked like an aged widow, and one who had known poverty as well as bereavement. – Advancing to his pew and holding open the door, the manner of which indicated to her quick eye that she was an unwelcome occupant of the pew. She arose and left it. In a moment a dozen pew doors flew open: gentlemen of the highest rank sprung into the aisle, showing a general rivalry to obtain the honor of her presence in their pew; and the astonished gentleman from whose pew Mrs. H. had been removed, learned her name and position, and also learned that appearances are often deceitful.

While the now-unknown author of this brief scene was probably most intent on delivering the moral at the end, there are enough details to make it seem likely that he was inspired by an actual incident. Although Eliza had lived most of her adult life in New York City, she had moved to Washington DC in 1848 with her daughter Eliza Holley. Eliza had always been an intrepid and independent traveller; however, given her advanced age, it seems unlikely that she would have returned to New York and attended church alone. It’s possible that the story is derived from an earlier incident, when Eliza was younger, or perhaps the accompanying family member or friend wasn’t included to add pathos to the story.

The church filled with “gentlemen of the highest rank” is probably Trinity Church in lower Manhattan, where she and Alexander are now buried side by side. As a one-time member of the congregation, Eliza would have been recognized by the sexton and other members of the congregation, while a newer, younger member might be forgiven for not knowing who she was.

It also sounds very much like Eliza to assess the scene with her “quick eye”, and to choose to retreat with dignity and without making a scene, especially given the setting. She was an indomitable woman, but she knew where to pick her battles. A church pew wouldn’t have been one of them. I only wonder who the hapless gentleman was who expected her to move, and whose pew and hospitality she accepted instead.

Thanks to Chris Woodyard for sharing this newspaper item with me.

Top: Detail, Portrait of Mrs. Alexander Hamilton (Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton) by Daniel Huntington, mid-1800s. National Museum of American History, Smithsonian.

Read more about Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton in my historical novel, I, Eliza Hamilton. My latest novel, The Secret Wife of Aaron Burr, is now available everywhere. Order here.

How Many Hand-sewn Stitches in an 18thc Man's Shirt?

In the 18thc, a man's linen shirt was perhaps the most democratic of garments. Every male wore one, from the King of England to his lowest subjects in the almshouse, and though the quality of the linen and laundering varied widely, the construction was virtually the same.

Contrary to the modern belief that the people of the past were dirty in their person and dress, Georgian men were fastidious about their shirts. Men were judged by the cleanliness of their linen. From laundry records of the time, it's clear that the majority of men changed their shirts daily, and in the hot summer months, it wasn't unusual to change twice a day. This wasn't just a habit of wealthy gentlemen, either. Tradesmen, shopkeepers, and others of the "middling sort" had a good supply of shirts in their wardrobes, a dozen or so on average.

While most of these shirts were purchased from tailors, shirts were one of the few garments that women could make at home for their husbands, brothers, fathers, and sons. Eighteenth century shirts were loose-fitting, geometric garments, all precise squares and rectangles with straight seams. They weren't difficult for the average seamstress to construct - keeping in mind that everything was being sewn by hand before the invention of the sewing machine. The precision of that seamstress's stitching would make them not only more attractive, but also more long-wearing through the rough-and-tumble laundering (no gentle cycle) of the time. But how long would it take to make such a shirt? And how many stitches must be taken in the process?

As part of the Historic Trades program at Colonial Williamsburg, the mantua-makers of the Margaret Hunter shop have made men’s shirts themselves, and have also pondered this same question. A chart in the July, 1782 issue of The Lady's Magazine, right, calculated the "number of stitches in a plain-shirt", perhaps to provide the amateur seamstresses among their readers with a number to impress the home-stitched shirt's wearer. The Magazine's estimated total was an impressive 20,619 stitches for a man's shirt.

The Margaret Hunter seamstresses took these calculations a step further. Working an average of 30 stitches per minute at a gauge of 10 stitches per inch, it would take approximately eleven and a half hours to stitch a shirt. Of course that doesn't take into account the time for cutting threads, finishing a thread, or threading needles, nor for cutting out the pieces to be sewn, and it also doesn't make allowances for the individual seamstress's speed. While the needles in the Margaret Hunter shop seem to fly, the ladies freely admit that they'd probably be considered slow in comparison to their 18thc counterparts who sewed from childhood.

Many thanks to Janea Whitacre, mistress of the mantua-making trade, Colonial Williamsburg, for her assistance with this post.

Above: Shirt, maker unknown, linen, probably made in America, c1790-1820. Winterthur Museum. Photograph © 2014 by Susan Holloway Scott.

Below: Excerpt from The Lady's Magazine, July, 1782.

My latest historical novel, The Secret Wife of Aaron Burr, is now available everywhere. Order here.

A "Lover's Eye" of Theodosia Burr, c1801

Born into one of the most elite of New England families, Aaron Burr was determined to prove he was a gentleman of taste and intellectual refinement as well as an accomplished lawyer and savvy politician. He received the latest books from London booksellers for his personal library, his dinners featured European-inspired menus, and his home was filled with beautiful furnishings. Even the trees and plants in his gardens were carefully chosen and cultivated to reflect his interest in botany and horticulture. He had portfolios of engraved prints to peruse, and one of the prizes of his personal art collection was a portrait of the feminist writer and philosopher Mary Wollstonecroft.

Burr went a step further than most of his American contemporaries: he became the patron of American artist  John Vanderlyn (1775-1852). Born in Kingston, NY, the teenaged Vanderlyn was continuing his artistic training by working in the studio of another American painter, Gilbert Stuart. Stuart painted Burr in the early 1790s, and it could be that Burr was sitting for his portrait when he first met Vanderlyn. Burr was so impressed with the young artist’s talent that he immediately made him his protege and offered him financial support to pursue his career further. In 1796, Burr paid for Vanderlyn to travel to Paris to further his studies, and when the painter returned to New York City in 1801, he lived in the Burr household. During this time, he painted a matching pair of portraits of Burr and his daughter Theodosia (1783-1813), right, as well as the self-portrait, left. By then Burr had been elected vice-president of the United States, and he delighted in introducing Vanderlyn to his friends and associates in both New York and Washington, DC for commissions. Vanderlyn returned to Europe in 1803, painting and showing his work to acclaim in Paris and Rome.

In the meantime, Burr’s star had begun to fall. His fatal duel with Alexander Hamilton in 1804 effectively ended his political career, and his trial and acquittal for treason in 1807 forced him to flee to Europe and a self-imposed and impecunious exile in Europe from 1808 to 1812. In Paris, Vanderlyn was able to help his old patron, offering Burr much-needed shelter and support. The two remained friends after Burr’s return to New York, and for the remainder of the older man’s life.

Vanderlyn himself returned to America in 1815. While he painted portraits of many of the most important figures of the day - including Presidents James Madison, Andrew Jackson, and Zachary Taylor - as well as history paintings to decorate the Rotunda of the United State Capitol, his Neo-Classical style was slowly falling from favor. Commissions became fewer and farther apart. By the time he died in poverty in his hometown of Kingston in 1852, he was a forgotten figure.

Vanderlyn never married. He was known to have admired Burr’s daughter Theodosia, and popular legend says that he had longed for that admiration to be reciprocated. Theodosia would have dazzled most men: she was brilliant, beautiful, sophisticated, and charming, and perhaps the best-educated woman in Federal America. But no matter what Vanderlyn might have hoped, Theodosia - and likely her father - had much grander matrimonial aspirations than a mere painter. In 1801, at the age of eighteen, she married Joseph Alston, an extremely wealthy and well-connected planter from Charleston, and a gentleman soon be elected governor of South Carolina. As brilliant as that match was, their marriage was not long. Twelve years later, in 1813, Theodosia was tragically lost at sea, and Joseph died three years later in 1816.

The tiny (it’s less than an inch across) brooch, above, is believed to contain a portrait of Theodosia’s eye, painted by Vanderlyn, and frequently worn by him on the lapel of his coat. (The brooch was most recently on public display in the exhibition The Schuyler Sisters and Their Circle at the Albany Institute of History and Art.) Called a “lover’s eye”, these miniature portraits framed as jewels were made fashionable by the Prince of Wales, later George IV. One of the earliest was painted in 1786 for the Prince by Richard Cosway, and showed just the eye of prince’s mistress and would-be wife, Maria Fitzherbert. Although the Prince and Mrs. Fitzherbert had wed in secret, she was considered an unsuitable choice for a royal wife (she had been widowed twice, was six years older than the Prince, and worst of all, was a Roman Catholic), and the King refused to acknowledge the wedding. Romantically, the Prince wore the miniature portrait as a secret tribute to his forbidden wife - even if everyone else knew about it. Scandal or not, lover’s eyes became briefly popular as sentimental jewelry in the late 18th-early 19th centuries.

It’s likely that Vanderlyn saw others lover’s eyes during his first visit to Europe, and painted the miniature shown above to honor Theodosia. At least that’s the story. Some experts have pointed out that since painting in miniature on ivory was a highly specialized skill, one that Vanderlyn was not known to possess, it’s unlikely that he could have executed such a lovely example in his first and only known example. No matter: I’m willing to suspend art historical logic, and believe it was painted by a lovesick young painter for the beautiful woman he could never win.

Thanks to  Diane Shewchuk, Curator, Albany Institute of History & Art, for her assistance with this post.

Above: Miniature of Theodosia Burr’s Eye Set as a Pin, attributed to John Vanderlyn, c1801, Senate House State Historic Site, New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation. Photo by Jessie Serfilippi.

Right: Theodosia Burr (Mrs. Joseph Alston) by John Vanderlyn, 1802, New-York Historical Society.

Left: Self-Portrait by John Vanderlyn, 1800, Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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For Memorial Day: Remembering the Soldiers Who Didn't Die in Combat

Because I’m still following the covid-19 stay-at-home order for Pennsylvania, I won’t be making any pilgrimages to historic sites this Memorial Day weekend. But I didn’t want to let the day pass unnoticed, so I’ve thought back to a visit I made three years ago to the then-new  Museum of the American Revolution, one of my favorite places in the Philadelphia. In those days before social-distancing, I’d plenty of company, too, including many families with children. In 2017, I thought there had never been a more urgent time in American history to learn about our country's founding, and how the responsibilities that were granted to citizens in 1776 are equally important for us. In 2020, in the middle of a pandemic that has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of Americans, those responsibilities as citizens have only grown.

Part of the Museum's observation of the Memorial Day weekend was a quiet reminder that not all those who gave their lives for the Revolution did so in battle. Only a few blocks away from the Museum is the site of a mass grave where Continental soldiers were buried by the British then occupying the city. In 1777, John Adams described his visit to the site in a letter to his wife Abigail:

"I have spent an Hour, this Morning, in the Congregation of the dead. I took a Walk into the Potters Field, a burying Ground between the new stone Prison, and the Hospital, and I never in my whole Life was affected with so much Melancholly. The Graves of the soldiers, who have been buryed, in this Ground, from the Hospital and bettering House, during the Course of the last Summer, Fall, and Winter, dead of the small Pox, and Camp Diseases, are enough to make the Heart of stone to melt away. The Sexton told me, that upwards of two Thousand soldiers had been buried there, and by the Appearance of the Graves, and Trenches, it is most probably to me, he speaks within Bounds....Disease has Destroyed Ten Men for Us, where the Sword of the Enemy has killed one." *

Adams was right. While the actual figures for the war are difficult to pin down today, it's estimated that approximately 8,000 Continental soldiers were killed in battle between 1775-1783, while another 17,000 died from diseases such as small pox, typhus, dysentery, and typhoid, often as British prisoners of war in the notoriously unhealthy prison ships. Later victims of the 1793 Yellow Fever epidemic (an epidemic that killed roughly ten percent of the Philadelphia’s population) were also buried in the area.

Today the site of the potter's field lies beneath Washington Square, a tidy, tree-shaded park filled with babies in strollers and well-behaved dogs. The square is dominated by a monument, built in the 1950s, and dedicated to the tomb of the unknown Revolutionary War soldiers buried there. The monument includes a statue of George Washington, and a quotation from his Farewell Address, delivered when he stepped down from the presidency and ended twenty years of service to his country. That quotation is worth considering today, too: “The independence and liberty you possess are the work of joint councils and joint efforts of common dangers, sufferings, and success.”

Three years ago, in return for a small donation, the Museum offered visitors red and white carnations to take to the Square to honor the thousands of unknown soldiers and sailors buried there. As I stood before the monument with my carnation, I thought of those long-ago men and boys and likely a few women, too, and of the families and sweethearts who never knew what became of them, beyond that they never returned home. Perhaps there was no "glory" to their deaths, whatever that may mean. Yet still they made the greatest sacrifice possible so that, 240 years later, this place could be a peaceful park filled with children. A single carnation doesn't begin to be enough thanks, does it?

* John Adams letter to Abigail Adams, 13 April 1777, from the collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Click here to see the entire original letter plus a transcript.

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"The Fair Secluder": Social-Distancing on Nantucket, c1797

While social-distancing and self-isolation are expressions that seem very much of our time, the concepts behind them are hardly new. By necessity, people in the past were often isolated and separated from the people and places they cared for. Eighteenth century people didn’t have the consolation of video chats or texts, either, and months or even years could pass before a letter or a relayed verbal reassurance could come from someone far from home.

Phebe Folger Coleman (1771-1857) must have known all about this kind of separation. She was born on the island of Nantucket, 30 miles out to sea from the mainland of Massachusetts. The island’s population was fewer than 5,000 people in the 1790s, and the majority of the man were employed as sailors or whalers, occupations that could take them from home for an extended time. A child conceived during shore leave could be born, walking, and talking before he or she finally met Papa.

Unlike many 18thc women, Phebe was fortunate to belong to a family that valued education for both their daughters and sons (her niece Lydia Folger Fowler became the second woman to earn a medical degree in America). Phebe was accomplished in mathematics, French, and astronomy as well as a talented writer, artist, and poet. As a teenager, she began keeping a commonplace book that she titled Un Recueil [A Collection]. Commonplace books were a kind of combined literary scrapbook and diary, filled with whatever the keeper - poems, article, drawings, inspiring essays and quotations - thought was worth preserving for posterity and reflection. Phebe continued to add to hers through 1806.

The painting and poem, above, are from Un Recueil. It’s likely that Phebe copied the figures from a European print. The stylish shepherd and shepherdess may flirt among their flocks in the background, but the young woman - “The Fair Secluder” - in the foreground prefers her solitude and the company of the poets in her book:

“Far from life’s busy noisy scene/I seek a calm retreat/Where Nature smiles with brow serene/Around my humble seat./Of all her beauteous works so bright/I take a rapt’rous view/And then peruse what Poets write/And ancient Sages knew.”

Perhaps Phebe could romanticize the notion of being a dreamy scholar, lost in a book. Perhaps she lived in a crowded family household where privacy was at a premium, and the idea of sitting alone in a tree, far away from the distractions of other people, was a tempting one.

Soon after, however, solitude lost much of its imagined appeal. In 1798, Phebe married a sailor, Samuel Coleman. She taught him the mathematics necessary for navigation and trading, and his career prospered. On shore in Nantucket, Phebe taught school and raised their three children while Samuel was away, and his long voyages separated them for months at a time. They both missed one another so acutely that, in 1809, he quit the sea. They sold their house, left Nantucket, and moved to a farm near Ghent, New York. There they remained, together, until his death in 1828.

Phebe’s commonplace book is now in the collection of Houghton Library, Harvard University. It has been recently digitized, and can be read online here.

Thanks to John Overholt, Curator of Early Books & Manuscripts, Houghton Library, Harvard University, for leading me to Phebe’s commonplace book.

Above: Page from Un receuil : containing painting, penmanship, algebra and pieces selected from various authors in prose and verse, with a few pieces in French with their translation by Phebe Folger of Nantucket : manuscript, 1797-1806. Houghton Library, Harvard University.

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An American in Paris, 1786: John Trumbull and Marie Marguerite Carreaux de Rosemond

Today the American artist John Trumbull (1746-1843) is best known for his iconic paintings of American history, including The Declaration of Independence, Surrender of Lord Cornwallis, and The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker's Hill, June 17, 1775. He also painted portraits of famous early Americans such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams. He painted Alexander Hamilton numerous times, with one of these portraits inspiring Hamilton’s likeness on the ten dollar bill.

Trumbull was himself a member of the Revolutionary generation. During the war, he witnessed the Battle of Bunker Hill, served (like Hamilton) as an aide-de-camp to Commander-in-Chief General George Washington, and deputy adjutant-general to General Horatio Gates, giving him the credibility and connections to create his history paintings.

But unlike the majority of young American officers, Trumbull resigned his commission early in the war, and instead of returning home to Connecticut, he made his first of several trips to Europe to pursue his artistic career. His first voyage to London in 1780 to study with another American artist Benjamin West became a political nightmare for the twenty-four-year-old Trumbull. Great Britain was in an uproar over the American capture, trial, and execution of British agent Major John André. Because Trumbull had served Washington, he arrested in retaliation on inflated charges and threatened with execution. Only the intervention of West, a favorite artist of King George III, rescued Trumbull from imprisonment and possible death.

Another trip to London in 1786 led to an introduction to Thomas Jefferson, the American minister to France. Jefferson invited Trumbull to be his guest in Paris. The invitation also led Trumbull into the most entertaining portion of his life. As Jefferson’s artistic protege, Trumbull was introduced to the highest levels of French society, and with him visited the best galleries, shops, salons, and theaters that Paris had to offer on the eve of their own revolution. (Among those he met in Paris was Angelica Schuyler Church, sister to Eliza Schuyler Hamilton and sister-in-law to Alexander Hamilton.) He in turn introduced Jefferson to Italian artist Maria Cosway and her English husband, also an artist, Richard Cosway.

They became an unusual foursome, traveling across Europe ostensibly to admire and acquire art while Jefferson relentlessly pursued the flirtatious Mrs. Cosway. It must have been an uncomfortable situation for Trumbull, and even after their return to Paris, Jefferson continued to employ Trumbull as a romantic go-between, carrying letters to Mrs. Cosway. By the end of 1787, however, the relationship between Jefferson and Mrs. Cosway had begun to cool, and Trumbull returned to London to paint, doubtless with something of a sigh of relief.

But for Trumbull, the connections he made with other artists in Paris had been invaluable and inspiring. He was particularly impressed with the talented French women artists like Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun and Adélaïde Labille-Guiard and their pupils in their studios. Trumbull’s ostensible goal while in Paris was to complete portrait sketches of surviving French officers who had served at the siege of Yorktown for his painting-in-progress, The Surrender of Lord Cornwallis.

Yet his time wasn’t entirely devoted to drawing aging French officers. One of Adélaïde Labille-Guiard’s most talented students was Marie Marguerite Carreaux de Rosemond. Around eighteen at the time, Mlle Carreaux de Rosemond was also regarded as a stylish beauty, as the portrait by Mme Labille-Guiard, above, proves. Dressed in blue velvet, white silk, and lace, her hair extravagantly poufed and dressed, and oversized faux pearl earrings brushing her shoulders, she definitely possessed the Parisian je ne sais quoi that wasn’t to be found back home in Trumbull’s Federalist Connecticut. She must have caught his eye, for on one of his visits to Mme Labille-Guiard’s studio, he made the lovely sketch, right, of Mlle Carreaux de Rosemond on the corner of larger drawing.

The impromptu portrait was never included in any of Trumbull's history paintings, nor was that likely his intention. Even as a fiction writer, I won’t try and imagine any romantic story here, either; Mlle Carreaux de Rosemond married engraver Charles Clément Balvay in 1788, and sadly died the same year. Instead Trumbull’s sketch of a beautiful young woman probably became a souvenir of his time in Paris, inspiring and unforgettable.

Above: Marie-Marguerite Carreaux de Rosemond by Adelaide Labille-Guiard, c1785, private collection

 Left: Detail, Madonna and Child with Saints Joseph and John by John Trumbull, 1786, Fordham University.

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A Silk Vest Honoring the Marquis de Lafayette, 1824

While there were many volunteers from European countries who came to join the Continental Army during the American Revolution, one young nobleman stood out among the others. An aristocratic idealist with a military background, Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette (1757-1834) was only nineteen when he met General Washington in August 1777. Already commissioned by the American Congress as a major general, Lafayette was not at first given troops to command, but instead became a member of Washington's staff.

At the Battle of Brandywine, Lafayette saw his first experience in the field; he was shot in the leg, yet still was cited by Washington for his "bravery and military ardor." He went on to play a key role in the war, not only as an officer and close friend to Washington, but also as a diplomat who helped secure the French ships and soldiers that ultimately tipped the scales for an American victory. He was celebrated as one of the most popular heroes of the Revolution, and remains so to this day. (How many of you began singing Guns and Ships in your head at the mere mention of his name?)

Lafayette would also have been known to every one of the characters in my more recent historical novels. In the new country, he became a truly heroic figure, recognized and celebrated in almost the same way as Washington himself. For Eliza and Alexander Hamilton in I, Eliza Hamilton, he was also a dear friend, so trusted that when the marquis was imprisoned during the French Revolution, he sent his son to America for safety and entrusted his welfare to the Hamiltons.

This silk vest was included in a 2018 exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington, DC. Through a well-chosen selection of paintings, maps, and artifacts, The American Revolution: A World War explained how the Revolution was only part of a global shift in the balance of power, war, and conquest that marked the 18thc world. As a Frenchman fighting the British with the American forces and Spanish allies, Lafayette was prominently featured.

But it's not only his wartime exploits that were highlighted. Lafayette's triumphant return to America in 1824 is also included. To quote from the exhibition:

“In 1824, the Marquis de Lafayette returned to the United States at the invitation of President James Monroe. Over fourteen months, he visited all twenty-four states....[President Monroe's invitation came as America] approached the 50th anniversary of its independence. He hoped the general's iconic presence would help rekindle the nation's "revolutionary spirit" and commitment to unity, which seemed to be slipping away. The trip was a smashing success, but it did not moderate the divisive 1824 presidential contest between John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson.”

Americans celebrated Lafayette's visit with all kinds of souvenirs. Much like modern Americans wear t-shirts printed with the names and faces of their heroes, Lafayette's portrait was emblazoned on ribbons, dresses, and gloves, as well as the vest shown here:

“Hosting the Marquis de Lafayette at a New York banquet, Revolutionary War veteran Matthew Clarkson wore this vest covered with the general's image. During his sojourn, Lafayette attended hundreds of banquets, balls, and celebrations.”

Though the Marquis was far too well-bred to record his thoughts about his host, I wonder what it must have been like to sit through a banquet across from a man wearing your face and name all over his chest....

Above left and detail right: Vest worn at banquet for Marquis de Lafayette, 1824-1836, National Museum of American History. Photos ©2018 Susan Holloway Scott.

Lower right: Le marquis de La Fayette en capitaine du régiment de Noailles by Louis Léopold Boilly, 1788, Musée national du château de Versailles. Image ©RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource NY.

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New Thoughts on Who Commissioned This Mourning Ring in Honor of Alexander Hamilton

If this gold mourning ring, above and right, looks familiar, it’s because I’ve already written about it here. But since I wrote that first post in 2017, I’ve had the privilege of seeing the ring in person, as well as a second Hamilton mourning ring. I have a new perspective on the ring now, and fresh thoughts on who commissioned and wore it first.

The Hamilton family tradition states that the ring, above, belonged to Hamilton’s widow, Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton (the heroine of my historical novel I, Eliza Hamilton) and was worn by her or one of her two daughters. While it is owned today by a Hamilton descendant, it has recently been on loan and on view at the Museum of the American Revolution as part of their Year of Hamilton programming, and in The Schuyler Sisters and Their Circle exhibition at the Albany Institute of History & Art.

Mourning rings were an important part of the elaborate 18thc rituals of grief. In addition to ordering mourning clothing following a death, rings were commissioned that often included strands of the deceased’s hair, and were engraved with his or her name, age at death, and the dates of birth and death. Elite families would not only commission such rings for themselves, but also for close friends, including pallbearers. The rings would serve both as a personal remembrance, and as a way of publicly honoring the deceased.

But after Alexander Hamilton’s duel with Aaron Burr and his unexpected death in July, 1804, his widow Eliza was in no financial position to order expensive gold mourning jewelry. He had left her and their children deeply in debt, and only the intervention of his friends saved the Hamiltons’ home from being seized by his creditors.

Based on a surviving letter, she appears to have ordered only the single ring, left; it’s also the only one known to exist. (I’ve written about this ring before, too, here; it’s currently on display in the Life Cut Short exhibition at the New-York Historical Society.) This was made for Nathaniel Pendleton, Hamilton’s friend and his second in the duel. The order was placed a year after Hamilton’s death. While well within the acceptable period for mourning jewelry, it’s also possible that Eliza wasn’t able to afford Pendleton’s ring at an earlier date, or other rings for more of his friends. Even so, it’s not a particularly expensive ring. The gold appears to be a low-carat quality, perhaps even pinchbeck, and the two thin tubes forming the band is a cost-cutting design that makes the most of a minimum of gold.

By comparison, the ring at the top of this post was an expensive piece of jewelry. The rose gold band is thick, heavy, and rich, and the execution is elegant and substantial. Seeing it in person, I marveled that Eliza, watching every penny, would have chosen to spend her money on such a ring, or have even been able to do so.

But there’s someone else who could have afforded such a ring, and I believe he is the one who commissioned it. General Philip Schuyler, Eliza’s father, was devastated by Hamilton’s death. Hamilton had been his favorite son-in-law, the only one who had served in the army during the Revolution as the general had himself, and their relationship had always been a warm and filial one. (Eliza was also arguably his favorite and most devoted daughter.) In the summer of 1804, Schuyler’s health was already failing, and the shock of Hamilton’s death likely hastened his own several months later in November.

Throughout his life, Schuyler had been conscious of acting - and spending - as he believed a gentleman of wealth and position should. The Pastures, his home and estate overlooking the Hudson River, had been the largest and most elegant house in upstate New York when Schuyler had built it, and his lavish hospitality was renowned.

Commissioning a mourning ring like this would have been completely in keeping with his character and his taste, and what he would have viewed as a fitting tribute to his celebrated son-in-law. The engraving inside - which includes Hamilton’s age incorrectly - is an error that, late in life, he might well have made. The style and size of the ring is also in keeping with men’s mourning jewelry of the era.

In my opinion, General Schuyler ordered this ring for himself, which would explain its size and masculine character. He would not have had long to wear it. When he died that autumn, the ring would naturally have been given to Eliza. A small woman herself, she would not have been able to wear the ring on her finger, but likely had the gold loop added so that she might wear it securely as a pendant. Thus for her the ring would have become an especially meaningful double-mourning piece, honoring both her father and her husband. The front of the ring shows wear where it would have been bumped and jostled over time as a pendant, but the interior engraving remained crisp and sharp from having been worn so briefly on the general’s finger.

There hasn’t been a proper “paper trail” discovered - a jeweler’s receipt would be best - to link the ring unequivocally to General Schuyler, and for now this possibility must be considered conjecture, not fact. But it all seems so plausible that I hope one day that illusive receipt will appear in some archive or collection.

I also wonder if this ring inspired the design of the second one she ordered later for Pendleton. Perhaps Eliza even showed the first ring to the jeweler who made the second. Side by side, there is a definite resemblance in the square face and black-bordered frame - but the difference in the quality is poignantly evident, too. Eliza would spend the rest of her long life forced to make choices like that based on the dramatic change in her circumstances.

Above: Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton's Mourning Ring, maker unknown, c1804, Collection of Douglas Hamilton. Photos courtesy of Clifton & Anderson.

Below: Mourning ring containing lock of Alexander Hamilton’s hair presented to Nathaniel Pendleton by Elizabeth Hamilton, 1805, New-York Historical Society. Photograph ©2019 Susan Holloway Scott.

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The Littlest Camp Followers, c1775

One of the things I appreciate most about the  Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia is the way the artifacts, videos, and exhibits are so much more inclusive than many more traditional exhibitions devoted to the Revolution and life in 18thc America. The stories told by the MoAR feature the familiar heroic actors like George Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette, but there are also many other individuals - including Native Americans, African Americans, and women - whose contributions and sacrifices have been too often overlooked, forgotten, or purposefully ignored.

Only a few inches long, this tiny earthenware lamb represents a group that was very much involved in the war, yet is seldom mentioned: the children of soldiers. Along with their mothers and soldier-fathers, these children - often born during a campaign - were a familiar feature of 18thc armies. While the term "camp followers" can conjure up images of itinerant sex workers, the reality was that the majority of the women traveling with the army were married to enlisted men. These women were often paid to do laundering and sewing for the army, and occasionally helping with the sick and wounded. Their children, of course, had little choice in the matter. They simply "followed the drum" because they followed their fathers.

Children appear in contemporary paintings of military scenes like the one shown, right. Real life was likely much more rough-and-tumble and less idyllic, and combined with the real possibilities of danger, disease, and death. Yet the presence of children in an 18thc encampment was unquestioned in a way that seems unfathomable to us today.

The lamb toy, above, was excavated from a British Revolutionary War campsite near New York City, a British stronghold through much of the war. Made in England of white salt-glazed stoneware, the lamb could have crossed the Atlantic on board a troop ship with its owner, or been purchased in a New York shop.

The name of the lamb's young owner isn't known, nor are the circumstances of how it was lost or left behind at the camp. Lost toys are nothing new, nor, sadly, are children in the middle of wars. Still, I hope that both that long-ago child and his or her parents returned safely from the Revolution, even if the lamb remained behind as a poignant reminder of a child in the middle of an adult conflict.

Thanks to Philip Mead, Chief Historian of the Museum of the American Revolution, for suggesting this post.

Left: Toy Lamb, England, 1750-1800, on loan from the New-York Historical Society to the Museum of the American Revolution. 
Right: British Infantrymen of a Royal Regiment in an Encampment, painter unknown, c1760, National Army Museum.

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An Elegant Woman's Jacket, c1780, to be Worn by My Next Heroine

The old sartorial saying - “Clothes make the man” - also applies to the characters in my books, whether they’re men, women, or children. I take care with dressing them to be not only historically accurate, but also to reflect their personality, financial means, and social status. Sometimes surviving 18thc clothes that I’ve seen in a collection or museum linger in my imagination for years, waiting for just the right character to wear them.

I saw this 18thc woman's jacket in 2017 at the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum of Colonial Williamsburg, when it was on loan from the Mary D. Doering Collection as part of the Printed Fashions: Textiles for Clothing and Home exhibition. The jacket was made from an extravagantly patterned textile that was imported from India to Europe, and there first stitched into a garment around c1750 and later remodeled. The fabric is a mordant-painted and resist dyed cotton, lined in linen. Jackets like this would have been worn over a linen shift and a contrasting petticoat (skirt), and would likely have been accessorized with a triangular kerchief around the neck, with white ruffles pinned to the bottoms of the sleeves. While today we think of cotton as an inexpensive work-horse fabric, in 18thc Britain or America this would have been considered a luxurious garment.

According to the exhibition placard:

This charming jacket is constructed from an earlier India chintz textile, clear evidence that the chintz was sufficiently prized to warrant restyling years later. The center-front closure suggests a date in the late 1770s or early 1780s. Fitted jackets worn with separate skirts called petticoats were practical and comfortable for work and informal occasions. They were more economical than full-length gowns because they did not require additional yards of fabric.

For my practical-minded heroine living in 1780s Virginia, the cotton chintz would have been the perfect solution to steamy summers in the Tidewater. Yet the cost of the imported textile would have served a purpose, too, reflecting her husband’s rising status in the new country in the years after the Revolution.

Above: Jacket, maker unknown, Europe, c1780; textile, India, c1750. Colonial Williamsburg. Photo ©2017 Susan Holloway Scott.

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Which is the Real Alexander Hamilton Silhouette?

If you’ve come to one of my book events over the last year or so, then you probably recognize the locket, above left. I almost always wear him, both for luck and because, since he dates from the late 1790s, he’s the perfect companion for the characters in my books. His profile is captured in verre-églomisé (named after the 18thc French mirror and picture framer Jean-Baptiste Glomy who invented it), a technique where the image is painted in reverse on glass.

I don’t know if the locket was meant as a sentimental piece, a love token, or a memorial tribute. The reverse side of the locket contains a woven lock of the gentleman’s chestnut-colored hair, plus his initials in gold. I also don’t know his name, or whether he was French, British, or American, though since I purchased him from an English dealer, he was probably from Great Britain. I especially liked his then newly-fashionable cropped hair, the little frill on the front of his shirt, and the high collar on his jacket. His pointy nose also reminded me of Alexander Hamilton (the leading male character in my historical novel I, Eliza Hamilton), and the black-on-gold silhouette was similar to the design/logo from the Hamilton musical. How could I resist?

Then I saw the silhouette, above right, which is of the real Alexander Hamilton.

This portrait is the work of  William Bache (1771–1845), who created hundreds of silhouettes of women, men, and children of the young republic, from New England to New Orleans. Some are of famous individuals, like Hamilton and President Thomas Jefferson, that were likely made for exhibition. Most were of ordinary Americans. With the aid of his his patented physiognotrace, a profile-tracing apparatus, Bache could swiftly create accurate and affordable portraits for an audience eager for representations of themselves. Before photography, portraits had belonged exclusively to the elite classes who could afford to commission professional painters. Silhouettes - also called shades or shadows - were an economical and popular alternative. The profile portraits also fit into the era’s Neo-Classical sensibilities with their likeness to ancient Roman coins.

Bache’s silhouette of Hamilton is currently on display in the exhibition “In Profile: A Look at Silhouettes” at the New-York Historical Society. Alas, I doubt I’ll be able to see it in person, since the NYHS has wisely closed because of COVID 19, and likely won’t reopen before the exhibition is scheduled to end in April. I’m sorry; I would’ve enjoyed seeing the two pointy-nosed gentlemen side by side. They do look like they could be related, don’t they?

Above left: Locket from my personal collection.

Above right: Alexander Hamilton by William Bache, c1800, New-York Historical Society.

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Patriotism, French Fashion, and Mrs. Morris's Pouf, c1782

One of those history-myths that refuses to die states that American women of every class wore "homespun" to be patriotic during the years surrounding the American Revolution. According to this myth - made popular in the 19thc as later generations looked fondly and imaginatively backwards to their ancestors - these women were paragons of colonial self-sufficiency. They not only herded and sheared sheep, processed, spun, dyed, and wove the wool and likewise processed flax into linen cloth, but cut and stitched by hand every garment worn by their equally patriotic family.

Well, no. Even if there were enough hours in the day, few women possessed the expertise to achieve all this. Most of the steps in 18thc clothing production were performed by highly skilled professional tradespeople, and the majority of the textiles - whether linen, wool, silk, or cotton - worn by Americans, rich or poor, had been produced elsewhere, and imported.

This didn't change with the Revolution. While restrictions to trade limited new imports, there was still plenty of pre-war stock in warehouses and shops. Smuggled goods were also available for those who wished to pay the premium for them. While wartime deprivations might have made the cost of new fabric prohibitive to many families, refashioning and refurbishing, patching and mending had always been acceptable in every class. Fabric was valued, and there was no shame in making a new gown in 1778 from 1750 fabric.

(A further complication: some historians now believe that 18thc references to “homespun” meant that something was made in America, not made in the home. Therefore it could have been fashioned by an American-based professional - a tailor or mantua-maker - from foreign textiles, and still be called homespun. This distinction was blurred and largely lost over time, until the Colonial Revival movement embraced that resourceful colonial housewife.)

For a wealthy woman like Mary White Morris (c1749-1827), above, the Revolution likely had little impact on her wardrobe, and she wasn't wearing homespun, either. Married to entrepreneur, banker, and statesman Robert Morris, Mary was known as a lady who "ruled the world of fashion with unrivaled sway" - at least that part of the fashionable world centered by Philadelphia. (Robert Morris was also an early supporter of Alexander Hamilton, and together they are credited with creating the country’s financial system. You might recall Mr. and Mrs. Morris from their appearances in I, Eliza Hamilton.)

This portrait of Mrs. Morris by Charles Willson Peale was painted towards the very end of the Revolution, around 1782, yet she is shown in casually luxurious splendor. She is wearing fanciful, Turkish-inspired clothing that was the height of French fashion: a lace-trimmed silk sultana, a gown edged with fur, and a silk sash. Her silk headdress, or pouf, is an elaborate concoction of silk, strands of glass pearls, feathers, and paste-jewel ornaments in the shape of stars and a crescent moon, with a trailing veil or scarf.

Yet by following the French fashion for dramatic hair, poufs, and turquerie, Mary Morris was not only following the lead of that international trendsetter queen, Marie Antoinette, but she was making a political statement of her own. The French were America's allies in the Revolution, and without French military assistance, the American cause would not have been successful. Mary's husband was much involved in both the war and creating the new country's government, and among their closest friends was the Marquis de Lafayette. For her, dressing like a Parisian for a portrait was patriotic.

But patriotic fashion reached back from Philadelphia to Paris, too. The French rejoiced along with the Americans in their victory over the British, and French women celebrated by wearing clothing inspired by the new country, or at least named for it. This detail, above right, from a French fashion journal shows  one of the latest styles for 1783: Chapeau à la Pensilvaine (Hat in the Style of Pennsylvania).

Thanks to Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell for her assistance and inspiration for this post. For more 18thc French fashion, check out Kimberly's splendid fashion history, Fashion Victims (Yale University Press.)

Above: Mary White Morris by Charles Willson Peale, c1782, National Park Service Museums.

Below: Detail, Gallerie des Modes et Costumes Français. 39e Cahier des Costumes Français, 10e Suite des Coeffures à la mode en 1783. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

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A Patriotic Irish Ribbon, c1798, and Discovering the "Cost of Revolution"

As a novelist who loves history, I’m always drawn to museums that present their collections as a way to tell engaging, emotional stories of the past. All historical players, large and small, were once real people, and sometimes it’s the smallest artifact - a child’s toy, an embroidered petticoat, a soldier’s battered cup - that provides the most vivid connections between the present and those who lived before us.

I’ve written many times about the Museum of the American Revolution, one of my favorite museums. It’s an institution that makes splendid use of this approach to historical storytelling in their their permanent collections and video presentations, and in their special exhibitions. Their current exhibition, Cost of Revolution: The Life and Death of an Irish Soldier (now through March 17, 2020), views two revolutions - the American Revolution of 1776 and the Irish Revolution of 1798 - through the life of an Irish gentleman, Richard Mansergh St. George (c1752-1798), who had the misfortune to be on the wrong side of both. If you’re in Philadelphia soon, I recommend it highly.

Although born to a life of privilege, Richard Mansergh St. George, right, chose to fight with the British in America, where he suffered a serious head wound that would haunt him the rest of his life. St. George is not remembered today for his military or political action. Nor was there any glory in his death. After aggressively seeking out and attacking the “rebels” he perceived among his tenants, those same tenants ambushed and murdered him in 1798. But St. George did leave a lasting legacy to tell his story: he was himself an artist of drawings and caricatures, and also a patron who commissioned works documenting his life and experiences from other artists. This rich visual evidence is brought together in the exhibition with portraits, documents, uniforms, and even a gunshot-riddled fence to tell St. George’s story, and the larger story of two revolutions.

There are other people beyond St. George represented in the exhibition. One of them is Lord Edward Fitzgerald (1763-1798), lower left. Lord Edward’s heritage was thoroughly aristocratic: his father was the 1st Duke of Leinster, his grandfather was the 2nd Duke of Richmond, and his great-great-grandfather was King Charles II. (Some of you may have encountered Lord Edward in Aristocrats, Stella Tillyard’s excellent biography of his mother and aunts, or in the popular British mini-series based on that book. His great-great-grandmother, Louise de Keroualle, was also the heroine of my historical novel The French Mistress.)

Like St. George, Lord Edward fought with the British army during the American Revolution, and was also seriously injured. Unlike St. George, however, Lord Edward returned from America with his sympathies no longer allied with his King, but with the common man. Turning to politics, his position and charismatic personality soon made him a leader of the United Irishmen and their rebellion. But eventually Lord Edward was betrayed by an informer. He was wounded while be arrested, and died from infection while imprisoned. The rebellion ultimately, and violently, was put down by the English, but Lord Edward became viewed as a martyr to the cause of Irish liberty - which made this silk ribbon (embroidered with the rallying cry “United by Friendship”), upper left , into a powerful revolutionary relic - with a terrible ironic twist.

According to the exhibition caption:

“United Irishman Leonard MacNally took this ribbon from the dead body of Lord Edward Fitzgerald. In 1819, MacNally presented it as an inspirational relic to Irish General John Devereux who recruited Irish soldiers for Simón Bolivar (the Venezuelan Revolutionary who fought against Spanish rule in South America). MacNally hoped Devereux’s ‘Irish Legion’ would fight to liberate ‘the oppressed inhabitants of South American and punish tyrants.’

“Despite pretending to be friends with Lord Edward Fitzgerald, MacNally helped get the popular Irish leader arrested in 1798. The truth surfaced after MacNally’s death in 1820.”

Above left: Ribbon, Ireland, c1798, © National Museum of Ireland.

Right: Richard Mansergh St. George, by Hugh Douglas Hamilton, 1790s, private collection.

Lower left: Lord Edward Fitzgerald, c1798 © National Museums NI Collection Ulster Museum.

Many thanks to Matthew Skic, Associate Curator, Museum of the American Revolution, for his assistance with this post.

My latest historical novel, The Secret Wife of Aaron Burr, is now available everywhere. Order here.

An Irish-Stitch Wallet, 1776, with a Revolutionary Past

Whoever made this brilliantly-colored wallet for a prosperous Pennsylvania farmer took care to stitch his name, John Pawlings, into the pattern of the back. Likely the work of a woman in the Pawlings family - a wife, mother, daughter, or sister - the personalization would have also added a touch of security; there’d be no doubt as to the owner of the wallet. But when she also embroidered the date she’d completed her needlework - 1776 - she’d have had no idea of how significant that date would become over time, or how the American Revolution that is synonymous with that year would soon invade her family’s home.

After the battles of Brandywine and Germantown, Commander-in-Chief Gen. George Washington and the Continental Army settled at a strategic location outside of Philadelphia for their winter encampment. Surrounded by farmland, Valley Forge was close to the Schuylkill River, which flowed directly into British-occupied Philadelphia. The few houses scattered about the area became headquarters for various senior officers, their staffs, and military departments. The house and property of James Pawlings, across the river, became headquarters for the army’s commissary department. The Pawlings family would have shared many of the same hardships as the army during the long winter, including food shortages, illnesses, and the dramatic disruption of everyday life. When the army left the following spring, the damages and scars to the land would remain visible for generations.

The wallet is worked in wool thread in Irish stitch, the distinctive stitch’s most popular name in 18thc America; in other places and eras, it has also been called Bargello work, Florentine work, or flame stitch. The threads of the linen backing cloth or canvas are counted to keep each stitch consistent within the geometric pattern, while the stitches themselves are worked closely together to create a dense, substantial surface that completely covers the canvas. By tradition, the stylized carnations could have symbolized love and affection, while pink carnations like the ones here can also represent a mother’s undying love. While the wallet was used by James Pawlings, the embroidered “1776” - along with the family’s involvement in the Continental Army’s nearby encampment - probably gave the wallet extra meaning to him and to his descendants. It remains in excellent condition, nearly 250 years later.

Currently on display, the wallet was recently acquired by the Museum of the American Revolution from the collection of Michael Kvietkauskas and Maria Savini, with thanks to the generous support of the Museum’s Collection Society.

Wallet, made in Pennsylvania, 1775. Museum of the American Revolution. Photograph courtesy of MoAR.

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