Author: Ellery Foutch

The wood for Henry Sheldon’s 24^th and final spindle on his relic chair comes from the “Declaration House,” located at 700 Market Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a few blocks away from Independence Hall. The Declaration House, also known as the Graff House, was built by Jacob Graff in 1775 and stood as it was originally constructed for 106 years.[1] In the summer of 1776, Thomas Jefferson moved in to the second floor of the house, and drafted the Declaration of Independence there. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were assigned to draw up the Declaration of Independence and to make it look presentable. This was an intimidating task and took the duo seventeen days to accomplish. The draft was then passed on to the Second Continental Congress, where it was further revised.[2] It was this house in which our nation’s dreams were first put onto paper, and was a monumental step toward initiating our freedom. Sheldon understood this significance and presumably wanted to enshrine a relic piece for his chair.

There is some controversy surrounding the drafting of the Declaration of Independence, specifically as to whether or not the corner of Market Street and 7^th Street was the actual location of where it took place. Some speculate that it might actually be 702 Market St, while others say it was on a completely different intersection.[3] Some of the conjecture has died down since letters from Thomas Jefferson were discovered, confirming the Graff House as the location of where the Declaration was drafted. However, this may have affected Sheldon and his quest to procure spindles from across the nation. It is unknown from exactly where inside the house the relic was procured.

Of the 24 spindles on the chair, three come from Philadelphia. With the spindles being collected from all across the nation, Sheldon clearly wanted to show the significance the city of Philadelphia had. While Sheldon purchased the other two Philadelphia relics, from the William Penn House and the Centennial House, the Declaration House relic seems to have been a donation, as it appears in the acquisitions ledger rather than the purchases ledger (see below). Sheldon received all three of these spindles from a man named William McKay Heath.[4]

Unlike the other spindles on the chair, the relics from Philadelphia don’t seem to have the same personal connection with Sheldon. However, these relics do hold extreme value and give a different viewpoint for Sheldon and the chair. With a majority of the spindles being from Vermont, the Philadelphia spindles give the chair a national perspective. It broadens what the chair has to offer as a piece of national relevance rather than just a piece of Vermont history. Furthermore, it allows for a much broader audience to connect with the chair.

The Declaration House was razed in 1883, around the time Sheldon purchased his relic. Yet in anticipation of the 1976 Bicentennial, Philadelphia embarked upon programs of preservation, restoration, and rebuilding. In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson was appointed Honorary Chairman of the Declaration House and was responsible for its renovations. President Johnson acquired the house and added it to the Independence National Historical Park.[6] The goal of the acquisition was to turn the House into a library of the first of its kind. The library was to be dedicated to freedom and was intended to educate the public about our growth towards this ideal.[7] In 1975, the Declaration House was rebuilt based on historic drawings and photographs, made into a museum for the public. Today, you can visit the 700 Market Street address as the house is now a historical landmark and is part of the National Park Service. Throughout all the renovations and changes that the house underwent, it is still able to evoke the 18^th century elegance that Jacob Graff first constructed the house with.

– Ibrahim Nasir ’20

Footnotes:

[1] Thomas Donaldson, The House In Which Thomas Jefferson Wrote the Declaration Of Independence (Philadelphia: Avil Printing Co., 1898); Wayde Brown, Reconstructing Historic Landmarks: Fabrication, Negotiation, and the Past (New York: Routledge, 2018).
[2] John H. Hazelton, The Declaration of Independence, Its History (New York:  Dodd, Mead, and Co., 1906).

[3] Donaldson.

[4]Henry Sheldon, “Acquisition Ledger,” Sheldon Museum Archive

[5] Letter from William McKay Heath to Henry Sheldon, 9 September 1884, Sheldon Museum Archive.

[6] “Independence House Gets Johnson’s Aid,” New York Times 10 Jan. 1965.

[7] Ibid.

The central relic in the lower row of spindles is not finely turned with gently swelling curves, like its neighbors—instead, it is a rough-hewn, rectangular length of wood. Its inscription suggests familiarity rather than formality: “Andy Johnson’s Tailor Shop.” Yet far from being another local Middlebury connection, this relic hails from East Tennessee, and the homestead of a former President: Andrew Johnson.

Andrew Johnson was the seventeenth President of the United States, ascending to the office after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. His tenure has been widely denounced. Serving in the aftermath of the Civil War, Johnson looked to quickly reunify the country through Reconstruction policies that were largely at the expense of Black Americans, dismantling institutions such as the Freedmen’s Bureau, which had been intended to offer material aid and secure civil rights for formerly-enslaved people. In 1868, articles of impeachment were brought against Johnson; he was the first (though not the last) U.S. President to face an impeachment trial. After leaving office, he returned to Tennessee, staging a comeback when he ran for and won a seat in the Senate in 1875. He died only a few months later.

Fewer than ten years after these tumultuous events, Henry Sheldon contacted Johnson’s daughter, Martha Johnson Patterson, asking her for a contribution to his museum. Patterson had served as the primary hostess during her father’s years in the White House, acting as a de facto First Lady. In Tennessee herself, Patterson delegated the sending of the relic to W.H. Piper, the County Court Clerk of Greene County (see below).

Sheldon’s excitement about receiving the relic can be seen in the enthusiastic underlining in both his diary and his acquisitions ledger, noting his receipt of the piece of wood from “Andy Johnson’s Tailor Shop.”

 

Like Lincoln, Johnson built much of his reputation and public persona on his humble background, highlighting his former employment as a tailor. Popular lore frequently emphasized how Johnson received his primary education not in school, but by asking people to read newspapers and books to him as he sewed.[1]

Political cartoons featured the team of Lincoln and Johnson collaborating in their roles as “rail-splitter” and “tailor” to heal the rift of the Civil War with their trades. Here, Lincoln uses a rail to hold a globe featuring the U.S. aloft as Johnson crouches atop it with shears, needle, and thread in hand, attempting to mend the rip across the country. “Take it quietly Uncle Abe and I will draw it closer than ever!!” Johnson exclaims, while Lincoln encourages him: “A few more stitches Andy and the good old UNION will be mended!”

Yet other depictions spoofed Johnson’s status as a tailor, especially in the aftermath of his impeachment. In “A.J. Returns to his First Love,” Johnson stands defiantly at a storefront under the sign “A. Johnson Clothier.” The windows are filled with signs offering bargains—most of which are actually puns on the former President’s failings and reduced status: “Coats Turned,” “Party Ties Sold Cheap,” “Heavy Fall,” “Greatly Reduced,” and, most alarmingly, “Colored Kids for Sale.”

With this role in the public imagination, the tailor shop was preserved as a historic site and tourist destination. One early illustration, published in Harper’s Weekly while Johnson was still serving as President, depicts two figures—perhaps a father and son—visiting the site; the top-hatted father gesticulates at the building, as though imparting a lesson. It is a small frame structure (approximately twenty-one feet by fourteen feet) that still exists today, covered in weather-beaten wooden boards. A brick chimney rises up one side of the building, and small windows flank a central door. In the illustration, the building sits on carefully-stacked stones, rather than a secure foundation. It is a rustic structure that evokes Johnson’s humble background.

At the time Sheldon acquired the relic, Johnson’s descendants still owned the building, but it was purchased by the State of Tennessee in 1921. A few years

later (1923), the State erected a brick “Memorial Building” around the structure, in the hopes of protecting the fragile building from the elements. It was designated a national monument in 1941 and is open to the public as part of the Andrew Johnson National Historic Site, administered by the National Park Service.

The Tailor Shop was still seen as an icon of Tennessee history in the 1930s, when the structure inspired a parade float; descendants of Johnson donned period costumes and rode through town as though perched on the lawn of the building, painstakingly reproduced. Even though the structure had been sheltered from open viewing, protected by the “Memorial Building,” it was still very present in the public imagination.

-Ellery Foutch, Assistant Professor

[1] See, for example, “President Andrew Johnson,” Harper’s Weekly IX, no. 437 (13 May 1865), 289.

 

 

Further reading:

Online exhibition with artifacts from Andrew Johnson Historic Site: https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/tgKy36vEeIZxLg

“An Historical Tailor Shop,” The Tailor XII, no. 2 (Sept. 1901), 4-5:

Cameron Binkley, Andrew Johnson National Historic Site: Administrative History (National Park Service, 2008): http://npshistory.com/publications/anjo/adhi.pdf

Paul H. Bergeron, Andrew Johnson’s Civil War and Reconstruction (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2011).

Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution (New York: HarperCollins, 1988).

Annette Gordon-Reed, Andrew Johnson (New York: Times Books, 2011).

Hugh A. Lawing, “Andrew Johnson National Monument,” Tennessee Historical Quarterly 20, no. 2 (June 1961): 103-119.

Evan Phifer, “Martha Johnson Patterson: Hostess of the Andrew Johnson White House,” White House Historical Association, 13 Mar. 2017: https://www.whitehousehistory.org/martha-johnson-patterson-hostess-of-the-andrew-johnson-white-house

Glenna R. Schroeder-Lein and Richard Zuczek, Andrew Johnson: A Biographical Companion (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2001).

James Stewart, Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln’s Legacy (new York: Simon and Schuster, 2009).

Hans L. Trefousse, Andrew Johnson: A Biography (New York: W.W. Norton, 1989).