Transcripts For CSPAN3 American Artifacts 20160926

They maintained a large shipping operation and the home was passed them through several generations of the myers family. We too are the house to see many of the original furnishings and ar what life was like the prominent merchant family. Welcome to the moses myers house. Moses myers was born in york city in 1752 and he made a fortune as a maritime merchant. He did serve as an American Revolutionary war veteran and as an effort to supply them, he suffered his first bankruptcy. That bankruptcy that caused him to move away from new york city and resettle here in norfolk, virginia. We think he chose norfolk for three reasons. It was one of the most prominent colonial seaports. That was very important to him in his business life. Secondly, norfolk had been burned to the ground during the american revolution, and we were rebuilding. He was rebuilding of his life. It was a good match. Thirdly and maybe most importantly to moses myers, when he moved here in 1787, virginia had just passed a statute of religious freedom five years before the bill of rights. This would be important to him moses and his new bride because they were jewish. They moved to norfolk, virginia , in 1787, becoming norfolks First Permanent jewish residents. They reestablished their business and by 1791, they were doing well enough to purchase this land and begin construction on this beautiful mansion. They moved in by 1795. Five generations of the family have lived in this house. They are the only family to ever live in this house until it became a museum in 1931. One of the great things about that is they left the house with the contents intact. The majority of the furnishings that we are going to see are not only antiques but date to the first generation of the myers family. Seee look above us, we can one of the finest examples of neoclassical plasterwork to be found at any time in america. The ceiling is in the robert adams style. We also have a beautiful clock. This is original to the house and the family. It predates the house as moses would have brought this with him from new york city. This is the first room that many guests would have seen. They would be welcomed into this room while one of the enslaved servants would have brought him out to greet the most average guest. You would only get to see the rest of the house if you were a v. I. P. Or friend of the family. You are a friend of the family, so so come on in. To thee to introduce you myers family. Above the door, we have mosys myers himself and on our right elizaside we have allies myers. They were painted by gilbert stuart. Above the fireplace, we have this portrait. This is samuel myers. And here we have meyer myers, the third eldest son. In total, the myers had 12 children. Nine of whom lived to adulthood. Of the nine that lived to adulthood, six were boys and three were girls. You might ask yourself, are these the original colors on the walls, are these the original furnishings . On the first floor, this is more or less how it looked in 1819. The reason we know what was in this room in 1819 is, unfortunately, moses myers suffered a second bankruptcy. There had been a kind of a panic in that year and he had overextended himself by opening a branch of the business for hav his eldest son, john. When the panic hit, he had to stop payment and file bankruptcy. Creditors came in and did inventory of the entire house which we have. We were able to use the inventory to place over 100 pieces in their original location. The colors that you see on the walls are the 1819 colors. In 2005, we had a paint analysis done. If you look at this picture, you will see that it looked much different and the fireplace was completely painted over. When they did the paint analysis and dug underneath the layers of paint, they struck gold. 22. 5 carat gold which was largely intact. It only had to be repaired in some places. Today, it is considered one of the most elaborately gilded fireplaces in america at this time. As we come over here, i would love to bring you over to the parlor. Originally, this room would have served as the dining room to the family as noted by the food motive on the fireplace mantle. When they built a later dining room at addition, it allowed them to paint and transform this dining room into a parlor. This is a room where they would play games. They loved games of chance and guessing games. Their greatest love was music. All of the children were trained musicians. This is their very own piano forte. The girls play the harp and the boys played the violin. All of the children sang. They had over 900 pieces of sheet music. One of the largest private collections that could be found anywhere in antibellum america. Over the door, we have another painting by the same artist. This is joseph marx. You may ask yourself, being of the jewish faith, how did they find people of the same faith to considering they were the first jewish family in norfolk . It was very difficult. Married two ofn mr. Marxs daughters. Over the fireplace, you can see an original Looking Glass and to original oil lamps. Two these may be the first oil lamps in virginia as he would have had access to whale oil at a time when not many people had access to the oil. Come along with me and i will escort you to the dining room. We are standing in the grand dining room. This is a later addition to the house. This was added around 1810. Many of the furnishings in this room are original. This is their original table. We have 12 beautiful chairs. We have two original sideboards that were custombuilt for this room. They are so exact to measure that they are not interchangeable because one of these is one inch shorter than the other. As you see, the back legs are tucked into the baseboards. These have been in the exact location for over 200 years. Moses myers family was known as great entertainers and eliza was known as a gracious host. A lots of people ask us, did they have a kosher diet . The answer is no. Unfortunately, they were not able to keep a kosher diet. We know that even though they celebrated passover and yom kippur, they also had occasion to eat oysters on christmas day. We do know that from one of their journals. They also would have had other types of entertainment in this room like balls, weddings, and unfortunately funerals. We are entering the second level of the myers family house. It is interesting to think that looking out this window in the other homes of the in the area would have been one story, maybe twostory wooden structures. This was the first brick residence built in norfolk after the revolution. Most other homes would have been singleroom homes, maybe the size of this landing, if you were lucky, the size of this landing and this room combined. In the 1819 inventory of the house, this room was used for storage. They had about 30 armchairs stacked up in this room. This was another sign of their wealth, that they had space that they could store things. Space was a luxury that not many people could afford. Looking over here, this is some of the original myers family cups and china and a jewish used in jewish ceremonies and rituals. From here, we will enter the myers master bedroom. This is another room where the majority of the furniture that you are seeing is original to the family, not just antiques. This is the actual bed moses myers slept in, and unfortunately, it is the bed he died in. It is a locally made piece of furniture by local craftsman james woodward. You can see the acorn above the headboard. That is a symbol of wealth. One of the things that this family definitely had going for it. This is a great place where we can talk about form following function with furniture. Bed is still popular today, back then, it would have had heavy curtains in the winter. This chair could be pulled forward towards the fire and it acts as walls to circulate the heat. Allow me to bring you behind the scenes and show what is in this closet. Here we have some of the myers clothing. In fact, that gold suit on your left may have been the suit that moses was wearing in this 1785 miniature portrait. Many guests point out that they would love to live in this time, but unfortunately, there were many drawbacks to living in the 1700s and 1800s. One of the unfortunate aspects of life during this time was slavery. It would have been an enslaved servants job everyday to come in and stoke the fire, add the , andpty the chamber pot fill this bed warmer with live under therun it blankets before they got into bed at night. Just a couple of the tasks that an enslaved servant was expected to do. We like to tell the story of all the people that lived in this house. If you would like to hear more about the enslaved servants, follow me to the kitchen. We are now standing in the moses myers family kitchen. This kitchen was an addition to the house, probably built around 1797. It was very important to them to have the kitchen separate from the house to reduce the risk of fire. Unfortunately this is one of the , rooms where the furniture you are looking at is not original to the family. What is original is the flooring. We are standing on the stones from one of his ships. You can see the brick extends out. That is because brick is a natural heat conductor and they can put pots and pans here to to keep them warm. This would have been one of the busiest rooms in the house because the myers enslaved servants would be coming and going from this kitchen at all times and they would have taken all of their meals in this room. Above this room, we have sleeping quarters for the enslaved servants. Urban slavery was much different than plantation slavery. Here in town, the enslaved servant had time to interact with other free blacks and they could earn a wage. If moses myers did not have any work for his enslaved servants, they could hire themselves out and earn a wage. One of the men who worked for moses myers was a man named billy. He was a skilled tradesmen. He was a cooper who built barrels and boxes. This would have been very important to moses in his shipping. Now we are standing in the moses myers maritime merchant room. On this wall, you can see a map of the atlantic. These are all the different seaports where moses myers ships would make call. We illustrate the different types of cargo that he would have carried. Cotton, rum, spices, molasses. Many different cargoes. The family did suffer some ill side effects of their religion. In 1817, the family sent a shipment of tobacco to norway. Unfortunately, norway had recently passed some laws forbidding jews from profiting from trade. The family sent their son to norway to recover payment on that shipment of tobacco. He was warned by a friend that the first thing they would ask for when he applied for a norwegian passport was what religion. Because he was forewarned, he feigned illness and sent an enslaved servant to get the passport for him. Luckily, the officials were so taken aback that they forgot to ask what religion. In this way, he was able to obtain a passport that did not state his religion. Unfortunately, the merchants who received the tobacco were still seeking to hide behind this law and turned him in for being jewish. He was brought before the magistrate who demanded that he provide him a certificate of baptism. He countered this by saying, who do you know who carries around a certificate of baptism . He said to the magistrate, name any doctor and i will get an examination and prove that i am not jewish. He did go to the doctor. We are not sure if maybe some money changed hands, but we do know he was able to prove that he was not jewish. He spent five years in norway trying to recover that shipment of tobacco or the payment. He never received the full payment. We have other maritime artifacts jerk whichhis naval belonged to the familys youngest son, henry myers. And over here, your oldfashioned g. P. S. They could raise the arm at noon and measure the angle of the sun above the horizon. And thereby, know the latitude. This belonged to the youngest son who was a midshipman in the navy and died of yellow fever in 1822. We are now standing in the barton myers room. He was the greatgrandson. It is his wife who let the house become a museum. By the age of 35, he had already founded two factories, was the president of the chamber of congress, was instrumental in getting many Railroad Lines here and had served as mayor of norfolk by the age of 35. One of the most important things that barton myers did was in 1907, he was on the board of directors for the jamestown exposition. The exposition was held here in norfolk and celebrated the 300 th anniversary of the founding of jamestown. Barton myers owned the land where the exposition was hell. Was held and he had it set up with plumbing and electricity. After the exhibition, he lobbied the u. S. Government to bring the navy base here, which was already well known as a great deep water port. They did bring the navy base here and Norfolk Naval air station, the Worlds Largest navy base is on the land that he owned and had set up with plumbing and electricity. Would we even have a navy base here if not for for barton myers . We would like to thank you for visiting the moses myers house today, and we hope you will come back to learn about the fascinating family and the effect that one family can have on the life of a small town like norfolk. I am the library and librarian for the chrysler museum. I have brought some Materials Today from the moses myers archives. Paper material, music, and books. Myers did a lot of the shopping and grocery lists. Lists are often not kept but the myers family firm kept good records of everything and we have a lot as you can see. These are some examples of the things that she would buy in preparation for dinners for the family or larger dinners for guests. There are things on this like fish, potatoes, sweet potatoes, 17 duck, beef, cabbage, they seemed to have eaten a lots of melon. It seemed it was in most meals. Around 1829 18241829. I have taken out a freight list for the ship. This is around 1824. One of myers ships. It leaves a detailed inventory of what is on the ship, the weight of it, the measurement , and the totals. Here we have preprinted shipping documents to state who the ship owner was, where it was headed, the name of the vessel, what they were shipping, the date and also the description, length, depth of the ship and how many tons it was able to carry. 1819. S typical of this is the moses myers family bible. At this point, it is a bit fragile and needs some conservation. It has many other useful information like birthdates written in the margins of the bible. It is a well used book. Here on the table, a small example of what we hold at the library. We have many letters that are written twice as a carbon copy almost, so that when they send it out, maybe they would not get a letter back, a reply for a couple of weeks, they can refer back to the original letter they wrote to remember what it is they were talking about. The letters and all the documents that we have help us learn more about the moses myers family. We have a very intimate and personal look into letters from moses myers to his children and letters from moses myers to his Business Partners and other people. This way, we are able to piece together a wellrounded story along with having the Historic House is a very great asset to have. You can watch this and other american artifacts programs by visiting our website at cspan. Org history. To cspan. Org monday evening for the president ial debate on your desktop, phone, or tablet. Video one streams and demand of every question to the candidates and their answers. Clips of your favorite moments to share on social media. Not able to watch . Listen to the debate live on the cspan radio app. It is free to download. Live coverage of the president ial debate monday evening on cspan. Org and the cspan radio app. The National Museum of African American history and culture opened yesterday on the national mall. We talked with africanamerican members of congress about the newest museum. Can you give us your views of the importance of the new