W&M ScholarWorks Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects 2004 Montpelier: The history of a house, 1723-1998 Matthew Gantert Hyland College of William & Mary - Arts & Sciences Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd Part of the American Studies Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Hyland, Matthew Gantert, "Montpelier: The history of a house, 1723-1998" (2004). Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects. Paper 1539623438. https://dx.doi.org/doi:10.21220/s2-n2ws-xm44 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects at W&M ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects by an authorized administrator of W&M ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. MONTPELffiR; THE HISTORY OF A HOUSE, 1723-1998 A Dissertation Presented to The Faculty of the American Studies Program The College of William and Mary In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Matthew Gantert Hyland 2004 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. APPROVAL SHEET This dissertation is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Matthew Ganteiy Hyland Approved by the Committee, March 2004 Chandos Michael Brown, Chair Barbara G. Carson RobernA. Gross Carol Sheriff Alan Wallach Carl Lounsbury The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation n Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. DEDICATION To Christy, gracias 111 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vi LIST OF FIGURES vii LIST OF TABLES ix ABSTRACT x INTRODUCTION 2 PART I. The Madisons CHAPTER I. The Madisons at Montpelier: Agricultural Colonization 22 CHAPTER II. Montpelier: Sign of the Republic 75 PART II. The Stewards CHAPTER III. The Reluctant Stewards 125 CHAPTER IV. The Civil War and Post-Bellum Stewards 166 PART III. Repatriation CHAPTER V. Repatriation 204 CHAPTER VI. Repatriation and the National Trust 247 EPILOGUE 294 SUMMARY OF FINDINGS 296 APPENDIX A 300 APPENDIX B 305 IV Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS, CONTINUED APPENDIX C 309 APPENDIX D 317 APPENDIX E 320 BIBLIOGRAPHY 345 VITA 358 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to acknowledge all those who helped me along the course of completing this study. First, Eric Sandeen and Karal Ann Marling launched me on this trajectory. Then, they encouraged me even when I was no longer their student at the University of Wyoming. Marley R. Brown, III, Barbara Carson, and Carol Sheriff expanded my range of interests and the scope of my intellectual horizons. Shirley T. Wajda introduced me to the wide world of American Studies scholarship through the 1999 Martha Stewart Roundtable in Montreal. I am grateful for financial support from the American Studies Program at the College of William and Mary and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History for research in their collection at the J. P. Morgan Library in New York City. I thank Alan Wallach, Bob Gross, and Chandos Brown for their trenchant criticism and thoughtful recommendations. Camille Wells, who showed me the possibilities of architectural history, encouraged me through the final stages of this study. Carl Lounsbury provided considerable assistance in moving this project through the final stage. The Montpelier staff, including Lee Langston-Harrison, Frederick Schmidt, Lynne Lewis, and Allison Enos, provided invaluable assistance and encouragement throughout this project. My family, especially Christy, Paul, and Emilia, has endured more than their fair share of the burden during this project. I thank them for their love and patience. I also thank Robert Soffee for his financial support as I began this doctoral program and started a family. Not only have all of these people helped me finish this dissertation, they have supported my eclectic path through American Studies. VI Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1. Location Map, Chesapeake Bay Region, 1994 321 2. Montpelier, Site Map 322 3. Speculative Floor Plan, ca. 1760 323 4. Belle Grove, 1795, South Facade 324 5. Belle Grove, 1795, Main Floor Plan 325 6. Montpelier, Speculative Floor Plan, ca. 1812 326 7. Montpelier, 1836, J.F.E. Prud’homme after John G. Chapman 327 8. Montpelier Temple, 1930 328 9. Estouteville, 1830, Facade ca. 1930 329 10. Oak Hill, 1823, South Facade, ca. 1880 330 11. Oak Hill, 1823, South Facade, ca. 1853 331 12. Oak Hill, 1823, North Facade, ca. 1880 332 13. Oak Hill, 1823, North Facade, ca. 1930 333 14. Montpelier Facade, pre-1901 334 15. DuPont Scrapbook Selection 335 16. DuPont Scrapbook Selection 336 17. Montpelier, DuPont First Floor Plan, 1902 337 18. Montpelier, Facade and Rear Elevations, 1902 338 19. Montpelier, Building Section, 1902 339 Vll Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. LIST OF FIGURES, CONTINUED 20. Montpelier Depot 340 21. Montpelier Depot, First Floor Plan 341 22. Montpelier, Formal Garden, duPont Period, ca. 1930 342 23. Montpelier Farm Hand, duPont Scrapbook 343 24. Montpelier, Facade, 1994 344 V lll Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. LIST OF TABLES Table 1 Montpelier Owners and Range of Dates 13 IX Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTRACT This dissertation offers a study of Montpelier and its role in lives of the people who have lived and worked there between 1723 and 1998. Its significance is not limited to the Madisons and the duPonts. Montpelier’s history provides further insight into a range of moments in America’s cultural history: plantation slavery in piedmont Virginia, the crisis of authority in the early American republic and the age of Jackson, ante-bellum sectionalism. Reconstruction, lifestyles of industrial magnates in the Gilded Age, and the development of historic preservation in twentieth-century America. The goal of this study is to reveal Montpelier’s evolution as a cultural landscape composed of layered historical activity—lives, values, and choices laid in courses and struck by time. On one level the present study seeks to reconstruct the form and style of the house and grounds through the archival record. More than a catalog of the events the house and grounds witnessed, the dissertation provides an analysis of various people coming to terms with the political, economic, and social changes of their times and their own personal dilemmas through the built environment. Changes to the house and grounds provide artifactual evidence that speaks to the utilitarian demands, changing ideologies, and symbolic expressions of Montpelier’s past inhabitants and present curators. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. MONTPELIER: THE HISTORY OF A HOUSE, 1723-1998 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. INTRODUCTION Montpelier has a complex architectural and social history. It has worn many architectural fabrics: colonial, classical revival, and colonial revival. As an object-centered study, this architectural history of Montpelier explores the plantation as a historical artifact and analyzes the many layers of cultural evidence there. It attempts to reconstruct through documentation the cultural landscape as it was shaped by the Madisons and subsequent owners. Also, it explores how the values of its owners, grandees, plutocrats, and others, were bound up with the house and grounds. This study undertakes an analysis of Montpelier as a multi-storied house.' Located in Orange County, Virginia, Montpelier served many owners. (Figure 1) First, it signified colonial entrepreneurship and power as Col. Madison accrued wealth (through plantation slavery) and social standing. The second phase of its history saw a transformation of its styling into a form of civic architecture. James Madison, Jr., reworked its iconography to coincide with his interest in national government. It became his ideological expression during the presidency of John Adams, taking on a republican cast of civic architecture. Later as president, he remodeled the dwelling again to coincide with his national standing in high office. By the time of President Madison’s death, the mansion house and grounds had evolved into monumental architecture. That the house and grounds remained that way was no accident. Those who ' Camille Wells, ‘The Multi-Storied House: Twentieth Century Encounters with the Domestic Architecture of Colonial Virginia,”Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 106 (Fall 1998): 353- 418. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. possessed the house after Dolley Madison were exposed to public scrutiny as they put the house and grounds to uses that served their own designs for pleasures and profit. The house played a symbolic role in