Preservation of Historic Winchester

Concluding text adapted from “Decorative Arts in the Lower Shenandoah Valley” by Warren F. Hofstra and “Introduction” by Theodora Rezba from the Valley Pioneers and Those Who Continue catalogue, as well as “West of the Blue Ridge” promotional materials.

The social world of the Shenandoah Valley in the eighteenth century was something of an anomaly in Virginia. As we saw in the introduction to “West of the Blue Ridge,” German, Scotch-Irish, Dutch, Welsh, as well as English settlers came here, each bringing their own cultural heritage. The Lower Shenandoah Valley — present day counties of Frederick, Clarke, Warren, Shenandoah, and Page in Virginia, Berkeley and Jefferson in West Virginia, and Washington in Maryland — developed a unique artistic heritage through the interplay of these cultures.

During the colonial period, local merchants kept a steady flow of goods streaming into the Valley from Philadelphia, giving the material culture a Pennsylvania slant. Artisans furthered this work, as many of them had received their training in Pennsylvania. Thus by the end of the eighteenth century much of the Lower Valley could boast of a highly pluralistic culture and an integrated goods and services economy generating a large volume of useful and decorative items reflecting the varied heritages. The distinctive Valley decorative art styles were forged in this vibrant atmosphere.

The next century told a different story as settlement fanned out far beyond the old Appalachian frontier. When Isaac Weld traveled Valley roads in 1796, he met “great numbers of people” searching “for lands conveniently situated for new settlements in the western country.” The quest for cheaper, larger quantities of land in less populated areas lured many local residents over the Appalachians.

When the National Road opened in 1818 to the northwest and then the mainline of the B&O railroad bypassed Winchester in 1827, migrants bypassed the Valley in their movement west. Wheat, at least for the decades before the American Civil War, remained a source of prosperity for Valley farmers, but the Valley had been bypassed as the commercial and cultural gateway west.

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As with any museum exhibit, numerous people were involved in the creation of “West of the Blue Ridge.” However, as much time has elapsed since the exhibits were held, we may not be able to credit every person who worked on them thirty years ago. Kym S. Rice was the main exhibit curator, assisted by Dave and Jenny Powers, curators of the children’s exhibit. Theodora Rezba served as the Project Director, with other committee members consisting of Linden Fravel, Susan Galbraith, Mary Gardiner, Michael Gore, Ann Grogg, Warren Hofstra, Bobbi Jackson, Barbara Laidlaw, Teresa Lazazzera, Peggy McKee, Theresa Merkel, Dorothy Overcash, Eloise Strader, Anna Thomson, Sybil White, Joe Whitehorne, Gary VanMeter, and Patricia Zontine. Credited text contributors from outside the committee include H. E. Comstock, Virginia Miller, Timothy Hodges, Linda Crocker Simmons, Mary Bruce Glaize, and Tina Raburn.

The exhibit was made possible with contributions from the Virginia Foundation of the Humanities and Public Policy, the Hon. Harry F. Byrd, Jr., Nancy Larrick Crosby, the Durell Foundation, Elizabeth Engle, Dr. & Mrs. Hunter Gaunt, Michael Gore, Dr. & Mrs. Douglass O. Hill, Dr. & Mrs. Thomas Keenan, Dr. & Mrs. B. Franklin Lewis, Dorothy Overcash, Dr. & Mrs. David Powers, Dr. and Mrs. Benjamin Rezba, Thomas Scully, Eloise Strader, Dr. & Mrs. Larry Tolley, and Dr. & Mrs. David Zontine.

Thank you for joining us on this retrospective on “West of the Blue Ridge.” If you have an idea for a future multi-installment blog series, please drop us a note on social media or at phwinc.org@gmail.com.

The music for this installment is “Let Your Hammer Ring.”

Information for this installment is derived from H.E. Comstock’s introduction to Furniture in “Valley Pioneer Artists and Those Who Continue” and the “West of the Blue Ridge” exhibit texts.

The Shenandoah Valley was isolated from most commercial sites in its early history. Valley residents of more abundant means brought furniture from larger cities such as Alexandria, Baltimore, and Philadelphia prior to 1785. The early furniture styles of more modest residents reflect indigenous as well as outside influences.

Valley furniture presents definite influences of the English, German, Scotch-Irish, and Swiss immigration to the area. The forms show a spectrum of accents from fairly sophisticated carved pediments and ball and claw feet to elaborate wood or sulphur inlays. Fluted and stop-fluted quarter columns are commonly found, as well as furniture that is considered folk art due to its unique construction and decoration. The molding styles of local furniture is often replicated in the architectural moldings of Valley homes.

As is common in other areas, there are also many primitive or plain objects to be found. The painted dower chests of Shenandoah and Page counties in Virginia and close by Maryland counties are highly sought by collectors and museums nationwide. The elusive nature of the objects ranks them among the most desirable folk art furniture in America. Their primitive, naive, painted motifs render them the epitome of American folk art.

Primary woods for furniture construction, in order of occurrence, were pine, walnut, cherry, poplar, chestnut, and maple. It was not until the very late eighteenth century that mahogany began to be imported for furniture use. Secondary woods used, in order of occurrence, were pine, poplar, walnut, chestnut, and oak.

While the furniture of the Valley is often stylistically similar to other areas, it does occasionally exhibit evidences of local individuality. Distinguishing features included arced stop-fluting of the quarter columns, and precisely and elaborately carved capitals of quarter columns. Case pieces show well-executed carvings of shells and foliage on their pediments. These case pieces often exhibit so-called dust boards between drawers. Often a piece exhibits the bottom boards of drawers arranged from front to back. The back-boards of case pieces are sometimes arranged from side to side. Similar arrangements of these boards are commonly found in English furniture.

In the past it has been considerably difficult to make definitive attributions concerning the products of Shenandoah Valley cabinetmakers. The loss of records in courthouse fires and the fact that very few craftsmen signed their work makes such attribution less than easy. Our best evidence comes through repetitive occurrences of furniture styles and consistent craftsmanship, sometimes aided by impeccable family histories and various documentation.

As in other early American communities, many of the local cabinetmakers were either itinerant or short-lived business enterprises. Among craftsmen known are David Campbell, Joseph Culbertson, Patrick Curry, Christopher Frye, J.S. Hendricks, John Kerr, William King, George Keyes, James L. Martin, Joshua Newbrough, George Newsom, John Shearer, and Edward Slaytor.

Johannes Spitler is perhaps the greatest example of decorative arts married to furniture originating in the Shenandoah Valley. It is not known if Spitler was responsible for his own casework, although some evidence suggests that possibility. Spitler’s painted designs of geometric patterns and compass work are usually found in the colors of red, yellow, white, blue, and black. He usually sealed the pores of the casewood and created a painting ground by applying an orange-red primer. Spitler’s decorations exist in a number of variations; a sizeable collection of his work has been found and pieces can be viewed online at the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts and the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley.

The “folksy” carvings, inlay patterns, and mixture of period designs on the same piece have always been one hallmark of local furniture. The citizens of the area have always been blessed by their geographical location. Of their many other blessings, one is the wonderful heritage of Shenandoah Valley furniture.

If you found this brief dive into local furniture intriguing, you may also wish to read A Southern Backcounty Mystery: Uncovering the Identity of a Northern Shenandoah Valley Cabinetmaking Shop by Patricia Long-Jarvis for a more in-depth look at the partnership of Joshua Newbrough and Job Smith Hendricks, as well as other local cabinetmakers active in the period of “West of the Blue Ridge.”

Our final installment concluding West of the Blue Ridge will be posted on June 3.

The music for this installment is “When Jesus Wept.”

Text from this installment has been adapted from “Textiles” by Tina Rabun and Theodora Rezba in the “Valley Pioneers and Those Who Continue” catalogue, and the “West of the Blue Ridge” promotional newspaper clipping collection and exhibit texts.

Prior to the Revolutionary War, many of the textile products used in the Colonies were imported from Britain. In the 1700s, the Industrial Revolution was transforming previously laborious hand-processes and increasing production speeds, so that British goods were relatively inexpensive and in steady supply. It was not until the Revolutionary War severed the supply that it became a patriotic duty to spin, dye, and weave textiles. (1)

One well-known example locally of imported textiles is that of Lord Fairfax (1693-1781) during his time in Greenway Court. Andrew Burnaby observed of Lord Fairfax: “His dress corresponded with his mode of life, and, notwithstanding, he had every year new suits of clothes, of the most fashionable and expensive kind, sent out to him from England, which he never put on, was plain in the extreme.” This formal jacket probably was among those Fairfax imported from England.

Locally-produced textiles exhibited in the “Valley Pioneers and Those Who Continue” show varied from a c. 1800 baby’s cap in cambric to sheets and pillow sham of flax c. 1870. Wool and cotton, however, provided the bulk of the material base for textile work. One of the county’s early woolen mills was located on the Opequon, and wool production remained a staple of Winchester’s employment until the closure of the Virginia Woolen Mill in 1958.

Handspun wool, not being very strong, was difficult to use as a warp; therefore not many blankets of all wool were woven until yarns could be spun commercially with the invention of the spinning jenny. Cotton was grown in Virginia prior to the Revolutionary War for domestic use, and many of the early surviving blankets use cotton threads for the warp. Flax, too, was grown in small quantities for personal use both for weaving linen and for producing linseed oil.

Almost every family in the Valley possessed a four-harness loom either brought from Europe or fashioned in America of hand-hewn logs. Both men and women did the weaving and the children were taught to card and spin the flax, cotton, and wool. Perhaps the most plentiful example of home weaving can be found in the family bedding. Three types of woven coverlets that were in common use in the Valley were the overshot, the double weave, and the jacquard.

The overshot coverlet dates from the early settlement period and could be woven on a simple four-harness loom requiring minimal skills. In this weave, the weft threads usually form the pattern and “overshoot” the warp threads, forming floats across the background weave. The double weave style (1725-1825) is constructed so that two warps are joined so that the reverse side of the coverlet is a mirror image of the front. Thus the front would show a dark design on a light ground, while the back shows a light design on a dark ground. The jacquard coverlet required a specialized loom invented by a French weaver, Joseph Jacquard. The complicated mechanism that activated the harnesses allowed for the creation of intricate patterns like brocade and damask. The loom required two people to operate and made coverlet weaving a profession after the 1830s. Many of the professional weavers also offered dyeing services.

Quilts, the other major form of bedding, were largely made by women. The quilts themselves reflect the history of textile production in America, including home-woven cloth, souvenir fabric to memorialize important events, stitching techniques, patterns, and symbolic motifs important to the makers. Quilts are often a communal effort as well, and numerous signatures on one quilt can document the makers who lent their talents to the finished piece. Whole-cloth quilts of wool were produced from the late 1700s to early 1800s, but the familiar image of a quilt is likely that of multicolor pieced cotton. Early patterns were often simple geometric designs in rectangles, squares, and triangles. More elaborate designs could have been traced from newspaper or magazine patterns. The exact quilts displayed at the Kurtz Cultural Center in conjunction with Belle Grove Plantation were not well-documented, except for the “Spring Dreams” quilt, used as a raffle item. An Amish-made queen sized quilt, it features a white background decorated with circles and sprigs of flowers and vines in pastel pink, yellow, blue, and green. For more examples of American quilts, visit the National Quilt Collection at the National Museum of American History.

For a quilt made in Winchester by Amelia Lauck, wife of Peter Lauck (both previously discussed in the Portraiture entry), see the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts for a ca. 1823 quilt of cotton with appliques of flowers and birds.

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While the bedding served daily needs, needlework could be used for education as well. The best example is that of a sampler. Known in Europe as early at the 16th century, the sampler reached its height of popularity in the 18th. Intended as a practical record of stitching patterns that could be added to and referred back to throughout a woman’s lifetime, it also came to serve a secondary use. Young girls were taught how to embroider at an early age, so their samplers were also used to practice letters, numbers, and more fanciful artistic expressions. A typical American sampler will contain various alphabetical forms, numerals, ornaments, and decorative borders. The stitcher may have included her name, the date, her school, figures like houses, pets, mottoes, and other personalized touches.

While the sampler was a relatively utilitarian piece that could be used as a reference guide, for some women the skills learned in stitching a sampler led to higher artistic expression. To explore the variety of needlework produced in early American history, you may wish to further explore the holdings of the Museum of Early South Decorative Arts and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Join us next time for a look at furniture in the Valley on May 20.