{"id":1104,"date":"2015-08-10T22:09:59","date_gmt":"2015-08-11T03:09:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/?p=1104"},"modified":"2018-04-16T13:00:35","modified_gmt":"2018-04-16T18:00:35","slug":"want-a-real-old-white-house-memento-warning-it-wont-be-cheap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/want-a-real-old-white-house-memento-warning-it-wont-be-cheap\/","title":{"rendered":"Want a Real Old White House Memento? Warning: It Won\u2019t Be Cheap"},"content":{"rendered":"

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WASHINGTON \u2014 When Theodore Roosevelt hired an architecture firm to renovate the dark, cramped White House in 1902, much of the structural interior was thrown into piles of trash on the lawn outside: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue had become a construction site. Wood, plaster, glass and even old curtains were strewn about, leaving the once stately grounds in a heap of \u201cdirt and confusion,\u201d as an article in<\/a> The New York Times put it.<\/p>\n

Under orders from Roosevelt, the firm worked quickly to restore the site and complete renovations, without taking time to preserve or repurpose the wood and other materials that had surrounded every president since the building\u2019s reconstruction after the War of 1812. A good chunk of history was carted away and burned.<\/p>\n

But a single structural item from the White House of Abraham Lincoln and John Quincy Adams was preserved. Joseph Williamson Jr., a student at Georgetown law school, pulled a 14-by-30-inch piece of ornamental wood from one of those trash piles, with the help of his brother and a friend who was working on the site. Mr. Williamson took it home with him, writing \u201cfrom old White House. Oct. 15, 1902\u201d on the back in pencil.<\/p>\n

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The plinth from the Transverse Hall of the White House, possibly the only remaining piece of the White House interior as rebuilt after the War of 1812.<\/span> Credit<\/span> RR Auction <\/span> <\/em><\/h6>\n

Theodore Roosevelt\u2019s trash became Mr. Williamson\u2019s lifelong treasure. The piece of wood, called a plinth, resurfaced when one of Mr. Williamson\u2019s distant relatives contacted the White House Historical Association about a family heirloom. The piece is now being put up for auction after Mr. Williamson\u2019s family members decided to sell it after the loss of two farms that had been in the family for generations.<\/p>\n

The plinth encapsulates the decorative scheme for the White House as reconstructed by Presidents James Madison and James Monroe after it was destroyed by a fire set by British troops in 1814. The plinth\u2019s function was to support a recessed niche that would have held plants or a statue. A multipetaled flower was carved into the middle, with an additional string of ornamentation wrapping the wood near its top.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the key to that period of the reconstructed White House following the War of 1812,\u201d said William Seale, a historian working with the historical association, who authenticated the item. \u201cIt\u2019s a tremendous thing to historians. It\u2019s the only such piece of the White House that survived that people know anything about. There is nothing like this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mike Meister, a great-grandnephew of Mr. Williamson, had been in possession of the piece. In 2009, he and other family members flew with the plinth to Washington to meet with Mr. Seale.<\/p>\n

Mr. Seale\u2019s intense research produced a photograph of the Cross Hall \u2014 sometimes called the Transverse Hall \u2014 from around 1893. It showed a corner that contained the plinth that Mr. Meister and the others had brought with them to the Decatur House in downtown Washington, which is operated by the historical association.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was no question that this was it,\u201d said Mr. Seale, who has written books about the history of the White House and edits White House History, the association\u2019s semiannual journal. \u201cIt was the only one it could have been.\u201d<\/p>\n

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For Mr. Seale, it was like finding a missing piece to a lifelong puzzle.<\/p>\n

The piece of wood was part of a set of plinths that had been situated near the White House\u2019s Blue, Red and Green Rooms, facing a screen of columns that separated the Entrance Hall from the Cross Hall on the first floor. Diplomats, visitors and each president from Monroe to Roosevelt would have walked by it to get to the State Dining Room or, in the opposite direction, to the East Room.<\/p>\n

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The Main Hall of the first floor of the White House in the 1890s. The plinth is in the lower right portion of the picture.<\/span> Credit<\/span> via RR Auction<\/span><\/em><\/h6>\n
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\u201cThis plinth is a little piece of a big story,\u201d Mr. Seale said. \u201cThis little thing has so much information in it, it\u2019s almost iridescent.\u201d<\/p>\n

What was most exciting for him and for Frank S. Welsh \u2014 a historical paint analyst who has worked on landmarks like Monticello \u2014 was the amount of physical history it contained. Mr. Williamson\u2019s family kept it in great condition, Mr. Seale said, and that allowed Mr. Welsh to identify 17 different layers of paint, including three period applications of gold leaf on some of the ornamentation. The surface also shows hints of red and white.<\/p>\n

In Mr. Welsh\u2019s report on the plinth, he said that the number of paint layers was unusual, as \u201ctypical historical interiors were generally repainted every seven or eight years.\u201d But 17 finished coat layers in 87 years \u201ccould be explained if a space, like the Transverse Hallway, was repainted in a redecoration for every new presidential term,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a precious piece of antiquity,\u201d Mr. Seale said. \u201cIt\u2019s not something you hang on the living room wall, but from a historical standpoint, it\u2019s very valuable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Meister led the effort to get it authenticated. He had kept it in an airtight case in his attic \u2014 barely thought of but never forgotten \u2014 after receiving it from his father, who had been given the plinth from his own father when he was about 14 or 15 years old. Mr. Meister\u2019s father, a history buff from a long line of history buffs, took it with him to each place he moved \u2014 even when he enlisted in the Army.<\/p>\n

The piece became a big part of their family lore, with the children often hearing the story about their great-granduncle. But after years of letting it languish, Mr. Meister and his siblings decided to give it a chance to be shared with the rest of the country.<\/p>\n

The auction, at the RR Auction house in Boston, will start on Sept. 17, and experts predict that the plinth could go for up to $500,000.<\/p>\n

\u201cDad kept it for all of his young life and adult life, and we kept it because it was important to him,\u201d Mr. Meister said wistfully. \u201cThere\u2019s a little feeling of loss, but if someone with enough money can insure it for the amount it\u2019s worth and enjoy it, and do more with it than we\u2019re doing with it, I guess that would be a good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Meister said the research he and his family members did to contact Mr. Seale, Mr. Welsh and others brought the family closer together. \u201cI think everybody\u2019s pretty much in agreement that it\u2019s time for it to be in someone else\u2019s hands,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Story from Jada Smith, New York Times<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014 When Theodore Roosevelt hired an architecture firm to renovate the dark, cramped White House in 1902, much of the structural interior was thrown into piles of trash on the lawn outside: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue had become a construction site. Wood, plaster, glass and even old curtains were strewn about, leaving the once stately… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1433,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-white-house-wednesdays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1104"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1135,"href":"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1104\/revisions\/1135"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jenniferpickens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}