The Role of Period Interior Views in the Recreation of Historic Interiors, Part I

Period interior views in the form of paintings, drawings, prints or photographs are an extremely valuable tool in the accurate restoration of historic interiors.  They provide useful and often plentiful visual information about interiors from the past and aid historians in recreating an historic interior where most or all of the decoration and furnishings original to the room have disappeared over the course of time. Additional sources of information are used in the recreation of period interiors, including written historical documents such as household inventories that list most or some of the furnishings in a home at the time of the owner's death; bills of sale for the purchase of decorations and furnishings; family diaries that record changes made to the home; journals detailing household expenditures including the purchase of furniture and other furnishings; newspaper advertisements placed by local merchants dealing in household furnishings, showing what was available to householders in a particular area; and other printed material including household management guides, architectural pattern books, trade periodicals, home decorating books and serial magazines devoted to fashion and culture, all of which provided guidance and advice on how to decorate and furnish a home according to the latest styles and fashions.

The best-case scenario when restoring an historic interior is to uncover a surviving period view of that specific room.  Such a document provides answers to many questions and minimizes guesswork about the past appearance of the interior. Unfortunately, in many instances, period views of the specific historic interior undergoing restoration either no longer exist or were never created.  Under these circumstances, historians must turn to general interior views of the same historical period and focus on those that document rooms of the same type and at the same social level as the interior in question.

Below is a case study that discusses how recreated historic interiors relate to specific and general period interior views.  The essays compare two separate restored interiors to surviving period views of those rooms and to general views of rooms of the same historical period and type.  The interiors include the dining room of the Morse-Libby Mansion in Portland, Maine, and the drawing room of Lyndhusrt in Tarrytown, New York.  Both rooms are part of fully restored historic houses that are now museums.

Fig.1  Morse-Libby Mansion, Portland, Maine. Photograph, 
1910-1925. Victoria Society of Maine, Morse-Libby

Mansion, Portland, ME

In  1858, New Orleans hotel entrepreneur Ruggles Sylvester Morse began construction of his Italianate style brownstone-clad summer house in Portland, Maine (fig. 1).  Maine was the perfect location to build a house for use during the summer months.  Summers in Maine were temperate compared to the intense heat and high humidity associated with the season in Louisiana, where Morse and his wife Olive Ring Merrill Morse spent the rest of the year.  Born and raised in Maine, Morse clearly set out to build an elaborate house that proclaimed to Portland's residents the success and wealth he achieved since leaving the state to make his fortune.

Morse commissioned the recently established New York City cabinetmaking and decorating firm of Gustave Herter to furnish and decorate the interiors of his Portland house.  Herter devised interior schemes that integrated the furniture with the wall and ceiling decoration.  Each of the public rooms on the first floor, including the reception room, drawing room, dining room and library, was decorated and furnished in a different historical revival style. In keeping with the dictates of fashion during the mid-nineteenth century, the dining room was decorated in the Renaissance Revival style, which was considered appropriate to this type of interior because of its masculine, solemn quality and overt classicism.

A photograph of the dining room (fig. 2) from c.1900 clearly illustrates the architectural woodwork, furniture, lighting fixtures and floor covering supplied by Herter's firm approximately forty years earlier. Ruggles and Olivia Morse made no changes to the interiors of their Maine summer home, keeping the rooms very much as they appeared when completed in 1860. Following the death of her husband in 1893, Olive Morse sold the property in 1894 to Joseph Ralph Libby and his wife Helen Louisa Larrabee Libby.  The sale of the house included most of the furniture made by Herter as well as carpets, window curtains and lighting fixtures.  Despite the fact that the decoration and furnishings were old fashioned by the 1890s, the Libby family made only minor changes, essentially preserving intact the interiors created by Gustave Herter in the middle of the nineteenth century.  A comparison of the photograph, dating from the Libby family's period of occupancy, with the actual dining room (fig. 3) shows how this interior survived virtually unaltered over time. Consequently, only minor restoration was required to return the room to its appearance in the mid-nineteenth century.  The c.1900 photograph provided detailed information about the few dining room furnishings that were changed by later owners, such as the upholstery on the dining chairs.  Visible in the photograph is the original upholstery, an embossed and polychromed leather.  This period view was critical to determining the appearance of the 1860 upholstery treatment, which has been reproduced as part of the accurate recreation of the mid-nineteenth-century dining room.

Fig. 2.  Dining room. Morse-Libby Mansion, Portland, Maine. Photograph, c.1900. Victoria Society of Maine, Morse-Libby Mansion, Portland, ME

Fig. 3.  Dining room. Morse-Libby Mansion, Portland, Maine. Victoria Society of Maine, Morse-Libby Mansion, Portland, ME

A portrait by the New York artist Seymour Joseph Guy (1824-1910), titled The Contest for the Bouquet: The Family of Robert Gordon in Their New York Dining Room, depicts Mrs. Robert Gordon and her children in the dining room of their fashionable New York City townhouse (fig. 4). The cornice surmounting the walls and the moldings and center medallion on the ceiling indicate that the house was built in the Italianate style, the same architectural style found at the Morse-Libby house. While the walls of the Morse-Libby dining room are paneled from floor to ceiling, those in the Gordon dining room are paneled only at the level of the dado, or lower one-third of the wall.  The chairs in the Gordons' dining room, like those in the dining room of the Morse residence, are upholstered in leather. During the Victorian period leather was considered an ideal covering for the seats of dining chairs, as it was durable, difficult to soil or stain and could be easily wiped clean.  Several of the furnishings in the Gordon dining room are in the Renaissance Revival style, such as the walnut sideboard standing against the wall on the right side of the room.  The Morse-Libby dining room includes a large Renaissance Revival sideboard placed in a niche and a pair of smaller buffets flanking the fireplace.  Period interior views such as the Seymour Guy portrait, which clearly depicts the tablewares arranged on the Gordon sideboard, provide valuable information about the types of objects that the Morse family would have displayed on their sideboard and two buffets.

Fig. 4.  Seymour Joseph Guy (American, 1824-1910). The Contest for the Bouquet: The Family of Robert Gordon in Their New York Dining Room, 1866. Oil on canvas. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY

Despite its large scale and opulent decoration, the Morse-Libby house was considered a "villa" rather than a mansion during the Victorian period. Ruggles Sylvester Morse deliberately chose to build his villa in the city; however, the most ideal setting for a villa according to architectural theorists of the nineteenth century was the countryside.  Truer to the villa ideal was Knoll, built 1838 to 1842 in Tarrytown, New York, for William Paulding, a former mayor of New York City, and his son Philip Paulding (fig. 5). Dramatically sited on a promontory overlooking the Hudson River, Paulding's new villa was designed in the Gothic Revival style by New York architect Alexander Jackson Davis (1803-1892).  The surrounding landscape perfectly complemented the picturesque architecture of the house with its asymmetrical plan, varied outline and irregular massing.  

Fig. 5.  Alexander Jackson Davis (American, 1803-1892). Knoll for William

and Philip R. Paulding, Tarrytown, New York, 1838. South and east elevations.

Watercolor and ink on paper. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY

Davis was responsible for the design of the interior as well as the exterior of the Pauldings' villa.  The first-floor public rooms were decorated in the Gothic style, featuring vaulted ceilings with ribs, clustered columns, paneled doors with carved tracery and door and window frames surmounted by arched hoods. In order to achieve a full integration of furniture and decoration, Davis designed for the interiors more than fifty pieces of furniture in the Gothic Revival style.

In 1864, Philip Paulding sold the property to wealthy New York inventor and entrepreneur George Merritt, who changed the name of the house from Knoll to Lyndhurst.  Unlike the second owners of the Morse-Libby house, who essentially maintained the residence as it appeared when owned by Ruggles and Olive Morse, the Merritts made extensive changes to the interiors of the Paulding house and introduced many new furnishings. The alterations were overseen by the original architect of Lyndhurst, Alexander Jackson Davis, who also designed for the Merritts in 1865 an extensive addition that almost doubled the size of the house (fig. 6). The addition of the wing, which included a large tower, essentially transformed the residence from a villa to a mansion.

Fig. 6.  Alexander Jackson Davis (American, 1803-1892). Lyndhurst for George Merritt, Tarrytown, New York, 1865. West elevation and plan. Watercolor, ink and graphite on paper. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY  

Two photographs of the Lyndurst drawing room from c.1870 show how the room appeared when the house was occupied by the Merritt family (figs. 7 & 8).  The redecorated drawing room included painted patterns on the vaulted ceiling, a wall-to-wall carpet with a Rococo Revival design, a large sculpture of Cupid and Psyche in the bay window and a suite of carved rosewood parlor furniture in the Rococo Revival style.  The continuity that Davis had achieved in his interior scheme for the Pauldings' drawing room was lost during the redecoration for the Merritts.  Rococo Revival furnishings such as the parlor suite and carpet contrasted with the Gothic Revival decoration on the walls and ceiling.

Fig. 7.  Drawing room. Lyndhurst, Tarrytown, New York. Photograph, c.1870. Lyndhurst, National Trust for Historic Preservation

Fig. 8.  Drawing room. Lyndhurst, Tarrytown, New York. Photograph, c.1870. Lyndhurst, National Trust for Historic Preservation

As currently restored, the Lyndhusrt drawing room (fig.  9) approximates the appearance of the room during the Pauldings' period of ownership (1838-1864).  Due to the lack of visual documentation of the drawing room from the Paulding era, the recreation is based primarily on written sources such as Davis's specifications for the interiors and an 1856 household inventory that identifies the furnishings in all the rooms of the Pauldings' home, including the drawing room. In the absence of interior views from the Paulding period, it is difficult to ascertain how the drawing room actually appeared when Davis completed the house in 1842. Substantially more is known about the decoration and furnishings of the Merritts' drawing room, which is well documented in the two interior views from c.1870.

Fig. 9.  Drawing room. Lyndhurst, Tarrytown, New York. Photograph©Lyndhurst, National Trust for Historic Preservation

The recreation of the Paulding drawing room includes grain-painted finishes on the window and door frames, interior shutters and baseboards, undecorated monochromatic ceiling and walls, a geometrically patterned wall-to-wall carpet with trelliswork and lozenge-shaped rosettes and Gothic Revival furniture based on Davis's designs.  The restored Paulding drawing room bears some similarity to the parlor depicted in the portrait of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Augustus Carter, painted in 1848 by Nicholas Biddle Kittell (fig. 10).  The walls and ceiling of the Carters' parlor are simply painted a solid color, lacking any sort of pattern.  The floor is covered with a wall-to-wall carpet bearing a design of what appears to be scrolling vines and flowers.  While the Carter parlor lacks the Gothic Revival detailing found in the Paulding drawing room, it is furnished with richly upholstered Gothic Revival furniture, including a sofa, armchair, window seat and a reception chair.  The center table, by contrast, is in the Grecian or Late Classical style.

Fig. 10.  Nicholas Biddle Kittell (American, 1822-1894). Mr. and Mrs. Charles Augustus Carter, 1848. Oil on canvas. Museum of the City of New York, New York, NY 

The Role of Period Interior Views in the Recreation of Historic Interiors, Part II

In part one, two restored rooms in historic house museums were used as examples to discuss how recreated historic interiors relate to specific and general period interior views.  The third example is a parlor removed from a house built in Saratoga Springs, New York, in the mid-nineteenth century and installed as a "period room" in the Brooklyn Museum in Brooklyn, New York.

A period room in an art museum is a rather unique type of historic interior.   The simplest definition of an art museum period room is an interior that has been removed, frequently in toto, from an historic residential structure, installed in the exhibit galleries of a museum and then arranged with furnishings of the same historical period as the architectural elements of the room.  The purpose of a period room is typically to represent the domestic interior architectural styles and decorative fashions of a particular historical period.  Unlike the restored rooms in a historic house museum, period rooms in art museums usually do not contain furnishings original to the house from which the room was removed nor do they reflect the lifestyle or personal tastes of the actual individuals who once occupied the residence.  In most instances, the architectural elements in a period room, including doors and door surrounds, windows and window surrounds, mantelpieces, overmantels, floor boards, wood paneling, plaster walls, plaster or wood paneled ceilings, cornices, mouldings and plaster relief decoration, derive from one source while furnishings such as furniture, decorative objects, lighting and  floor coverings come from a completely different source, typically the museum's permanent decorative arts collection. The furnishings that are selected, while of the period, usually do not echo the exact furnishings that were originally in the room. The recreated interiors in historic house museums do not always contain original furnishings, but typically the period substitutes mirror the types of furnishings documented in period interior views or in written documents such as household inventories.  As is too frequently the case in American period rooms, the architectural interior and the furnishings are from different regions of the United States, despite historical evidence indicating that in the geographic area where the room was once located, the furnishings would have been obtained locally rather than purchased and shipped from another part of the country.

A few period rooms stand out as an exception to the rule, such as the parlor from the mid-nineteenth-century house of Colonel Robert J. Milligan (fig. 1), now part of an encyclopedic collection of American period rooms installed at the Brooklyn Museum. The 1855-1856 architectural decoration and furnishings in the Milligans' parlor survived intact into the middle of the twentieth century, when the Brooklyn Museum purchased the parlor and library and their contents.  This important acquisition of two mid-nineteenth-century upstate New York interiors included not only architectural elements and furniture original to the rooms, but also a number of surviving bills of sale, or receipts, for the parlor furnishings purchased by the Milligan family in the 1850s.  In 1940 the rooms and furnishings from the Saratoga residence were officially accessioned into the museum's collections and later installed in the nineteenth-century American decorative arts galleries.

The Milligan residence, built 1854-1856 in Saratoga Springs, New York, is a two-and-one-half-story Italianate style house featuring pedimented windows on the main facade, an entrance portico surmounted by a cresting of anthemia and palmettes and a cupola rising from the roof (fig. 2).  The design reflects a certain degree of conservatism in its strictly symmetrical plan, which harks back to the floor plans of Greek Revival houses of the 1830s and 1840s.  Also somewhat anachronistic from an architectural standpoint are the projecting center pavilion with pediment and Palladian-type window on the entrance front, elements typically associated with Georgian houses built a century earlier.

Fig. 1.  Parlor from the Colonel Robert J. Milligan House, Saratoga Springs, New York, as installed in the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY

Fig. 2.  Colonel Robert J. Milligan House, Saratoga Springs, New York. Photograph, 1940. Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY

Fig. 3.  Detail of ceiling in parlor. Colonel Robert J. Milligan

House, Saratoga Springs, New York. Photograph, 1940.

Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY

The plan of the first floor of the Milligan house consisted of a center entrance hall flanked on either side by two rooms.  The parlor and the library stood back to back on one side of the hall.  In the Victorian era the parlor was a formal room used for receiving visitors and entertaining guests while the library frequently served as the family sitting room. As the reception room, the parlor was larger and more elaborately decorated than the library.  The decoration of the Milligans' parlor includes a carved marble mantelpiece, shaped panels framed by classical moldings centering a medallion on the ceiling and a molded plaster cornice crowning the walls (fig. 3).  Dividing the parlor and library are two sliding pocket doors framed by fluted Corinthian pilasters surmounted by an entablature (fig. 4).  The panels of the doors are decorated with Gothic tracery.

Fig. 4.  Detail of pocket doors between parlor and library. Colonel 
Robert J. Milligan House, Saratoga Springs, New York.

Photograph, 1940. Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY

Surviving historical written and visual documents, including bills of sale and photographs, provide a record of the furnishings in the Milligans' parlor. In 1856 the family purchased an elegant matched set of Rococo Revival rosewood furniture manufactured by the cabinetmaking firm of Elijah Galusha, a prominent furniture maker active in Troy, New York, from 1828 to 1870. The suite consists of a sofa, armchair, bergere, four side chairs and a center table. Other furnishings purchased for the parlor include a Rococo Revival étagère, an Elizabethan Revival rosewood reception chair, a pair of side chairs, a Rococo Revival rosewood pianoforte, a Rococo Revival gilt overmantel mirror with molded gesso decoration, giltwood window cornices, a colorful wall-to-wall carpet with a bold Rococo Revival pattern of sprays of flowers, swirling leaves and scrolls and a Rococo Revival gilt-brass six-branch gas chandelier.  Most of these furnishings are now part of the Milligan parlor installation at the Brooklyn Museum.

The objects in the Milligans' parlor reflected the dictates of fashion in the mid-nineteenth century, when tastemakers prescribed the Rococo Revival style for the decoration and furnishings of what was regarded as the most important room in the home.  The Victorian housewife was expected to serve as hostess to visitors and guests, all of whom were entertained in the parlor.  The parlor was therefore perceived as the domain of the woman.  It was also the room that contained the most expensive and impressive furnishings in the entire household.  The Rococo Revival style, with its emphasis on voluptuous curves and delicate decoration of flowers and scrolling leaves, had a lighthearted, feminine quality that perfectly suited the room over which the lady of the house presided as hostess.

Descendants of Robert J. Milligan presented to the Brooklyn Museum not only bills of sale but also a number of family photographs, including a late-nineteenth-century view of the parlor (fig. 5).  This photograph, which appears to date between 1880 and 1900, indicates that the Milligan family did not update the decoration or furnishings of the parlor as the years passed and new decorating styles came into fashion.  Practically all the furnishings and decorations from the 1850s were still in place when the room was photographed later in the nineteenth century.

Fig. 5.  Parlor. Colonel Robert J. Milligan House, Saratoga Springs, New York. Photograph, c.1880-1900. Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY

Fig. 6.  Lambrequin, silk brocatelle, 1850-1865, probably New England.
Historic New England, Boston, MA

The photographic view of the Milligan parlor captures a fashionable but rather modestly decorated room.  In the photograph can be seen the Rococo Revival parlor suite made by Elijah Galusha, supplemented by additional side chairs and reception chairs in different revival styles. The center table is arranged with a stack of books as well as with a gas table lamp connected by means of a rubber hose to the six-branch gas chandelier hanging above.  The room does not appear to contain many decorative objects, although most likely the mantelpiece, which is out of view, was arranged with a combination of items including girandoles, vases and perhaps a mantel clock.  While the floor is covered with a boldly patterned wall-to-wall carpet, the walls are simply plastered and painted a solid color. Close inspection of the photograph reveals that the windows are hung not only with lace curtains but also with window shades, described as "roller blinds" in the nineteenth century.  The absence of heavy window curtains implies that the photograph was taken during the summer months.  In the Victorian period, curtains made of silk, wool or cotton fabrics, with linings and interlinings, were removed before the summer to allow air to flow through open windows.  The lightweight lace curtains and roller blinds, which hung under the heavy "main" curtains most of the year, were left in place during the warm season to provide privacy.  The photograph shows that each window frame was mounted at the top with a Rococo Revival stamped sheet-brass window cornice.  These cornices most likely suspended shaped valances called lambrequins (fig. 6).  Along with the heavy window curtains, the lambrequins would have been removed for the summer season.

As installed in the Brooklyn Museum, the Milligan parlor appears more elaborate than the room depicted in the late-nineteenth-century interior view.  While the majority of the furnishings seen in the parlor today are original to the room, many mid-nineteenth-century decorative objects from other sources were introduced at the time of installation.  These items outnumber the quantity of decorations visible in the photograph.  An opulent two-tier gas chandelier hung with cut-glass pendants substitutes for the simpler single-tier gilt-brass chandelier seen in the interior view.  The window treatments that now adorn the parlor windows, red and gold silk curtains and lambrequins from a house built in Brooklyn in the 1850s, are most likely more elaborate and expensive than the curtains and valances that originally hung at the windows in the Milligans' home.

It appears that when the Milligan parlor was installed in the Brooklyn Museum, the room was transformed into a "high style" Rococo Revival parlor, similar to the richly decorated and elaborately furnished drawing room of Litchfield Villa in Brooklyn, built 1855-1857 to the designs of New York architect Alexander Jackson Davis (fig. 7).  Ironically, the silk window curtains now hanging in the Robert J. Milligan parlor were originally made for the Litchfield residence.  

Fig. 7.  Drawing room. Litchfield Villa, Brooklyn, New York. Photograph, c.1876-1886. The New York Genealogical and Biographical Society, New York, NY

The arrangement of the furniture in the Milligan parlor installation is similar to the placement documented in the family photograph.  The mid-nineteenth-century parlor was dominated by the center table, a round, oval, square or rectangular table, usually with a marble top, that stood in the middle of the room.  The center table served as the focal point, drawing all other furniture within its sphere. Along the perimeter of the parlor were sofas and chairs arranged symmetrically.  Other chairs stood in the middle of the room, encircling the center table.  

The Augustus McKinstry House, Hudson, New York

The McKinstry family of Hudson has a long and prominent history in Columbia County.  Many of its members contributed to the economic and political development of the city while several generously supported its charitable and educational institutions. The first McKinstry to arrive in Hudson was Colonel John McKinstry (1745-1822), who distinguished himself in the Revolutionary War during the Battle of the Cedars.  He opened on Warren Street the city's earliest tavern, identified by a sign painted with a portrait of the King of Prussia.

Fig. 1  Advertisement for Rossman & McKinstry,

329 Warren Street, Hudson, New York. Hudson

City Directory, 1862. Hudson Area Library, Hudson, NY

Augustus McKinstry (1820-1901), a grandson of Colonel John McKinstry, was a successful druggist who maintained a shop at 329 (now 609) Warren Street throughout the second half of the nineteenth century. Initially he worked in partnership with Allen Rossman under the name Rossman & McKinstry.  After Rossman's death in 1889, Augustus's son George McKinstry joined the business, which was renamed A. McKinstry & Son. Augustus served as a city alderman and sat on the boards of the Hudson Street Railway Company and the National Hudson River Bank.

The youngest of nine children, Augustus was born in 1820 to George McKinstry (1772-1866) and his wife Susan Hamilton McKinstry (1777-1862).  In 1851, he married Ellen H. Avery (1819-1905), the widow of his elder brother Charles.  Augustus and Ellen had four children: Jeannie McKinstry (1851-1934), George A. McKinstry (1855-1919), Nellie McKinstry (b. 1858) and Susie V. McKinstry (b. 1862).

Fig. 2 Augustus McKinstry House, Hudson, New York. Photograph,
c.1895-1905. Collection of Columbia County Historical Society, 
Kinderhook, NY 

Augustus and Ellen McKinstry resided at 886 Columbia Street, on property purchased in 1829 by Augustus's father, George McKinstry.  The parcel of land, on the northeastern part of Prospect Hill, once belonged to Captain William Ashley.  As the first to build a dwelling on the hill, Ashley had been granted the privilege of naming it and chose an appellation inspired by the beautiful prospects of the surrounding valley.

In the southeast corner of the seven-acre property stood the McKinstrys' elegant three-story Second Empire-style house built in about 1870 (fig. 2).   A large porch, the center of which projected and was surmounted by a balustrade, fronted the five-bay facade with segmental-arch windows capped by hoods.  Dormers punctuating the concave-sided mansard roof echoed the segmental outline of the windows.

A number of rooms in the McKinstry house were photographed between 1895 and 1905.  The photographs include views of the parlor, library, dining room and four bedrooms.  These images as well as the exterior view provide evidence that the first-floor plan consisted of a center entrance hall flanked on either side by two rooms.  The parlor and library were located on the east side of the house while the dining room, which had a projecting five-sided bay, and probably a bedroom, were on the west side.

The photographs reveal the interiors of a home belonging to a prosperous upper-middle-class Hudson family at the end of the nineteenth century.  The rooms are tastefully furnished but not at the height of fashion. There are no coordinated schemes created by an interior decorator. The rooms contain a combination of old and new furnishings, reflecting the material goods acquired by Augustus and Ellen McKinstry over approximately five decades.

Two views of the parlor (figs. 3 & 4) provide extensive information about how the room was decorated and furnished.  The architectural decoration is in the Italianate style, including the plaster molded cornice surmounting the walls, the applied cast plaster moldings forming a rectangular panel on the ceiling, the marble mantelpiece with its round-arch opening, carved cartouche and spandrel panels and the molded surrounds of the doors and windows.  All these interior details date from the building of the house in the 1870s.

Fig. 3  Parlor. Augustus McKinstry House, Hudson, New York. Photograph, 1895-1905. Collection of Columbia County Historical Society, Kinderhook, NY

The floor is covered with a wall-to-wall carpet, either a Brussels or a Wilton.  Each type of carpet, made with a wool pile, was woven in strips twenty-seven inches in width.  The strips were seamed together to form a carpet that covered the entire floor.  On top of the floral patterned carpeting rests a large Oriental rug.  In the 1870s and 1880s, tastemakers encouraged homeowners to abandon the wall-to-wall carpeting that had been fashionable in the middle decades of the nineteenth century and advocated instead Oriental rugs arranged on varnished hardwood floors with inlaid borders.  If a house already contained Brussels or Wilton carpeting, which was typically laid over floors of unfinished pine boards, and the fashion-conscious owner was unwilling or unable to install hardwood floors, the alternative was to simply arrange Oriental rugs on top of the wall-to-wall carpet.

Applied directly under the cornice is a relief-decorated picture molding from which hang a number of gilt-framed landscape paintings, most likely views of the Hudson River Valley.  The picture hanging wires are exposed and suspended from hooks attached to the picture molding.  All the paintings tilt forward in typical nineteenth-century fashion.

Two French windows, which face Columbia Street, are hung with lace curtains suspended from brass rings on exposed brass curtain poles that terminate at either end in a finial.  Through the lace curtains, on the lower part of each window, can be seen closed exterior shutters.  By closing the lower shutters, the family reduced the amount of sunlight entering the room, but prevented it from becoming too dark by leaving open the upper shutters.

The furniture in the room includes a number of chairs, a desk, a pier table and a piano.  Standing before the windows are two eighteenth-century American side chairs that most likely descended from Augustus McKinstry's paternal great-grandfather, who arrived in this country from Ireland in 1740 and lived in Massachusetts and New Hampshire before settling in New York in the 1770s.  Both chairs exhibit regional characteristics associated with seating furniture made in New England in the second and third quarters of the eighteenth century.  Following the centennial of the United States in 1876, colonial furniture was once again fashionable and families whose ancestry in America extended back before the Revolutionary War proudly displayed these "relics" of our nation's colonial past in the public rooms of their homes.

Between the two windows is a drop-leaf table, perhaps a gate-leg table, which is serving as a pier table--a table made to stand against the wall or "pier" between two windows.  The top of the table is arranged with a set of girandoles, or candle fixtures hung with cut-glass lusters.  Sets of girandoles, usually consisting of a three-branch candelabrum and two candlesticks, typically served as a garniture for a mantelpiece, but in this instance the girandoles decorate the make-shift pier table.  Among the girandoles are framed photographs, which lend a personal touch to the room.

Other seating furniture includes two caned rocking chairs, one in front of the drop-leaf table and the other adjacent to the desk.  The fireplace is flanked on the right by a Windsor sack-back armchair and on the left by a Chippendale chair with arms added at a later date, probably in the late nineteenth century.  Between the fireplace and the window wall parallel to Columbia Street is what appears to be an overstuffed, heavily upholstered "Turkish" chair.  When the front parlor was photographed, several of these chairs were moved around the room for the sake of creating pleasing compositions.  For this reason, the same chair can be seen in different places in the two photographs of the parlor.

Fig. 4  Parlor. Augustus McKinstry House, Hudson, New York. Photograph, 1895-1905. Collection of Columbia County Historical Society, Kinderhook, NY

A Renaissance Revival partner's desk is placed diagonally against the wall opposite the fireplace.  An animal hide, acquired perhaps by George McKinstry while traveling in Minnesota, is draped across the top and arranged with framed photographs, an Aesthetic Movement porcelain vase, a large Japanese bronze censer, or incense burner, and a cut-glass vase filled with flowers.

The largest and most prominent furnishing in the parlor is a Renaissance Revival upright piano, c.1875, standing diagonally in the back west corner of the room, to the left of the doorway between the front and back parlors.  Music held an important place in Victorian culture and appreciation of it was a mark of sophistication.  Families at every social level owned, or strove to acquire, a piano.  The piano was frequently placed in the parlor, where it served as a symbol of the family's refinement.  The top of the McKinstrys' piano is decorated with a pair of Paris porcelain vases, c.1850-1870, and a pair of silver candlesticks.  In front of the piano, to the left of the piano stool, is a kerosene-fueled floor or "piano" lamp with wrought-iron base and a shade decorated inside with Japanese figures.  This lampshade and the bronze censer on the desk reflect the late-nineteenth-century fascination with Japanese art and decorative objects, spurred by the opening of Japan to trade with the West in 1854.

The house was equipped with gas lighting, as evidenced by a four-branch gas chandelier suspended from the center of the ceiling.  Most likely the chandelier hangs from a decorative cast plaster ceiling medallion, which is out of view.

Central hot-air heating systems were available when the McKinstrys built their home, but the photographs indicate that the family relied on wood- or coal-burning fireplaces and cast-iron stoves.  In the photograph of the front part of the parlor, a heating stove, just barely visible, can be seen standing in front of the fireplace.

The library (fig. 5) is smaller than the parlor at the front of the house. The dimensions of the two rooms are appropriate to their function, for the library served as an informal sitting room for the family while the larger parlor was a formal space for entertaining guests. Two sliding pocket doors framed by a molded surround divide the library and parlor.  The photograph of the back part of the parlor (fig. 4) shows that a pair of machine-made cotton chenille portieres, decorated with floral bands, hangs in the doorway.  The portieres have a valance created by folding over the top part of the curtain.  Popular from 1890 to 1910, this type of portiere could be obtained through mail order companies such as Sears Roebuck & Co.

Fig. 5  Library. Augustus McKinstry House, Hudson, New York. Photograph, 1895-1905. Collection of Columbia County Historical Society, Kinderhook, NY

The floor of the library is covered with the same pattern of wall-to-wall carpet found in the parlor, reflecting the Victorian practice of carpeting adjoining rooms en suite.  The walls are hung with an Aesthetic Movement wallpaper, c.1875-1885, bearing a pattern of stylized flowers and leaves.  Like the parlor windows, those of the library are hung with lace curtains.

The marble mantelpiece, which is no doubt identical to the one in the parlor, is arranged with a number of decorative objects, including a German porcelain candelabrum on the left, an iridescent glass vase  on the right and three small porcelain vases in the center.  Between the candelabrum and vases is a shell, reflecting the Victorian interest in nature and collecting.  To the left of the mantelpiece is a bookcase that appears to be built into the recess.  The shelves are arranged with sets of leather-bound volumes, signifying that the McKinstrys placed a high premium on reading and learning.

Over the mantelpiece hangs a large gilt-framed painting of a landscape with ducks by a stream.  Smaller paintings are hung throughout the room.  Mounted onto the wall to the left of the doorway between the library and parlor is an Aesthetic Movement ebonized hanging "art" cabinet with small shelves displaying glass and ceramic vases and other decorative objects. Hanging wall cabinets and wall shelves were popular during the 1870s and 1880s when exponents of the household art movement advocated such furnishings for displaying tasteful and aesthetically pleasing objects that beautified the home and created an artistic domestic environment.

Arranged before the fireplace are a Chippendale side chair, c.1770, of New England origin--most likely another McKinstry family heirloom--and an elaborately upholstered Turkish style chair with velvet covering, deep buttoning and trim of netted tassel fringe.  A highly polished Rococo Revival piano forte, c.1850, standing on robust cabriole legs, dominates the room in its position beneath the two windows. The photograph in fig. 5 shows part of the library.  Through the doorway can be seen the same piano, but closed and draped with a piano cover.

The dining room (fig. 6), in the northwest corner of the house, is enlarged by a five-sided bay that projects beyond an archway with Italianate brackets.  Molded surrounds frame each window, under which is a rectangular panel.  The walls and woodwork appear to be treated in a similar manner to those in the parlor, with a light color painted onto the walls and a contrasting dark hue on the window frames, panels and baseboards.  The windows are hung with "roller blinds," as window shades were described in the nineteenth century.  Covering the floor is a wall-to-wall carpet, most likely a Brussels, with a pattern of trelliswork enclosing medallions.

Fig. 6  Dining room. Augustus McKinstry House, Hudson, New York. Photograph, 1895-1905. Collection of Columbia County Historical Society, Kinderhook, NY

On one side of the polygonal bay stands a large Renaissance Revival marble-top sideboard, c.1875, the upper section surmounted by a pediment centering a cartouche, the cupboard doors in the lower section embellished with carved clusters of fruits. In the Victorian era, the sideboard was used not to serve food, as commonly believed, but to display silver and glass tableware. Less affluent families typically arranged the sideboard with silverplate, but even wealthy householders tended to mingle some silverplate with the more expensive silver.  In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, tastemakers encouraged diversifying the sideboard arrangement by incorporating ceramic objects made of stoneware, earthenware and porcelain.  Among the objects displayed on the marble top of the Mckinstrys' sideboard are a silver or silverplate hot-water urn, a Staffordshire meat platter, which stands upright against the back panel, a silver or silverplate encased cutlery basket and a Turkish coffee pot. The shelf above holds a pottery or porcelain three-piece tea service flanked by a pair of overlay glass cruets.

The dining chairs, most of which are arranged along the perimeter of the room, are in the Renaissance Revival style and were no doubt purchased along with the sideboard in the 1870s.  The seats of the chairs have caning, which was much more practical than an upholstery covering that could be easily soiled or stained by food droppings or spillage.

The dining table is covered with a linen tablecloth and arranged with place settings that include silver or silverplate napkin rings and individual salts decorated with birds.  In the center of the table is a vase of flowers.

A large cast-iron stove provided heat for the dining room.  Its decorative embellishments rivaled those on the sideboard standing on the opposite side of the bay.

The photograph in fig. 7 captures a cheerful and light-filled bedroom furnished with an Eastlake marble-top bureau, a small slant-front desk, a folding table and a rattan rocking chair.  The delicate scale of the desk and feminine quality of many of the decorative objects and personal items suggest that this bedroom was occupied by a female member of the family, a conclusion confirmed by what appears to be a copy of The Ladies' Home Journal resting on the stretchers of the folding table.

Fig. 7  Bedroom. Augustus McKinstry House, Hudson, New York. Photograph, 1895-1905. Collection of Columbia County Historical Society, Kinderhook, NY

Flanking the mirror of the bureau are two gas brackets, or sconces, with adjustable arms, each suspending a small decorative handled basket.  The marble top of the bureau is arranged with boxes, baskets, a pair of cut-glass scent bottles and framed photographs.  Framed photographs also hang on the walls while unframed photographs are tucked under the top of the mirror frame.

Covering the floor of the bedroom is grass matting, imported from the East.  The matting was made in strips that were seamed together to create a wall-to-wall floor covering.  In the Victorian period grass matting was commonly used as a seasonal floor covering to replace heavy wool carpets pulled up for the summer, but in bedrooms it frequently served as a year-round floor covering.

The simple window treatments consist of roller blinds and lightweight cotton curtains, which are tied back with narrow cords decorated with small tassels.

Another bedroom (fig. 8) in the McKinstry house has the same informal and cozy quality.  Personal items help to create a pleasant retreat for the occupant.  The marble mantelpiece is draped with an animal hide on top of which are arranged a mantel clock, framed photographs, a Japanese fan and an Arts and Crafts Movement glazed pottery vase.  In front of the fireplace is a Colonial Revival armchair with legs terminating in small claw feet grasping glass balls.

Fig. 8  Bedroom. Augustus McKinstry House, Hudson, New York. Photograph, 1895-1905. Collection of Columbia County Historical Society, Kinderhook, NY

The mirror of the marble-top bureau is flanked by two gas brackets, one of which is visible in the photograph.  Also visible are several framed photographs, both placed on top of the bureau and suspended from the gas bracket.

Occupying one corner of the room are two rattan chairs and a small side table arranged with a potted plant and a small wicker box.  One chair has been made comfortable with a seat cushion and pillow.

Fig. 9  Bedroom. Augustus McKinstry House, Hudson, New York. Photograph, 1895-1905. Collection of Columbia County Historical Society, Kinderhook, NY

The bedroom illustrated in fig. 9 was located in the northwest corner of the house. In the background of the photograph can be seen an alcove formed by the roof with dormer window over the five-sided bay of the dining room below (see fig. 2).  The main part of the bedroom is arranged with two beds, suggesting that this chamber was occupied by several of Jeannie McKinstry Gifford's children.  To one side of the bed in the left foreground is a side table covered with a scarf and arranged with two porcelain or pottery bowls and a covered box.  The pillows on the bed are arranged vertically against the headboard and are no doubt propped up on a bolster, a typical nineteenth-century arrangement.  A chamber pot is visible under the bed.  The alcove contains a Rococo Revival bureau with mirror, a simple Rococo Revival balloon-back side chair, and a deep-buttoned armchair, all dating from c.1855-1865, as well as a rocking chair with turned spindles  in the back.  A similar rocking chair stands in the left foreground of the photograph.

Augustus and Ellen lived in the house until their deaths in 1901 and 1905, respectively.  In the 1890s, the elderly couple shared the residence with their daughter, Jeannie McKinstry Gifford, and her four children. Jeannie's husband, Abram Jordan Gifford (1849-1922), a grandson of the wealthy and influential Hudson iron founder Elihu Gifford, had been appointed agent to the Indians of the Fort Berthold Agency in the Dakota Territory in 1884.  At the time of his appointment, the territory--incorporated in 1861--was still sparsely populated, undeveloped, and dangerous due to ongoing Indian hostility toward the white settlers.  These uninviting  conditions persisted for a number of years after 1889, when the territory was admitted into the Union as the states of North and South Dakota. Abram no doubt decided it was prudent for his wife and children to remain in Hudson while he served as a government agent in the Dakotas.

In 1910, George and Jeannie, acting as co-executors of their father's estate, sold the property at 886 Columbia Street to Delbert Dinehart.  Dinehart tore down the McKinstrys' residence and built the large yellow-brick Colonial Revival mansion that still stands, known erroneously as the Henry Astor house.

The Colonel Robert J. Milligan House, Saratoga Springs, New York

Fig. 1  View of Saratoga Springs, New York, engraving by Laurent

Deroy after Jacques-Gérard Milbert. Lithograph, c.1828-1829.

New York Public Library, New York, NY

Long before Saratoga Springs became in the nineteenth century a thriving and fashionable resort frequented by the wealthy who took advantage of the mineral waters produced by the many natural springs, the area was an unexplored and inaccessible wilderness familiar to only the Mohawk Indians.  Sir William Johnson, the British superintendent of Indians in North America, was one of the first white men to venture into the densely wooded landscape to partake of the salubrious waters described by the Indians as “medicine spring.”  Regularly bothered by an old war wound and plagued by chronic gout, Sir William in 1767 braved the wilderness with a party of Indians in the hope that the seemingly magical waters would relieve him of his ailments.

Fig. 2  Congress Spring and three hotels, Saratoga
Springs, New York. Stereoview, c.1875. New York
Public Library, New York, NY

A small number of adventurous pioneers who were attracted by the mineral springs settled in the area in the 1770s and constructed crude dwellings that provided accommodation for travelers brave enough to venture into the undeveloped territory.  Others arrived after the Revolutionary War, including Gideon Putnam, the founder of the village of Saratoga Springs.  Putnam settled in the area in 1789 and established a successful lumber business.  After recognizing the potential of the mineral springs as a popular draw for tourists, he excavated and tubed several springs and then erected in 1802 a three-story frame tavern and boarding house, regarded as the earliest "hotel" in Saratoga Springs (fig. 1).  In the first half of the nineteenth century, other hotels appeared and many evolved into the grand and luxurious establishments for which Saratoga Springs  was renowned during the Victorian  years (fig. 2).

Fig  3. View of the Colonel Robert James Milligan House, Saratoga

Springs, New York. Oil on canvas, after 1856. Brooklyn Museum
of Art, Brooklyn, NY

In the mid-nineteenth century, when Saratoga Springs became one of the most fashionable resort towns in the United States, lumber entrepreneur Colonel Robert James Milligan (1799-1867) built his elegant new house at 102 Circular Street (fig. 3), just a few blocks away from Congress Spring Park.  A son of Captain James Milligan (1767-1826), Robert was born and raised at Milligan Hill, a tract of land located along the highway between Saratoga Springs and Schuylerville. His family settled in the area in the late eighteenth century. At a young age, Robert left the Milligan homestead and embarked on a career in the lumber industry.  His successful business extended into the wooded areas of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Illinois.

Fig. 4  John G. Taggart (American, 1820-1871),

Colonel Robert James Milligan, 1851-1852. Oil on

canvas. Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY

Fig. 5  John G. Taggart (American, 1820-1871), Mrs.

Robert James Milligan, 1851-1852. Oil on canvas.

Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY

On November 24, 1846, Robert J. Milligan (fig. 4) married Hannah S. Fletcher (1809-1881) of Kingsbury, New York (fig. 5).  They had five children, four of whom died in infancy.  Robert Fletcher Milligan (1855-1937) was the only child to survive into adulthood.

A number of impressive houses owned by prominent Saratoga families already lined Circular Street when Colonel Milligan began construction of his brick residence in 1854.  An early historian of Saratoga County described the houses along the main thoroughfares of Broadway, Phila Street, Washington Street and Circular Street as "models of architectural beauty, affording in their construction rare specimens of modern decorative art." Completed in 1856, Milligan's two-and-one-half-story Italianate house featured pedimented windows on the main facade, a frieze with brackets under the eaves, an entrance portico surmounted by a cresting of anthemia and palmettes and a cupola rising from the roof (fig. 3).  The house was designed and constructed by Hiram Owen, a carpenter and master builder who settled in Saratoga Springs in 1838. The Milligan residence was Owen's first important project.  He later superintended the construction of other significant buildings in Saratoga Springs, including Congress Hall.

The design reflected a certain degree of conservatism in its strictly symmetrical plan and facade, which harked back to the balance and symmetry characteristic of Greek Revival houses built in the 1830s and 1840s.  In the mid-nineteenth century, many builders followed the lead of architects who subscribed to the design principles associated with the recently introduced aesthetic of the picturesque, which emphasized asymmetry and irregular outlines. Also somewhat anachronistic from an architectural standpoint are the projecting center pavilion with pediment and Palladian-type window on the entrance front, elements typically associated with Georgian houses built a century earlier.

The plan of the first floor of the Milligan house consisted of a center entrance hall flanked on either side by two rooms.  The parlor and library stood on one side of the hall, the dining room and another room on the opposite side.  Extending from the back of the main part of the house was a small wing, or "ell," that contained the kitchen and other service areas.

In the Victorian era, the parlor was a formal room used for receiving visitors and entertaining guests while the library served as the family sitting room.  The parlor was typically larger and more elaborately decorated than the library.

In the late nineteenth century, the Milligans' parlor was photographed from the library, through the open pocket doors that separated the two rooms (fig. 6).  The view shows an interior that was furnished and decorated several decades earlier. It appears that the family did not update the room as the years passed and new decorating styles came into fashion.  Consequently, the image depicts the parlor much as it appeared in 1856 after completion of the decoration and furnishing.

Fig. 6  Parlor. Colonel Robert James Milligan House, Saratoga Springs, New York. Photograph, c.1880-1900. Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY

The objects visible in the photograph indicate that the Milligans observed the dictates of fashion in the mid-nineteenth century, when the Rococo Revival style was prescribed for the decoration and furnishings of the parlor, the most important room in the home.  With its emphasis on voluptuous curves and delicate decoration of flowers and scrolling leaves, the Rococo Revival style had a lighthearted, feminine quality that perfectly suited the room where the lady of the house presided over visitors and guests.

Fig. 7  Parlor. Congress Hall, Saratoga Springs, New York.
Stereoview, c.1870. New York Public Library, New York, NY

In the middle of the nineteenth century, many upper- and middle-class American families took their cue for decorating the parlor from the well-appointed saloons in steamboats and parlors in hotels.  These public parlors featured wall-to-wall carpeting, elaborate window treatments consisting of lace undercurtains and main curtains of patterned silk or wool, and matched sets of furniture comprising sofas, armchairs and side chairs with attractive upholstery fabrics and trims.  The village of Saratoga Springs, which was rife with grand hotels containing modish public parlors, provided many models to guide the homeowner in the selection of tasteful parlor decorations and furnishings (fig. 7).

Hannah Milligan fortuitously saved the bills of sale for the furniture and decorations that she and her husband purchased for the parlor.  Consequently, the Milligan parlor is an extremely well-documented interior from the middle of the nineteenth century. The dates of the receipts indicate that the parlor was decorated and furnished 1855-1856.

In the view of the Milligan parlor can be seen the elegant suite of Rococo Revival carved rosewood furniture purchased by the family in 1856 from the cabinetmaking firm of Elijah Galusha, a prominent furniture maker active in Troy, New York, from 1828 to 1870.  The suite consists of a sofa, armchair, bergere, four side chairs and a center table.  The seating furniture appears to be upholstered in a silk damask, reportedly cherry red in color.

The matched set is supplemented by other chairs in different styles, including an Elizabethan Revival reception chair with needlework upholstery, seen on the left side of the room near the sofa, and a pair of delicate rosewood side chairs with turned spindles in the backs, one standing in front of the left pocket door and the other before a window on the right side of the parlor.  The two rosewood chairs were manufactured by the Troy cabinetmaking firm of Daniels and Hitchins.  The same firm also supplied to the Milligans a set of mahogany nesting tables most likely placed in the parlor and a rosewood child's chair that would have been used by Robert F. Milligan when he was a young boy.

While the carved marble Rococo Revival mantelpiece was obtained from the New York City firm of Murphy and Dimond, the elaborate wall-to-wall tapestry Wilton carpet was purchased in Albany from the "City Carpet Store" of John Van Gaasbeek. The carpet's bold Rococo Revival design, consisting of a dense mass of swirling leaves, flowers and scrolls, contrasted with the plain plaster walls painted a light color.  Not visible in the photograph is an elaborate Rococo Revival gilt overmantel mirror with molded gesso decoration of scrolls, leaves, and clusters of grapes made by the Albany firm of James Burton and Company, manufacturers and retailers of looking glasses.

The marble top of the center table is arranged with a stack of books as well as with a gas table lamp connected by means of an India rubber hose to the six-branch gas chandelier hanging above.  In the mid-nineteenth century, the center table served as the focal point of the parlor, drawing all other furniture within its sphere. As the Milligan parlor illustrates, sofas and other large pieces of furniture were placed along the perimeter of the room while chairs stood in the middle, encircling the center table.

The room does not appear to contain many decorative objects, although most likely the mantelpiece, which is out of view, was arranged with a combination of items including girandoles, vases and perhaps a mantel clock.

Close inspection of the photograph reveals that the windows are hung not only with lace curtains but also with window shades, described as "roller blinds" in the nineteenth century.  Most likely made of linen, the shades are either stenciled or printed with a decorative border.  The most costly window shades in the nineteenth century featured a combination of stenciled and free-hand painted decoration. A much less expensive alternative was "curtain papers," which were paper window shades with patterns printed by machine.  The absence of heavy window curtains implies that the photograph was taken during the summer months.  In the Victorian period, curtains made of silk or wool fabrics, with linings and interlinings, were removed for the summer to allow air to flow through open windows.  The lightweight lace curtains and roller blinds, which hung under the heavy main curtains for most of the year, were left in place during the warm season to provide privacy and to control the amount of sunlight that entered the room.  Each window frame is mounted at the top with a Rococo Revival gilt and silvered stamped sheet-brass window cornice purchased from  Kelly Brothers.

Paintings in gilt frames with molded gesso decoration are suspended from silk cords hung on exposed picture nails with decorative porcelain heads.  The framed pictures provide some visual relief from the monotony of the plain walls.

Fig. 8  Portrait of Robert Fletcher Milligan.

Photograph, c.1915. Brooklyn Museum of

Art, Brooklyn, NY

When Hannah Milligan died in 1881, fourteen years after the passing of her husband, her son Robert F. Milligan (fig. 8) became owner of the house. Three years earlier Robert married Georgianna Stewart (fig. 9). The couple had three children: Robert F. Milligan, Jr., who died in early childhood, Kate S. Milligan and Sarah F. Milligan. Robert was a leading citizen of Saratoga Springs, becoming mayor of the village in 1882 when he was only twenty-seven years of age. In 1901, he was appointed cashier of the First National Bank of Saratoga.  Both he and his wife Georgianna resided at 102 Circular Street until their deaths in the 1930s.

Fig. 9  Portrait of Georgianna Stewart
Milligan. Photograph, c.1895. Brooklyn
Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY

The last Milligan to occupy the house was Robert and Georgianna's daughter Sarah Milligan, who sold to the Brooklyn Museum of Art in 1940 the architectural elements and furnishings in the parlor and library.  The museum installed the Milligans' mid-nineteenth-century rooms in the American galleries, where they became part of a sequence of American historic interiors, or period rooms, from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.  The parlor and library are still on view at the Brooklyn Museum of Art.  Sarah Milligan continued to live in the house until 1944, when she sold the property to a local doctor.  In the 1990s, the former Robert J. Milligan residence was fully restored and continues to stand proudly at the corner of Circular and Phila Streets.