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| The Jemison Mansion and Longwood: An Architectural History of Two Antebellum Italianate Villas By Robert O. Mellown
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The story of how these mansions were constructed—how their strong-willed, stubborn owners coped with Northern workmen, restless slaves, and an oncoming war they both opposed—provides a fascinating insight into the realities of mansion construction in the mid-nineteenth century.
Philadelphia architect Samuel Sloan began his work in the South in 1852, when he received the contract to design and build the Alabama Insane Hospital in Tuscaloosa. His partner, John Stewart, who supervised the work, placed an ad in Montgomery papers in 1854, notifying readers that he was interested in additional commissions for his firm. A few months later, Stewart received a commission to construct a handsome four-story Gothic Revival building for the Methodist-affiliated Tuskegee Female College. Although documentary evidence is scanty, it appears that Stewart also provided plans for the impressive temple-fronted Montgomery
County courthouse, completed in 1854.
Sloan and Stewart had officially terminated their partnership in 1857 for business reasons, but they continued to work together on numerous commissions and to share an office for a time. There is no question that John Stewart received the commission for the Jemison house and acted as supervising architect, but the actual design should probably be credited to Samuel Sloan. Stewart's background and major strength lay in engineering and field work. Even after these men dissolved their partnership, Stewart seems to have relied heavily upon Sloan's innovative creations for his own commissions. A few months after Stewart received the contract for the Jemison house, Samuel Sloan received a commission from Haller Nutt, a wealthy Natchez physician and plantation owner, to construct one of the most unusual residences ever built in the United States—an octagonal, Italianate mansion topped by an onion dome. Dr. Nutt had been inspired to contact Sloan after viewing the architect's elaborate plans for an octagonal "Oriental Villa" in Sloan's influential pattern book The Model Architect. Sloan estimated that the cost of the mansion would be $40,000. Both clients, Sen. Jemison and Dr. Nutt, were well-bred, self-confident, stubborn men who were accustomed to success. Nutt, the wealthier of the two, owned twenty-one plantations worked by eight hundred slaves. Jemison owned six plantations and five hundred slaves. In addition, he had invested heavily in diverse industrial and commercial enterprises including stagecoach lines, a livery stable, a lumber and sawmill business, and even several surface coal mines. The documents recording the construction of these two homes provide vivid pictures of how such far-flung commissions were routinely accomplished by large eastern architectural firms in the mid-nineteenth century. Not only were these architects able to provide customers with the latest and most modern designs for houses and public buildings, they were also capable of providing skilled craftsmen to build them if local workmen were not available or lacked the training to do a professional job. Sloan and Stewart had a large pool of workmen in Philadelphia willing to travel to the far corners of the Republic in order to find steady employment. Old account books and correspondence between clients and architects also tell a fascinating story of how these great houses were pushed almost to completion despite difficulties caused by frightened northern workmen, damaged shipments of goods, and, (after the war began) ever-tightening Union blockades. Back to Top
In late spring 1859, Robinson was to provide over 600,000 bricks for both the servants' house and the main dwelling and to begin supervising bricklaying. In June, however, just as the foundations for the buildings were being excavated, Robinson was temporarily released from the contract in order to rebuild one of the town's few industries, the Leach & Avery Foundry, which had been burned by an arsonist. Earlier that year, on the advice of John Stewart, Jemison had hired Joseph Lewis, a Philadelphia carpenter, to act as building superintendent for the erection of his house. With a complete set of plans for both the servants' house and the mansion, Lewis began preparing the scores of windows, doors, shutters, and blinds for the structures even though it would now be months before they would be needed. Lewis's task was made easier by the extensive sawmill operation Jemison owned outside of Tuscaloosa, where the choicest woods and the latest northern steam-driven saws were at his disposal. In September 1859, Robinson completed work on the foundry and was ready to resume work for Jemison. A month later, work had progressed to the extent that the servants' house was in the process of being "covered in," or roofed, and the brick foundations of the mansion were being laid. Then disaster struck. Robinson had waited too late in the season to begin brick work, and cold weather began to take its toll. In mid-December the temperature dropped sixty degrees in twelve hours and froze the newly laid mortar in the foundation walls, which now reached the first floor level. All of the frozen mortar had to be laboriously picked out and replaced with new mortar. The harassed Jemison wrote Stewart in Philadelphia that he had determined to suspend the brickwork until spring.
Two days later, Jemison contacted Messrs. J. Brown & Goldman, another Mobile firm, and made the following request: Gent.These are the only accounts, so far discovered, recording the purchase of new furniture. It would appear that vexing construction problems and the increasingly serious political situation diverted Jemison's mind from the frivolous problems of interior decoration. Back to Top
Meanwhile, back in Tuscaloosa, Jemison fired Robinson, his brickmason, after he found it impossible to come to terms with him. Then, acting as his own contractor, he made arrangements with a local brickyard to supply bricks. It seems that a Mr. Myler, who was hired to mold the bricks, was overly fond of strong drink. Jemison, therefore, required the brickmaker to sign a contract stating that if Myler got drunk during the period of his employment Myler would forfeit a month's wages. Eventually Jemison found a master brick mason, Philip Bond, to supervise the masonry work. Bond had just completed work on "Carlisle Hall," a large brick Italianate mansion near Marion, Alabama, designed by New York architect Richard Upjohn for Edward K. Carlisle. Despite Bond 's presence on the job site, unforeseen problems resulted in further delays, and it was not until August 1860 that actual bricklaying on the mansion recommenced.
Despite such annoyances, the exteriors of both houses were nearing completion in early 1861. Though built of brick, both houses were intended to be "roughcast," or covered with stucco in imitation of stone blocks. The walls of the Jemison mansion were covered with a gray stucco, which was scored and then pencilled or painted with thin white lines to imitate mortar joints. Longwood, in Natchez, never received its exterior coat of stucco, though surviving documents indicate that it, like the Tuscaloosa structure, was to be roughcast to imitate ashlar or sandstone blocks.
Despite the defection of Hutton, Nutt pressed forward with the construction of his house, determined to complete it regardless of the volatile political and economic climate. Ignoring the Union blockade of Southern ports, Nutt ordered a large shipment of expensive furniture from Philadelphia. The furniture never arrived. In September his last two Yankee workmen, a carpenter and a tinner, hastily left for the North after completing the mansion's metal roof. Over the next several months, Nutt apparently resigned himself to the realities of war and determined to delay completion of the house until the end of hostilities. In 1862 he ordered his slaves to fix up the enormous basement at Longwood as a comfortable temporary home for his family. Nutt even had a number of expensive marble mantels, originally intended for the upper floors, installed in this space. When Nutt halted construction on his house, it was far from complete. On the exterior, the imposing onion dome loomed above the moss-shrouded live oaks like a fantastic vision, its eerie quality heightened by the fact that the scores of door and window openings on the upper floors gaped emptily or were crudely blocked with planks to keep out the elements and possible trespassers. Except for the large basement, the house was uninhabitable-an empty shell of raw timbers, floor joists, scaffolding, boxes and crates, and a scattering of workmen's tools. It was truly a melancholy sight—one man's grand vision of a mansion, now a suitable home only for pigeons, bats, and owls. Robert Jemison in Tuscaloosa was more fortunate. His building superintendent, the industrious Joseph Lewis, was less sensitive, or, as was more likely the case, in greater need of steady employment. Lewis continued to supervise the construction of the house from 1859 until 1863, when the family moved in. During that period, records indicate that he took only one trip back to Pennsylvania to see his family. Jemison did assist Lewis on several occasions with the complicated problem of transferring money to his wife in Philadelphia. In one instance, in January 1862, the senator helped Lewis obtain permission for a U.S. prisoner of war (released from a Tuscaloosa camp) to take $106 back to Mrs. Lewis. But even with the advantages of a dependable building superintendent, a steady labor force, and an unlimited supply of wood, the construction of the house was plagued by problems, including lack of money to pay for materials. In June 1861, the senator wrote a merchant in Mobile to apologize. He explained: Strange as it may seem I have not since receipt of your Bill of nails had even that small amt that I could spare to remit. There is no money . .. except what is hoarded. What little is in circulation is required to buy provisions. I hope to remit soon.Good quality building supplies were also becoming difficult to obtain and, when available, were more expensive. Jemison made inquiries about window glass in Mobile, Charleston, and Savannah. He sarcastically remarked in a July 1861 letter to a Mobile merchant: There is only a small portion of the glass wanted soon, for the balance I can wait until the Boats run without much inconvenience, by which time perhaps the Blockade will be [raised], or if our NORTHERN FRIENDS be right in their calculations we shall all be subjugated & our estates confiscated.Seven months later, in January 1862, Jemison angrily wrote another Mobile merchant that he had ordered the best French plate glass for his windows and had been sent American glass of inferior quality.
Even for the ingenious Robert Jemison, some items were impossible to obtain. Inspired by the elaborate heating, cooling, and illumination systems that Sloan & Stewart had installed at the insane hospital, Jemison planned to have equally up-to-date facilities in his mansion. Even the fireplaces were to contain "low down grates," which were designed to be more efficient. The furnace Jemison ordered was never delivered from the North, and the grates never arrived due to the Union blockade. Jemison himself cancelled the order for the marble mantels he had planned for most of the rooms of his house. In 1860, he wrote the supplier not to send the mantels yet, as construction had not reached the point where they could be installed, and he did not want to pay any unnecessary interest on their purchase. The mantels were never sent due to the war, and simple, locally made wooden mantels were installed. (The handsome marble mantel currently in the front parlor was added when the house was renovated in 1946.) Apparently, the cooking range intended for the kitchen was never delivered either, and preparation of food took place in the open fire place in the basement kitchen. Some mechanical contrivances were installed: a large dumbwaiter that carried food from the kitchen to the pantry above, next to the dining room; a system of bells that announced callers and summoned servants from the basement; a speaking tube connecting Mrs. Jemison's room with the kitchen; and a deep dry well in the basement that was used as a refrigerator. Always on the lookout for new business opportunities, the senator had investigated, as early as 1859, the possibility of developing a gas-generating plant that would service his home as well as those of his neighbors. Still later, he had considered developing a corporation that would generate gas for the entire community. The war brought a stop to this grand scheme, but Jemison did install on his property a plant to create illuminating gas from rosin. The gas-generating equipment was initially operated by a black man who had been trained to operate similar machinery at the insane hospital. After the man left, the equipment fell into disrepair and, according to Jemison's granddaughter, was never of much use. At some point in 1863, the interior of the main floors of the Jemison house were made habitable and the family moved in. Jemison's accounts indicate that he had spent over $39,000 on the house. Neither Jemison nor his counterpart in Mississippi, Dr. Nutt, was destined to enjoy for long his incomplete though imposing mansion. Haller Nutt died from pneumonia on June 15, 1864, at age forty-eight. His wife Julia felt that his death was brought about from worry over his crumbling fortunes and by his endless pacing of the upper unfinished stories of Longwood. In some respects his death was more merciful than that of Robert Jemison, Jr., who was forced to hide in a swamp for several days to avoid capture when Union forces occupied Tuscaloosa in April 1865, and who lived to see his worst nightmares come true: his fortune lost, his career ruined, and his country devastated. In many respects, he, too, was a casualty of the war. When he died at age sixty-nine on October 17, 1871, the ambitious, energetic, and resourceful Robert Jemison, Jr., was a broken man.
The family of Robert Jemison lived in their unfinished mansion until 1937, when Jemison's granddaughter Minnie Van de Graaff, devastated by the Great Depression, lost the house in a mortgage foreclosure. The Jemison Mansion was purchased in 1991 by the Tuscaloosa County Preservation Society and the Heritage Commission of Tuscaloosa County with financial assistance from the City of Tuscaloosa. It was then deeded to the newly created Jemison-Van de Graaff Mansion Foundation. Today plans are underway to renovate the house and develop limited commercial space on the ground level and public rental space for meetings and receptions on the two main levels. These floors will be restored to reflect the late antebellum period. The house is also undergoing a thorough historical and architectural analysis. Progress is slow, but the compilation of a comprehensive building history of the house will insure that this elegant structure is transformed into one of the most accurately interpreted historical houses in Alabama. The Jemison-Van de Graaff Mansion has an important story to tell. At the heart of that story is Senator Jemison's pride of place and his vision of a bright future for Alabama.
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Nineteenth-Century Bathrooms and Water Closets
The Jemison Mansion contains what may be the oldest still-operable bathroom in Alabama. Bathrooms and water closets (toilets) were a rarity in nineteenth-century America. Well into the twentieth century, all but the most fastidious Americans considered a daily sponge bath from a bowl sufficient to cleanse the body.
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This page created 6/23/08