Cloverfields as of December 2019: “A Model for Many Houses and Households” of the Chesapeake Bay Region
/Historians Discuss Advances in Technology and Data Analysis
This newsletter features two historians: Heather Ersts and Sherri Marsh Johns. Ersts is Cloverfields’ furnishings and decorative arts specialist. She is working as a team with one of Cloverfields’ architectural historians: Sherri Marsh Johns. Marsh Johns is the principal investigator at Retrospect, LLC, a consulting firm specializing in historic preservation. Both Ersts and Marsh Johns have been conducting research on the historic house for over a year.
In the video above, Ersts and Marsh Johns discuss how part of their job is interpreting and making sense of all the pieces of information that different preservation specialists gather. Ersts is particularly fascinated with how revealing the analysis of the historic paint has been.
We often think of paint analysis as a mere means to determine what color we should use to paint a room. In this case, we are restoring the house to the year 1784. In 1784, the house had been enlarged to its greatest size, and it was owned by Revolutionary War patriot Colonel William Hemsley (1737-1812). The 1780s are our primary period of interpretation, so we would be interested in knowing how the different rooms of the house were painted at that point in history. Paint analysis, however, is not only about choosing a color; it does much more than that. As Ersts explains:
The research I am super interested in is the paint analysis because the room colors and the trim colors and treatments are indicative of room use. So those were another set of clues for me of what rooms are definitely being used. We've made the best guesses we can at this point, but each one of those little bits of clues helps verify that. There are certain colors to certain rooms that you see traditionally or certain trims that create a hierarchy of space. So that, again, will add to the knowledge. So each bit of information, whether it’s a trim, whether it's a color, whether it's a wallpaper treatment—it all adds to that information of how is the house being used, how is the family using it, and how has it changed over time. Paint analysis can help determine how a room was used, and therefore how should we furnish it.
Example of paint analysis by Dr. Susan L. Buck
The analysis of wall colors and treatments, in turn, sometimes benefits from archival research. Marsh Johns provides us with an illustrative example. She tells us about how archival research revealed information about the lifestyles of the inhabitants of the house that helped date an unusual wallpaper. She tells us:
For example, it is out of our period of interpretation, but the wallpaper back here has been an ongoing mystery, and it has a very unusual pattern. And, there are many experts that had taken to really have any idea of when it was. I think the consensus now seems to be the 1820s or earlier.
Heather just came in today, that she'd spoken to someone who was saying perhaps it really is 1815, which is great from my perspective because the research I'm doing shows that after the colonel died in 1812, his son fell into serious financial hardship. He had mental health issues, and he had financial issues, and he died in 1822. So, it seemed unusual that someone like that would be putting up this elaborate wallpaper, and after he died in 1822 it went into a tenancy, so the tenant wouldn't be putting up this very avant-garde, expensive pattern.
But now, if we move it back to 1815, that was about the time that Thomas Marsh Foreman moved in with his uncle William. He was William's nephew, son of the sister we were talking about earlier; it was her son. He moved in, and he had money, and he actually bailed out the colonel's son from his financial hardships and took over the house.
So, one theory is that if this dates to 1815, that could very well be the Foreman’s moving in, and their money and taste being reflected, because it just seems inconsistent from what we'd expect from a poor ill bachelor.
On Shifting Interpretations and The Lack of Time-Travel Machines
The dating of the wallpaper is just one example of how the interpretation of the history of the house changes over time. As Ersts points out, no one has a time-travel machine:
As historians, we are working with the best tools we have right now, and, so often, something else comes along later on that changes the interpretation. I've always had volunteers, interpreters, or guides working in historic houses with me and they ask: “Well, how come you don't know what it is?” And I say: “Well, last time I checked none of us have a time-travel machine!”
So, we are working with the best resources we have to make the best assessments and guesses that we can with the facts available at that moment. But, as we know, there are other family papers around, there are other documents that will emerge, and the Hemsleys, the Colonel, in particular, was very involved in his writings—which I have no doubt are in other archives waiting to be discovered.
Then, Marsh Johns confirms how shifting interpretations of the history of eighteenth-century houses are the norm rather than the exception. This is the case even in with renowned houses like Mount Vernon. She points out:
And the technology, you know, the paint analysis aspect. In Mount Vernon, they've gone through three or four iterations, and each time it was thought to be, “this is the way it was when George Washington was here because we are using state of the art technology.”
And I guess it's every 25 years they come back and say, “oh no, we had it wrong,” and as this technology progresses, we are able to understand things better.
For example, paint analysis, the chemical signature of the paint enables us to date things in a way that wasn’t available 25 years ago, so there's more certitude the longer you go. We can only presume that this is going to continue and that more resources will be available.
Ernst then notes how the research being done in Cloverfields right now can have long-lasting effects, not only with regards to Cloverfields but also throughout the Chesapeake Bay region:
Preserving the objects that are here and being taken out and saving all those bits, parts, and pieces are so integral to that story and that research long-term.
And it's not just research for this house because of the fact that this house is a model for many houses and households of this region. It creates that kind of really important baseline that we will be continuing there, between the documents and archival research, archeological research, the historic house structures, and pieces.
It's keeping all that ensemble together as much as possible, and making it searchable and making it available to the public; it’s just a wonderful resource for the long term.
Cloverfields has become a model for historic houses of the Eastern Shore. Marsh Johns agrees:
Exactly, the archive that we are going to create with this is going to be so useful for preservationists’ projects where they are not going to have resources to go and do the in-depth analysis.
They could look to Cloverfields and say, “this is a house of a certain age, a certain socioeconomic status,” and use it as a comparable and do a better interpretation than they otherwise would. So, the learning potential for other preservations is amazing.
Writing the history of Cloverfields is an ongoing process. The history keeps being interpreted, reinterpreted, and rewritten as technology and archival research evolve.
Ongoing Restoration at the Site
Chimney reconstruction at the rear of the main house.
Chimney and fireplace recreation in the north west first floor chamber.
brickwork around the recreated 1784 window frames on the front of the main house.
All photographs by John Gaver of Lynbrook of Annapolis unless labeled differently.
By: Devin S. Kimmel, of Kimmel Studio Architects
For: Cloverfields Preservation Foundation