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After leaving Hildene's parlor and crossing the center hall once again, TechnoTourist visited the dining room – the first floor's most formal setting. The portly gentleman whose portrait stared down at us from above the fireplace is Robert Todd Lincoln, the captain of industry (and Abraham Lincoln's son) who built this 24-room mansion in Manchester, Vermont.
The table, arranged for six people, is set with china manufactured by Minton of Stoke, England. At the turn of the twentieth century, this factory there also produced ceramic tiles - as many as two million a month. Herbert Minton, the company's founder, first developed encaustic tiles in the 1830s, using pigments and hot wax. This mixture of materials is applied in its semi-liquid form as paint and then fused to the surface with heat.
The Kitchen
The kitchen at Hildene has been restored to what it looked like in 1905. Because Robert Todd Lincoln operated a so-called "gentleman's farm" with dairy cows and vegetables, some of the food was locally grown. Near the far wall to the left (and seen in the image immediately below) stands a circular knife cleaner that Lincoln bought in London. A wooden work table with a juicer, coffee grinder, ice scraper and bread maker has also been preserved. This is sturdy stuff, made of metal and probably assembled in the U.S. or the U.K. Also, note the metal box for transporting eggs.
The coal stove and soapstone sink (not shown) are both original to the home. Unfortunately, the waffle iron that sits atop the stove (on the right) is easier to recognize than the stove's maker. As best TechnoTourist can tell, the stove was patented on June 1, 1880, by Duparque, Hudt & Moneure Co., a manufacturer with offices in New York, Boston, and Washington. Should any CR4ers know more about this stove or its manufacturer, please let us know by commenting on this story.
A Vintage Appliance
Robert Todd Lincoln couldn't consume all of the butter made from milk from his herd of dairy cows. So, he shipped about 20 pounds a week to his friend Marshall Field, the New England-born founder of a chain of Chicago-based department stores. Later, the Lincoln family kept butter and milk in Hildene's GE Monitor refrigerator. This vintage appliance featured a hermetically-sealed refrigeration system and sold for $300 (USD). Introduced in 1927, the GE Monitor was cooled with one of two refrigerants used at the time: sulfur dioxide and methyl formate. Later, General Electric added features such as enclosed condenser coils and slide-out shelves. With 5 to 7 cubic feet of storage space, GE Monitor refrigerators were billed as "the first affordable refrigeration units for the average family".
The Butler's Quarters
Few American families had a butler, however, and who did usually had room for a separate servants' quarters. At Hildene, this part of the downstairs featured a technology that TechnoTourist had not seen before. In the first photo below, note the annunciator box on the wall with flags that identify different rooms in the house. When a call button was pushed in one of the rooms, a flag dropped – letting the butler know which room needed attention. If help from a second-floor servant was necessary, the butler could call upstairs using the brass speaking tube. Note, also, the phone in the butler's quarters (below). It was the only one in the 24-room mansion.
Let's examine a remarkable wood carving and then head upstairs to where Robert Todd Lincoln conducted his Pullman Car Company business, shall we?
Editor's Note: Click here for Part 3, the next installment in this four-part series. Part 1 and Part 2 are also available.
Additional Resource:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pullman_Palace_Car_Company
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Re: TechnoTourist Visits Hildene (Part 2)
