Published September 4, 2011
By Reg Ankrom
Aside
from the notable quality of their craftsmanship and beauty in their polished
mahogany finishes, two pieces of furniture in the Gov. John Wood Mansion may
get little more notice than the other 19th century furnishings there.
But
these are pieces that are especially interesting in their historical
significance, not only to the history of Quincy and Adams County but of the
nation, as well: They attended the birth of the nation’s political parties. And
they are part of the collection of the Historical Society of Quincy and Adams
County.
In the Mansion’s
first floor parlor is an imposing mahogany sideboard, as big and as bold as the
man who used it during his eight years in the White House. Like its owner
President Andrew Jackson, it stands heroic in appearance. It served the
president and his guests in the White House dining room from 1829 to 1837, a
silent witness to the Age of Jackson.
It
would have taken several Jackson commoners to move the bulky piece of
furniture. Six feet long and nearly as tall, it is two feet deep and large
enough to have held dozens of settings of presidential china and silver sets. A
thick, beveled mirror and two mirrored insets rise above an inch-thick, Italian
marble top framed by two deep drawers, each with filigreed brass pulls. Typical
of American Federal-style furniture of the period, it has four unengaged
columns, each topped by carved ionic capitals on either side of two side
cupboards.
This
sideboard was a silent witness to the turbulent history of the Jackson
presidency. It would have been privy to the so-called Peggy Eaton controversy,
an affair of loose morals involving Jackson’s Secretary of War John Eaton and
the promiscuous daughter of Washington innkeeper William O’Neale. Wives of most
of Jackson’s cabinet, led by the vice president’s wife, Floride Calhoun,
stirred the controversy, which took more of Jackson’s attention than almost any
other issue of his first year in office. It was substantially the reason
Jackson turned to his “kitchen cabinet” for advice, ignoring and
ultimately jettisoning his official cabinet.
The
sideboard stood steadfast during some of Jackson’s famous tirades against the
Bank of the United States and its powerful president. Nicholas Biddle. It felt
the warmth of increasingly heated debates over the right of states to annul
federal laws. And it stood like a silent sentry before arguments over the issue
that disturbed the sensitivities of the nation’s sections — the matter of
slavery.
Mrs.
Hazel M. Adams gave the Jackson sideboard to the Historical Society in 1991 in
memory of her husband Carl N. Adams. The society’s documentation indicates that
after Jackson left office, the sideboard traveled from the White House to
Philadelphia, where Charles R. Hurst, a prominent Springfield dry goods
merchant, bought it in the 1840s. It became the property of Hurst’s daughter,
Mrs. Georgeine Hurst Starne of Springfield. The society’s records do not
indicate how the Adamses acquired the piece.
Another
of the oldest and most prized pieces in the Historical Society’s collection is
a desk that belonged to President John Quincy Adams, Jackson’s predecessor.
Austere in appearance and utilitarian in design, the desk today is situated in
a boy’s bedroom on the second-floor of the Gov. John Wood Mansion. For all its
understated qualities, the Adams desk had a significant role in chronicling
American history by a man who made it. It was at this desk that Adams composed
substantial portions of one of his most important legacies to history, his
monumental diary, which he began keeping at the age of 11. He also did some of
his five-times-daily Bible readings at the desk.
In
1825, the Illinois Legislature honored Adams, who was president at the time, by
giving the state’s westernmost county the Adams surname and the village that
would serve as the county seat Adams’s middle name. Had locals pronounced the
name as Adams did, the city would be known as QUIN-zee.
The
Adams desk was a gift to the Historical Society by Mrs. E.J. Parker in the
first few years of the 20th century. An early Quincy newspaper of the time
reported that the desk was discovered in Duxbury, Mass., with documents
confirming its ownership by President Adams.
The
desk is in the federal style, a common design during the early to mid-1800s.
Like the man who used it, the desk is unassuming in appearance and character.
Its writing area, which stretches across the width of the desk, is divided into
three leather-covered sections. Each slopes slightly from back to front, and
each has a top that lifts to reveal shallow storage compartments.
There
are four drawers with brass knobs on either side of the knee hole. The upper
section has two ledger cupboards over two small drawers and a space between
them for books and other reference materials.
The
connection of the Adams desk and Jackson sideboard to Quincy is related to the
origin of party politics and famous Quincyans who took sides.
Men
like Orville Hickman Browning, Abraham Jonas and John Wood adopted principles
of John Quincy Adams and the “National Republican Party” (later Whig,
then Republican).
At
about the same time, Andrew Jackson and followers were creating the
“Democratic Republican Party,” shortened to the Democratic Party,
which attracted the likes of Isaac N. Morris, James Singleton and Stephen A.
Douglas. His political career launched from Quincy in 1843, Douglas by 1858
would be the most powerful Democrat in the nation.
Reg Ankrom is executive director of the
Historical Society and a local historian. He is a member of several
history-related organizations, the author of a history of Stephen A. Douglas
and a frequent speaker on pre-Civil War history.
Sources
“Accession
Record of the Historical Society of Quincy and Adams County, Illinois.”
Accession No. F11, undated.
Howe,
Daniel Walker. What Hath God Wrought. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Quincy
Optic. dates unknown.
Remini, Robert V. John Quincy Adams. New York: Times Books,
2002.
