Making History

By Ben Swenson

The recruits of the Colonial Williamsburg Fifes and Drums have come to the Revolutionary City from many different backgrounds. Some always knew they’d join this ensemble. Others seemed to have stumbled on it accidentally.

All of them have signed on to a life-changing journey.

In these audio clips, the recruits tell the stories of what brought them to the corps and the lessons they have already taken away from the experience.

By Ben Swenson

Entrepreneurs love to see business coming through the door. But when your line of work is an 18th-century Historic Trade, walk-ins are a rarity.

Yet that’s what happened last year at the Colonial Williamsburg Wheelwright and Carriage Shop. Matthew Mees and his wife were visiting the Revolutionary City and made a point to drop in on the wheelwrights. After all, Mees was in the market for a sturdy pair of 18th-century gun-carriage wheels.

[brightcove videoID=4305450618001 playerID=3703125019001 height=315 width=560]

Mees is the president of the Braintree Historical Society in Massachusetts. The Historical Society is the steward of historic resources in the Boston suburb and among the Historical Society’s collections is an antique French cannon that has outlasted at least two carriages.

Though a carriage had been built for the barrel in the 1980s, the wheels rotted beyond repair over the years, and the now-wheel-less piece of artillery needed a new pair. But these would be no standard order, because Mees insisted that they mirror the wheels this cannon probably sported during its years of original service.

The Braintree Historical Society received the 1793 cannon barrel as a gift some 50 years ago. The cannon has been parked for decades at the Braintree birthplace of General Sylvanus Thayer, known as “the Father of West Point,” the United States Military Academy. When donors provided funds to secure a replacement pair of wheels, Mees weighed all his options before committing.

Prior to reaching out to Colonial Williamsburg, “I had been sending requests for proposals to various wheelwrights,” Mees said. “They’d say, ‘Oh yeah, I’ll rebuild those wheels,’ but then they saw the task, and they would back off.”

Reproducing artifacts can be challenging because every culture expresses itself in different ways. There are curves in French spokes, for example, where English-styled spokes are straight, slants in French-made joints where others remain flat—differences you might not see unless you were looking for them, but differences Mees required for accuracy’s sake.

“It’s a very specific artillery design,” Mees said. “Colonial Williamsburg’s wheelwrights had done French artillery before, but never anything this large and they seemed excited to have this opportunity.”

The wheelwrights gladly accepted the challenge, said Andrew De Lisle, journeyman wheelwright and front man for this project. Part of their willingness was simply tradition; Colonial Williamsburg’s tradesmen have a long history of making items used far and wide for historical interpretation, a practice that began in the 1930s when the museum’s first employees reproduced furniture used in the Historic Area and at Colonial National Historical Park.

Among the museums that own products made by the wheelwrights (not to mention many other Colonial Williamsburg Historic Trades) are the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History, Fort Ticonderoga and Genesee Country Village and Museum.

These tradesmen carry another mantle, as well—that of the art of wheelwrighting. The apprentice fraternity for the trade is small, De Lisle said, and that means there are few accessible reference works to guide them through unfamiliar processes. Their work is always a learning process, especially when it comes to employing techniques they don’t often use.

Take the curved spokes, for instance. De Lisle said there’s no obvious explanation for why French wheelwrights opted for that design over the seemingly more practical, English-style straight spokes. “We have more than 50 years combined experience in the wheelwright shop and none of us are completely sure.”

Colonial Williamsburg’s blacksmiths collaborated with the wheelwrights on this project, creating the wheel’s strakes, or metal rims, and other hardware. Even in those iron reinforcements, the tradesmen had to re-create subtle differences in style, clustering nails, for instance, where English blacksmiths fashioned them in a line.

And that immersion in new techniques not only adds to tradesmen’s experiences, it also offers insight into the reason behind specific designs. De Lisle said that the curved spokes might have been a little faster to make. Or perhaps it’s just that the design looked nice and caught on among wheelwrights. De Lisle said that he and his colleagues still aren’t sure, but making the wheels allowed them to offer a couple good guesses.

“Often gauges and techniques don’t make sense to us until we make something,” De Lisle said. “It’s quite a learning experience leaping from one culture to another.”

The education isn’t confined strictly to the tradesmen at Colonial Williamsburg; When the finished wheels are attached to the carriage in Braintree, Mees plans to use the artillery to transport people back to the 18th century.

“Everything about this piece is a teaching moment. Every cannon has a name, it has a seal including who the ruler is at the time, sometimes it has a motto. The barrel says when the tube was made, who made it and where. And the carriages, of course, are a very particular type of this era.

“When you look at this cannon, it’s going to take you back to 1793,” Mees said.

 

This week on the podcast, hear renowned Thomas Jefferson interpreter Bill Barker read the Declaration of Independence. There’s no better way to celebrate Independence Day than with reverence for the words that started it all.

Listen now.

Zoom in on the Declaration of Independence.

By Karen Gonzalez

Peter Pelham’s musical influence found a way into the life of a Founding Father, according to new research.

A manuscript – or copybook – of music bearing the handwriting of Thomas Jefferson’s wife, Martha Wayles Jefferson, and Pelham, the 18^th-century Bruton Parish Church organist and music teacher, offers a glimpse into the relationship between music student and teacher.

The Pelham/Jefferson music manuscript dates from 1760 into the 1770s, showing a two-decade relationship between the Pelham and Jefferson families, according to Dr. Nikos Pappas, an assistant professor of musicology, who found the volume in the Jefferson Library. Although Martha’s name is not in the copybook, her handwriting is unmistakable.

“The interesting part about the Jefferson/Pelham copy book is that the earliest part of it is in Pelham’s hand, and she starts to copy her own music in it. About two-thirds of it is in her own handwriting and one third is in Pelham’s,” said Pappas, who is currently taking part at a Colonial Williamsburg fellowship program through the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library.

Martha Wayles - The early years

Martha was born into the prosperous Wayles family in 1748. Her father, a planter, slave trader, attorney and business agent, provided nicely for his family. As was common in that time, wealthy families educated their daughters in the social skills of the day, including keyboard skills, dancing and needlework. Her music teacher was Peter Pelham of Williamsburg.

Martha Wayles proved to be quite talented on the spinet and played at a high level of proficiency.

Her musical gifts extended beyond the keyboard. She also composed musical preludes to some of the longer compositions in the manuscript. More than elementary children’s pieces, these preludes demonstrate her mastery of music theory and prowess as a performer, but more important her creativity as an artist. She not only performed, but also personally shaped the pieces in her repertory.

Martha’s life was not always uncomplicated and easy. Her mother died from complications giving birth to her, and Martha was widowed at age 19 when her husband Bathurst Skelton died. She was by then the mother of an infant son named John, who also died before the age of 4.

Jefferson Courtship

After her first husband’s death, Martha returned to her childhood home in Charles City, County, Va. She met Thomas Jefferson around 1768 and married him in 1772. A renowned violinist himself, Thomas and Martha Jefferson reportedly spent many evenings playing music together as was the custom of the day.

“Martha Jefferson is a very mysterious figure in a way. When she passed, Thomas Jefferson destroyed everything of hers. All we have is a letter, an account book and this music book. He just couldn’t stand to have anything around that reminded him of her. To add to the loss is the fact that his library burned down in 1783. We are lucky to have anything of hers just because of the circumstances of what happened to her and the natural disasters,” Pappas said.

The new manuscript

Pappas noted that a music master of the time would often provide a book with music staff lines, which would contain the musical symbols and notes appropriate to the piece.

“The teacher would probably copy in a number of pieces if the student did not purchase sheet music,” Pappas explained.

Michael Monaco, who interprets Peter Pelham for the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, said the musical relationship left an impression on Martha Jefferson.

“She was definitely a product of Pelham’s influence,” said Monaco, who is also a harpsichordist/keyboardist at the Foundation.

“Student and mentor – we believe that Pelham probably viewed Martha as a daughter-type figure and would have had that kind of paternal affection for her,” he continued. “It’s music that connects them, not politics, but music. The importance of the daily events of music, even when things are at their darkest and the most difficult times. That’s the unifying force.”