Old Time Wall Papers Part 7

Papers representing places with truthful details were numerous and popular, as "The Bay of Naples," "The Alhambra," "Gallipoli," "On the Bosporus." A striking paper represents the River Seine at Paris. This paper has a brilliant coloring and the scenes are carried entirely round the room; nearly all the princ.i.p.al buildings in Paris are seen. On one side of the room you will notice the Column Vendome, which shows that the paper was made after 1806. The horses in the arch of the Carousel are still in place. As these were sent back to Venice in 1814, the paper must have been made between these dates.

On the walls of a house in Federal Street, which was once occupied by H.

K. Oliver, who wrote the hymn called "Federal Street," is the River Seine paper with important public buildings of Paris along its bank; several other houses have this same paper, and half a dozen duplicates have been sent me from various parts of New England.

I have heard of a paper at Sag Harbor, Long Island, in which old New York scenes were pictured, but of this I have not been fortunate enough to secure photographs.

Certain towns and their neighborhoods are particularly rich in interesting old papers, and Salem, Ma.s.sachusetts, certainly deserves honorable mention at the head of the list. That place can show more than a score of very old papers in perfect condition to-day, and several houses have modern paper on the walls that was copied from the original paper.

One old house there was formerly owned by a retired merchant, and he had the entire ceiling of the large cupola painted to show his wharves and his s.h.i.+ps that sailed from this port for foreign lands.

Another fine house has a water color painting on the walls, done to look like paper; this is one hundred and seventy-five years old.

A curious paper is supposed to be an attempt to honor the first railroad. This is in bright colors, with lower panels in common gray tints. The friend who obtained this for me suggests that the artist did not know how to draw a train of cars, and so filled up the s.p.a.ce ingeniously with a big bowlder. This is on the walls of a modest little house, and one wonders that an expensive landscape paper should be on the room. But the owner of the house was an expressman and was long employed by Salemites to carry valuable bundles back and forth from Boston. A wealthy man who resided in Chestnut Street was having his house papered during the rage for landscape papers, and this person carried the papers down from Boston so carefully that the gentleman presented him with a landscape paper of his own, as a reward for his interest. Now the mansion has long since parted with its foreign landscapes, but such care was taken of the humble parlor that its paper is still intact and handsome; it is more than seventy-five years old.

A fine French paper shows a fruit garden, probably the Tuileries, in grays and blues. The frieze at the top is of white flowers in arches with blue sky between the arches. This room was papered for Mrs. Story, the mother of Judge Story, in 1818.

In the Osgood house in Ess.e.x Street there is a most beautiful paper, imported from Antwerp in the early part of the nineteenth century, depicting a hunting scene. The hunt is centered about the hall and the game is run down and slain in the last sheet. A bal.u.s.trade is at the foot of the picture. The color is brown sepia shades.

One neat little house, in an out-of-the-way corner in Marblehead, has a French paper in gray, white and black, which was brought from France by a Marblehead man who was captured by a French privateer and lived in France many years. When he returned, he brought this with him. It shows scenes in the life of the French soldiers. They are drinking at inns, flirting with pretty girls, but never fighting. Another paper has tropical plants, elephants, natives adorned with little else but feathers and beads. The careful mother will not allow any of the children to go alone into this room for fear they may injure it.

In a Chinese paper, one piece represents a funeral, and the horse with its trappings is being led along without a rider; women and children are gazing at the procession from paG.o.das.

On the walls of the Johnson house in North Andover is a Marie Antoinette paper, imported from England. I have heard of only this one example of this subject. A number of homes had painted walls, with pictures that imitated the imported landscapes.

At the Art Museum, Boston, one may see many specimens of old paper brought to this country before 1820, and up to 1860. A spirited scene is deer stalking in the Scotch Highlands; the deer is seen in the distance, one sportsman on his knees taking aim, another holding back an excited dog. In another hunting paper, the riders are leaping fences. A pretty Italian paper has peasants dancing and gathering grapes; vines are trained over a pergola, and a border of purple grapes and green leaves surrounds each section of the paper. A curious one is "Little Inns,"

with signs over the doors, as "Good Ale sold here," or "Traveler's Rest"; all are dancing or drinking, the colors are gay. There are also specimens of fireboards, for which special patterns were made, usually quite ornate and striking.

When a daughter of Sir William Pepperell married Nathaniel Sparhawk, he had a paper specially made, with the fair lady and her happy lover as the princ.i.p.al figures, and a hawk sitting on a spar. This paper is still to be seen in the Sparhawk house at Kittery Point, Maine.

Portsmouth is rich in treasures, but a member of one of the best families there tells me it is very hard to get access to these mansions.

Curiosity seekers have committed so many atrocities, in the way of stealing souvenirs, that visitors are looked upon with suspicion.

A house built in 1812 at Sackett's Harbor, New York, has a contemporary paper with scenes which are Chinese in character, but the buildings have tall flag staffs which seem to be East Indian.

Near Hoosic Falls, New York, there used to be a house whose paper showed Captain Cook's adventures. The scenes were in oval medallions, surrounded and connected by foliage. Different events of the Captain's life were pictured, including the cannibals' feast, of which he was the involuntary central figure. This paper has been destroyed, and I have sought in vain for photographs of it. But I have seen some chintz of the same pattern, in the possession of Miss Edith Morgan of Aurora, New York, which was saved from her grandfather's house at Albany when it was burned in 1790. So the paper is undoubtedly of the eighteenth century.

Think of a nervous invalid being obliged to gaze, day after day, upon the savages gnawing human joints and gluttonizing over a fat sirloin!

The adventures of Robinson Crusoe were depicted on several houses, and even Mother Goose was immortalized in the same way.

The managers of a "Retreat" for the harmlessly insane were obliged first to veil with lace a figure paper, and finally to remove it from the walls, it was so exciting and annoying to the occupants of the room.

This recalls the weird and distressing story by Elia W. Peattie, _The Yellow Wall-Paper_. Its fantastic designs drove a poor wife to suicide.

Ugh! I can see her now, crawling around the room which was her prison.

I advise any one, who is blessed or cursed with a lively imagination, to study a paper closely several times before purchasing, lest some demon with a malignant grin, or a black cat, or some equally exasperating face or design escape notice until too late. I once had a new paper removed because the innocent looking pattern, in time of sleepless anxiety, developed a savage's face with staring eyes, a flat nose, the grossest lips half open, the tongue protruding, and large round ear-rings in ears that looked like horns! This, repeated all round my sick room, was unendurable.

But the old time papers are almost uniformly inspiring or amusing. What I most enjoy are my two papers which used to cover the huge band-boxes of two ancient dames, in which they kept their Leghorn pokes, calashes, and quilted "Pumpkin" hoods. One has a ground of Colonial yellow, on which is a stage-coach drawn by prancing steeds, driver on the top, whip in hand, and two pa.s.sengers seen at the windows. A tavern with a rude swinging sign is in the background. The cover has a tropical scene--two Arabs with a giraffe. The other band-box has a fire engine and members of the "hose company," or whatever they called themselves, fighting a fire.

Papers with Biblical themes were quite common. In the fascinating biography of Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, I find a detailed account of one. She says:

"When we reached Schenectady, the first city we children had ever seen, we stopped to dine at the old 'Given's Hotel,' where we broke loose from all the moorings of propriety on beholding the paper on the dining-room wall ill.u.s.trating, in brilliant colors, some of the great events in sacred history. There were the patriarchs with flowing beards and in gorgeous attire; Abraham, offering up Isaac; Joseph, with his coat of many colors, thrown into a pit by his brethren; Noah's Ark on an ocean of waters; Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea; Rebecca at the well; and Moses in the bulrushes.

"All these distinguished personages were familiar to us, and to see them here for the first time in living colors made silence and eating impossible. We dashed around the room, calling to each other: 'O, Kate, look here!' 'O, Madge, look there!' 'See little Moses!' 'See the angels on Jacob's ladder!'

"Our exclamations could not be kept within bounds. The guests were amused beyond description, while my mother and elder sisters were equally mortified; but Mr. Bayard, who appreciated our childish surprise and delight, smiled and said: 'I'll take them around and show them the pictures, and then they will be able to dine,' which we finally did."

Inns often indulge in striking papers. A famous series of hunting scenes, called "The Eldorado," is now seen in several large hotels; it has recently been put on in the Parker House, Boston. It was the joint work of two Alsatian artists, Ehrmann and Zipelius, and was printed from about two thousand blocks. The Zuber family in Alsace has manufactured this spirited panel paper for over fifty years; it has proved as profitable as a gold mine and is constantly called for; I was shown a photograph of the descendants of the owner and a large crowd of workmen gathered to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the firm, which was established in 1797.

An old inn at Groton, Ma.s.sachusetts, was mentioned as having curious papers, but they proved to be modern. The walls, I hear, were originally painted with landscapes. This was an earlier style than scenic papers--akin to frescoing. A friend writes me:

"The odd papers now on the walls of Groton Inn have the appearance of being ancient, although the oldest is but thirty years old. Two of them are not even reproductions, as the one in the hall depicts the Paris Exposition of 1876, and that in the office gives scenes from the life of Buffalo Bill.

"The Exposition has the princ.i.p.al buildings in the background, with a fountain, and a long flight of steps in front leading to a street that curves round until it meets the same scene again. Persons of many nations, in characteristic dress, promenade the street. PaG.o.das and other unique buildings are dotted here and there. The entire scene is surrounded with a kind of frame of gra.s.ses and leaves, in somewhat of a Louis Quinze shape. Each one of these scenes has 'Paris Exposition, 1876,' printed on it, like a quack advertis.e.m.e.nt on a rock.

"The Wild West scenes include the log cabin, the stage coach held up, the wild riding, and the throwing of the la.s.so.

"The paper on the dining-room may be a reproduction. It looks like Holland, although there are no windmills. But the ca.n.a.l is there with boats and horses, other horses drinking, and men fis.h.i.+ng; also a Dutchy house with a bench outside the door. This paper looks as if it had been put on the walls a hundred years ago, but in reality it is the most recent of the three. The date of the beginning of the Inn itself is lost in the dim past, but we know it is more than two hundred years old.

Tradition has it that there were originally but two rooms which were occupied by the minister."

When some one writes on our early inns, as has been done so charmingly for those of England, I prophecy that the queer papers of the long ago will receive enthusiastic attention.

Towns near a port, or an island like Nantucket, are sure to have fine old papers to show. A Nantucket woman, visiting the Art Museum in Boston some dozen years since, noticed an old paper there which was highly valued. Remembering that she had a roll of the very same style in her attic, she went home delighted, and proudly exhibited her specimen, which was, I believe, the motive power which started the Nantucket Historical Society. I was presented with a piece of the paper--a hand-painted design with two alternating pictures; an imposing castle embowered in greenery, its towers and spires stretching far into the sky, and below, an ornate bridge, with a score of steps at the left, and below that the pale blue water. Engrossed lovers and flirtatious couples are not absent.

"A Peep at the Moon" comes from Nantucket. It reveals fully as much as our life-long students of that dead planet have been able to show us, and the inhabitants are as probable as any described as existing on Mars. At Duxbury, Ma.s.sachusetts, there are still two much-talked-of papers, in what is called the "Weston House"--now occupied by the Powder Point School. Mrs. Ezra Weston was a Bradford, and the story is that this paper was brought from Paris by her brother, Captain Gershom Bradford. There is a continuous scene around the room, apparently from the environs of Paris. Upstairs, a small room is papered with the remains of the "Pizarro" paper, which was formerly in the sitting-room opposite the parlor. This has tropical settings and shows the same characters in more or less distinct scenes about the wall. The paper was so strong that it was taken off the sitting-room in complete strips and is now on a small upper chamber.

A stranger, who had heard of my collection, sent a beautiful photograph with this glowing description:

"This wall-paper looks Oriental; it is gilt. Arabs are leading camels, while horses are prancing proudly with their masters in the saddle as the crescent moon is fast sinking to rest in a cloudless sky. Fountains are playing outside of the portal entrance to a building of Saracenic architecture, a quiet, restful scene, decidedly rich and impressive."

Thomas Bailey Aldrich, in his _Story of a Bad Boy_, describes his grandfather's old home--the Nutter House at Rivermouth, he calls it, but he doubtless has in mind some house at Portsmouth, his birthplace.

"On each side of the hall are doors (whose k.n.o.bs, it must be confessed, do not turn very easily), opening into large rooms wainscoted and rich in wood-carvings about the mantel-pieces and cornices. The walls are covered with pictured paper, representing landscapes and sea-views. In the parlor, for example, this enlivening group is repeated all over the room:--A group of English peasants, wearing Italian hats, are dancing on a lawn that abruptly resolves itself into a sea-beach, upon which stands a flabby fisherman (nationality unknown), quietly hauling in what appears to be a small whale, and totally regardless of the dreadful naval combat going on just beyond the end of his fis.h.i.+ng-rod. On the other side of the s.h.i.+ps is the main-land again, with the same peasants dancing. Our ancestors were very worthy people, but their wall-papers were abominable."

With the paper on the little hall chamber which was the Bad Boy's own, he was quite satisfied, as any healthy-minded boy should have been:

"I had never had a chamber all to myself before, and this one, about twice the size of our state-room on board the Typhoon, was a marvel of neatness and comfort. Pretty chintz curtains hung at the window, and a patch quilt of more colors than were in Joseph's coat covered the little truckle-bed. The pattern of the wall-paper left nothing to be desired in that line. On a gray background were small bunches of leaves, unlike any that ever grew in this world; and on every other bunch perched a yellow-bird, pitted with crimson spots, as if it had just recovered from a severe attack of the small-pox. That no such bird ever existed did not detract from my admiration of each one. There were two hundred and sixty-eight of these birds in all, not counting those split in two where the paper was badly joined. I counted them once when I was laid up with a fine black eye, and falling asleep immediately dreamed that the whole flock suddenly took wing and flew out of the window. From that time I was never able to regard them as merely inanimate objects."

One of the most spirited papers I have seen is a series of horse-racing scenes which once adorned the walls of the eccentric Timothy Dexter.

Fragments of this paper are still preserved, framed, by Mr. T. E.

Proctor of Topsfield, Ma.s.s. The drawing makes up in spirit what it lacks in accuracy, and the coloring leaves nothing to the imagination. The gra.s.s and sky are as green and blue as gra.s.s and sky can be, and the jockeys' colors could be distinguished from the most distant grand-stand.

This paper is a memento of the remarkable house of a remarkable man--Timothy Dexter, an eighteenth century leather merchant of Ma.s.sachusetts, whose earnings, invested through advice conveyed to him in dreams, brought him a fortune. With this he was able to gratify his unique tastes in material luxuries. His house at Newburyport was filled with preposterous French furniture and second-rate paintings. On the roof were minarets decorated with a profusion of gold b.a.l.l.s. In front of the house he placed rows of columns, some fifteen feet in height, surmounted by heroic wooden figures of famous men. As his taste in great men changed he would have the attire and features of some statue modified, so that General Morgan might one day find himself posing as Bonaparte. On a Roman circle before the entrance stood his permanent hero, Was.h.i.+ngton, supported on the left by Jefferson, on the right by Adams, who was obliged to stand uncovered in all weathers, to suit Timothy's ideas of the respect due to General Was.h.i.+ngton. Four roaring wooden lions guarded this Pantheon, and the figures were still standing when the great gale of 1815 visited Newburyport. Then the majority fell.

The rest were sold for a song, and were scattered, serving as weather vanes and tavern signs.

Timothy Dexter wrote one book, which is now deservedly rare. This was _A Pickle for the Knowing Ones_, of which he published at least two editions. In this book he spoke his mind on all subjects; his biographer, Samuel L. Knapp, calls it "a Galamathus of all the saws, shreds, and patches that ever entered the head of a motley fool, with items of his own history and family difficulties." His vanity, literary style and orthography may be seen in his a.s.sertion: "Ime the first Lord in the Younited States of Amercary, now of Newburyport. It is the voice of the peopel and I cant Help it." To the second edition of his _Pickle_ he appended this paragraph: "Mister Printer the knowing ones complane of my book the first edition had no stops I put in A Nuf here and they may peper and solt it as they plese." A collection of quotation marks, or "stops" followed.

"Lord Dexter," as he called himself and was called by one Jonathan Plummer, a parasitic versifier who chanted doggerel in his praise, was a picturesque character enough, and we are glad to have his memory kept green by these few remaining bits of paper from his walls.

[Ill.u.s.tration]