TRUST EXPLORES AMERICA’S COUNTRY ROOTS IN NASHVILLE

Our guide, host and helpful organizer, Robert Hicks, giving informative and hilarious regional history on the bus.

Spring had just begun to touch the countryside when Trust members gathered in Nashville to study the art and architecture of Tennessee. For some of us, the hills and the culture of that midland state were familiar. For others, the weekend exposed us to a new region and a new way of life. In the tradition of Trust symposiums, the program was assembled to give both groups the greatest benefits.

Our home in Nashville was the historic Hermitage Hotel, an Edwardian grande dame. Hotels like the Hermitage, that have been fortunate enough to survive until the taste for “travel de luxe” returned, have found new life with visitors who appreciate not only their comfort but their gracious antiquity. As with many Trust symposiums, the environment within which we moved heightened the effect of our visit.

As also with Trust symposiums, we moved vigorously. Led by three exceptional guides — Robert Hicks, Rick Warwick, and Dr. Benjamin Caldwell — we took a series of rambles through its history, geography and architecture. We saw towns, manors, and historic sites that members won’t forget.

Neoclassical sofa with recently recognized connections to Philadelphia in the front hall of Carnton Plantation. Click to enlarge image.

Riding through new green fields partitioned by black board fences and limestone dry-stack rock walls characteristic of the region, we crossed one of the original bridges on the only part of Lewis and Clark’s Natchez Trace to survive as a roadway.

Set into those hills was the appealing town of Franklin, memorable as the site of one of the most harrowing battles of the Civil War. Hicks, narrating the event, left us with unforgettable images as we rode toward “Carnton Plantation,” with which he is associated. Begun in 1826, expanded and refurnished a generation later, Carnton met its destiny after the Battle of Franklin. Rushed into service as a Confederate field hospital, it saw hundreds of men pass through its doors – many of them to graves in its hillside cemetery.

Accompanying us to “Carnton” was Gail Winkler, whose expertise was responsible for bringing its rooms back to life. Her comments, and her conversations with Hicks, added depth to our visit.

Rear of private house visited by Trust members. It was complete with summer kitchen, well, smoke house and men's and women's outhouses including a rare baby's seat in the women's.

At the plantation of “Belle Mead” we were immersed in another aspect of Tennessee’s complex personality: the breeding and racing of fine horses. Mr. and Mrs. Ridley Wills, II, were our hosts. Mr. Wills, a descendent of the plantation’s original families, talked about its birth as a frontier cabin on the Natchez Trace. The plantation’s owners began boarding horses as early as 1816, registered their racing silks in 1823, and expanded the increasingly famous farm. Much of its rise was under the guidance of legendary black trainer, Bob Green. We dined in the elegant 1890’s racing stables and toured the antebellum manor. Fine paintings of its prizewinners hang in the hall like portraits of family ancestors.

Those of us who could remain after the symposium visited yet another sort of manor: Cheekwood Botanical Gardens and Museum, built for the Cheek family in 1932 in the style of an English country house. With spectacular gardens and impressive collections, Cheekwood opened as a museum in 1960. Jack Becker, its Director of Fine Arts, spoke to us about the house and its holdings, and Lisa Porter, its Curator of Decorative Arts, gave us a tour of the museum, and shared its ceramics study collection with us.

Dr. and Mrs. Benjamin Caldwell, son Ben, with Jonathan Fairbanks with tooled cooper antler bowl made by Ben Caldwell, Jr.

All who have experienced a Trust symposium know how difficult it is to drive away from one extraordinary site after another. Piling into the bus at Cheekwood was tough; tumbling out before the eye-filling art deco Port Office that houses the Frist Collection made it seem worthwhile. We had time for only a glimpse of the WPA-monumental interior before we were herded away: but what a glimpse!! At the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum our ears were filled with songs familiar to everyone. We scattered like happy kids, and could be found, mesmerized, looking at and listening to all of the genres that have combined to create American country music. The museum shop was terrific, too!

We were beautifully prepared for our visit to “The Hermitage,” plantation home of President Andrew Jackson. Collector and antiquarian Dr. Benjamin Caldwell, The Jonathan L. Fairbanks Lecturer, spoke about Jackson as a collector; “Hermitage” Curator Marsha Mullin talked about the documentation and restoration of the house and furnishings; and James Hoobler, Curator of the Tennessee State Museum, showed us Jacksonian portraits.

Dining Room at "The Hermitage"

Dr. Caldwell’s talk altered our conception of Jackson: “Old Rough and Ready” was, indeed, a man of the people; but he was also a compulsive collector, and very partial to silver. Knowing that, many of his clients and friends bought silver for him. He was no piker about buying it for himself or, when he was President, for the nation. When he left the White House, he left it richer by about a thousand pieces of silver (over 600 of them still there). When we visited “The Hermitage” we saw, among other things, a set of spectacular silver covered dishes with stag-head handles he bought from Stephen Decatur’s widow, as an act of charity as well as a collector’s impulse.

But man cannot live by silver alone. Both Dr. Caldwell and Marsha Mullin illustrated furniture Jackson owned. Caldwell showed us a Philadelphia 4-drawer chest and tall secretary bookcase, a card table and chest made by J.B. Houston (Sam’s brother); Mullin talked about the wealth of documents that have aided efforts to decorate, and locate objects that stayed with the family. She described Jackson as “determined to be sophisticated,” and concluded with a portrait of him by his friend, Ralph Earle, “who made a living — a very good living ”— painting portraits of Jackson.”

Picking up on that theme, James Hoobler talked about Jackson portraits, and portraiture in Jackson’s era. During our visit to the State Museum with him, we were able to view the museum’s rich portrait collection. Hoobler also spoke about the architect, William Strickland, who was responsible for some of classical America’s greatest buildings. Two of his last and finest structures are in Nashville: the Downtown Presbyterian Church and the State Capitol building.

Click image to enlarge.

With Hoobler as our guide, we toured both buildings. The church is an astonishing examine of the Egyptian Revival style. Its brilliantly painted interior is a delight, and Nashville is proud to have saved it. The majestic Capitol crowns an eminence in the center of the city. Hoobler guided us through the building, into the restored legislative chamber, the cast iron library, and the monumental stair hall.

Our lectures weren’t limited to ones associated with sites we visited. Robert Hicks talked about Tennessee’s first settlers and what they brought. We heard about African influences on Tennessee furniture, and the steady trade with the east. By the 1820’s “whatever you could buy in Philadelphia you could probably get in Nashville.”

He showed furniture forms directly associated with Tennessee: the Jackson press, the sugar chest, the slab table and sideboard, the biscuitboard. And he explained them so well that those of us from other parts of the country pointed them out to each other, when we saw them throughout the weekend.

Gail Winkler talked about lighting in the New Republic. She dealt with the ways in which citizens of the new United States attempted to brighten their lives and ornament their rooms. From candles to Argand or Patent lamps, to solar or lard oil, things improved, but “interiors remained dimly illuminated by our standards well into the 19th century.” And the shift from portable to stationary lamps was reflected in the increasing immobility of furniture. Listening to her catalogue of housekeeping tasks, many of us thanked the household gods that we live in the present century.

Dr. Hank Carter of Lancaster, PA and Lorraine Davis of Fort Wayne, IN, examine Tennessee chairs brought by Rick Warwick to illustrate his lecture. Dick Poyer, a free black man who paid for his freedom and that of his wife and children, made all the chairs.

Rick Warwick, one of our companions throughout the weekend, gave us a great “show and tell,” describing the way an assignment to his Social Studies class blossomed into years of research about Dick Poyner, a slave born in 1806, who literally assembled a lifetime business of chairmaking. Warwick described the man, his shop, the process, and the chairs: They’re so well constructed “you can’t take them apart, you have to break them apart.” The business went on: in 1925 Dick’s grandson was making and repairing the same chairs. We were all over the many examples he brought.

Bets Ramsey, a fiber artist, described the Tennessee Quilt Survey that began in 1984 to try to determine “What are the typical quilts of Tennessee.” We’ve included an abridged copy of her lecture, with some images of the quilts she emphasized.

This symposium included several very special site visits, but two stand out as extraordinary: our reception at the home of Dr. Caldwell and his family; and our barbecue supper at Robert Hicks’ cabin. Each was rich in the things that characterize Trust symposiums: remarkable objects, scholarly conversation, and fine food and drink. Examining Tennessee silver, talking beside a fireplace, looking over a Jackson press, digging into a plate heaped with “down home” barbecue. Such things are the real keys to understanding a region, its people and its arts.

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