Pieces of History: Reconstructing the Past of Bassett Hall, 1650-2013
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PIECES OF HISTORY: RECONSTRUCTING THE PAST OF BASSETT HALL, 1650-2013 by Melissa Lauren Jones May 2013 Director of Thesis/Dissertation: Dr. John Tilley Major Department: History This thesis will examine the history of one of the historic homes in Colonial Williamsburg, Bassett Hall. It was home to Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. while they funded the reconstruction of Williamsburg. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the history of the house prior to the Rockefellers’ involvement to illustrate a common dilemma faced by public historians and museum professionals: selecting which pieces of history to display to the public in the museum. Every artifact, or in this case a house, carries several different stories of its history. In the case of Bassett Hall, the museum planners chose to display the Rockefellers’ history of the house and neglect the earlier residents and their stories. The thesis will also analyze the current museum at Bassett Hall and its failure to deliver the history of the house’s earlier residents. The museum exhibits the Rockefellers’ role in Williamsburg and the creation of Colonial Williamsburg. Though that story deserves to be told because Rockefeller is largely responsible for the success of Colonial Williamsburg, there should be more information about the other residents of the house. Some of the house’s occupants have sparse information in the historical record, while other occupants appear more regularly. I will attempt to construct a thorough history of the house using the available records that will aid in delivering the history of the colonial city. PIECES OF HISTORY: RECONSTRUCTING THE PAST OF BASSETT HALL, 1650-2013 A Thesis/Dissertation Presented To the Faculty of the Department of History East Carolina University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in History by Melissa Lauren Jones May 2013 © Melissa Lauren Jones, 2013 PIECES OF HISTORY: RECONSTRUCTING THE PAST OF BASSETT HALL, 1650-2013 by Melissa Lauren Jones APPROVED BY: DIRECTOR OF DISSERTATION/THESIS: _______________________________________________________ John A. Tilley, Ph.D. COMMITTEE MEMBER: ________________________________________________________ Christopher A. Oakley, Ph.D. COMMITTEE MEMBER: _______________________________________________________ Gerald J. Prokopowicz, Ph.D. COMMITTEE MEMBER: _______________________________________________________ Charles R. Ewen, Ph.D. CHAIR OF THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY: ______________________________________________________________________________ Gerlad J. Prokopowicz, Ph.D. DEAN OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL: ______________________________________________________________________________ Paul J. Gemperline, PhD TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................... 1 Placing Bassett Hall in its Historiographical Context………………………. 3 Restoration of Williamsburg .......................................................................... 4 Success of Colonial Williamsburg…………………………………………. 5 Interpreters ..................................................................................................... 7 Education ....................................................................................................... 8 Architecture and Archaeology……………………………………………… 10 Failure of Colonial Williamsburg…………………………………………… 13 Failure of Interpreters………………………………………………………. 16 Adornments of Buildings…………………………………………………… 16 The Middle Ground………………………………………………………… 18 Using Bassett Hall to Present Eighteenth-Century Life……………………. 20 CHAPTER 2: BASSETT HALL THROUGH 1800 ............................................................. 21 The Bray Family: James Bray ........................................................................ 21 James Bray in Middle Plantation ................................................................... 23 James Bray II………………………………………………………………. 26 Col. Thomas Bray………………………………………………………….. 26 Col. Philip Johnson………………………………………………………… 29 Architecture………………………………………………………………... 33 Richard Hunt Singleton……………………………………………………. 39 Richard Corbin…………………………………………………………….. 41 CHAPTER 3: BASSETT HALL DURING THE NINETEENTH CENTURY…………... 43 Burwell Bassett and Bassett Hall…………………………………………... 43 Abel Parker Upshur………………………………………………………… 54 John Coke……………………………………………………………………. 62 Col. Goodrich Durfey……………………………………………………….. 64 Israel Smith………………………………………………………………….. 68 CHAPTER 4: THE TWENTIETH CENTURY…………………………………………….. 70 Reverend W.A.R. Goodwin………………………………………………… 71 The Rockefeller: John D. Rockefeller, Jr…………………………………… 72 Abby Aldrich Rockefeller…………………………………………………… 79 Bassett Hall…………………………………………………………………. 84 The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation……………………………………. 88 CHAPTER 5: THE CURRENT MUSEUM AT BASSETT HALL……………………….. 91 REFERENCES……………………………………………………………………………… 109 Chapter 1: Introduction John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and his wife Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, beginning in the 1930s funded the restoration of Williamsburg and the creation of Colonial Williamsburg. The Rockefellers made their Williamsburg home at Bassett Hall, a house originally constructed in the seventeenth century off Francis Street, just south of the capitol. They lived at Bassett Hall during the restoration of the city for two months each year when they visited Williamsburg until the end of their lives in the mid-twentieth century. Bassett Hall provides much information about colonial life in Williamsburg because it was built during the seventeenth century. It served as a plantation- and farmhouse during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. Studying the occupants of the house and their roles in Williamsburg makes it evident that the plot of land on which Bassett Hall sits directly influenced the development of the city of Williamsburg. Bassett Hall was preserved as an historic home in Williamsburg because of its significance to the city. The house is only one of the eighty-eight historic buildings reconstructed and preserved at Colonial Williamsburg.1 Some historic homes in Colonial Williamsburg allow visitors to imagine what life was like in an eighteenth-century city, but Bassett Hall is not one of these homes. The planners of Colonial Williamsburg chose to exhibit the twentieth-century history of the house, while the Rockefellers lived there, rather than its earlier, colonial history. This conscious choice of the planners exhibits a dilemma faced by public historians and museum professionals. Professional historians must peel back the layers of history pertaining to a historical object and decide which layer, or story, to present to the public. In the case of Bassett 1 Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Legacy from the Past: A Portfolio of 88 Original Williamsburg Buildings (Williamsburg, VA: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1975), 33. 2 Hall, planners in Colonial Williamsburg chose to exhibit the twentieth-century history of the house, while simultaneously choosing to mask the rest. The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation has conducted archaeological reports that have allowed it to construct a brief, less than fifty-page house history. The archaeological reports and house history of Bassett Hall indicate that Colonial Williamsburg was aware of the earlier history of the house, but that it chose to use the home to display an element of the twentieth-century city. A pamphlet written during the 1980’s described the life of the Rockefellers in the house, but no other studies of it exist.2 Even this pamphlet is brief and lacks a thorough study of the Rockefellers, as it mainly emphasizes the grounds and gardens at Bassett Hall as well as the decorative style of Mrs. Rockefeller in the interior of the house. A history of the Bassett Hall deserves to be written to illuminate its influence on the city of Williamsburg and the importance of the individuals who lived there, and also to illustrate the predicament faced by public historians in determining which layer of an artifact’s history deserves to be shared with the public. 2 Bland Blackford, Burke Davis, and Patricia A. Hurdle, Bassett Hall, the Williamsburg Home of Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (Williamsburg, VA: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1984), 1. 3 Placing Bassett Hall in its Historiographical Context Historical criticism of Bassett Hall is non-existent due to the lack of literature about the house. Fortunately, however, examination of the success of Colonial Williamsburg as a history museum illustrates the necessity for further study of Bassett Hall to illuminate the “other history” of the house and help Colonial Williamsburg better tell the story of the colonial city’s history. Professional historians, not only those who specialize in public history, often debate the authenticity of the history presented at museums and historic sites. Colonial Williamsburg has been the topic of discussion by many historians since its opening as a living history museum in the mid-twentieth century. Historians, such as Richard Handler and Eric Gable in their book The New History in an Old Museum: Creating the Past at Colonial Williamsburg, debate the success of the site in terms of its presentation of authentic eighteenth-century life. Some historians perceive Colonial Williamsburg to be successful in presenting eighteenth-century life, while others believe the site to be inauthentic. One of the goals of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, however, is to include visitors in the history of the town, creating what public historians call “living history.”