A Federal Holiday
At the Osborn-Jackson House the year is 1810, the mantel is decked with pomegranates, and a winter bounty awaits on the Christmas table.
 Carissa Katz Photographs
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January 2, 1810.
East Hampton
We had a lovely New Year’s Day visiting our friends and neighbors. The freshly fallen snow gave Main Street a festive air and Father lined the sleigh with bells and some holly. We looked a fashionable bunch with our velveteen overcoats and muffs that Mother ordered for us from London last spring.
While the Daytons’ fireplaces warmed us, we drank mulled cider and ate raisin cake, sugared almonds, and scones with quince jelly.
The Osborns hung a beautiful pine garland on the banister in their entryway. In the parlor, they had their new chairs from the Dominys around a table set with blue and white Canton porcelain brought back to Sag Harbor by clipper ships from China. The table was also festooned with red ribbon. On the mantels there were garlands of pine with pomegranates and oranges stuck with cloves. The rich aroma mingled with tea, roasted duck, savory herbed pudding, clam chowder, and hare stew.
We drank a punch made of tea and rum in the sitting room near to the kitchen. Later, the gentlemen had port and Madeira in the parlor. On the tables were towers of apples and pineapples and bowls of nuts and limes.
After we ate, Mary sang and her sister Catherine accompanied her on the pianoforte. We all joined in on a couple of songs and went home full of good cheer.
Everyone asked after you and hoped you were enjoying New Year’s in Boston. We look forward to visiting you in the spring
Trees were not traditional in the New World before the Victorian era, but visitors to the East Hampton Historical Society expect them, so they’ve obliged.
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This is a fictional letter—but the scenes described are not difficult to imagine on a visit to the Osborn-Jackson House, the Main Street headquarters of the East Hampton Historical Society. There, the halls are decked as if a family is about to have a traditional South Fork celebration, circa 1810. The rooms, already furnished with chairs and cabinetry of the period, have been decorated with the restraint that Federal Period America exercised in its observance of the winter holidays. Before the reign of Victoria, when Prince Albert brought his German traditions to the English-speaking world, New Englanders considered Christmas celebrations, English-style, to be slightly Papist and even a bit bawdy.
The English Separatists who settled the New World preferred modest and religious observances, although the Dutch settlers’ New Year’s Day festivities were accepted, becoming a tradition of their own, according to Richard Barons, the director of the historical society. Unfortunately, he said, no diaries have been found that chronicle the holiday observances of early residents of East Hampton, but the society is able to take cues from New England records. With the assumption that life changed slowly here, however, Cornelia Huntington’s roman à clef, “Sea-Spray,” published in 1857, provides an excellent picture of South Fork life in the 19th century.
Clams and winter vegetables would have been on the menu. |
It is easy to surmise that the active port of Sag Harbor brought in a bounty of exotic goods and produce, such as the pineapples, limes, and pomegranates on display. Evergreens, pine, boxwood, and holly symbolized continuing life during the long, dark winter. Mr. Barons acknowledged that until the Victorian era Christmas trees were unknown here, but today’s visitors expect to see one, he said, so the society obliged with a small one in the kitchen. In times of great harvest, local produce would be put on display in celebration of holidays, too. The Osborn-Jackson House, following that tradition, has bowls and stands of fruit and nuts throughout its rooms.
The rooms themselves are filled with furniture made by the Dominys, whose work is known nationally. Here, visitors have an opportunity to see museum-quality examples in a historic setting. When there have been gaps, other furniture of South Fork manufacture has been added. As a last resort, colonial pieces from elsewhere have been used.
Many of the society’s pieces come from a Wheelock family collection. The Wheelocks were summer colonists in the 1890s, who took it upon themselves to decorate their abode with the work of local craftsmen, going to farmhouses to buy furniture made in the family or purchased by earlier generations. The kitchen is outfitted with the tools and ingredients of the celebration, with sugar ready to be clipped from a cone and ground with a mortar and pestle. Two butter churns and a mold for special dishes are on display, as well as a lignum vitae (iron wood) rolling pin from the Edwards family, a whipping tool carved from a twig, a Montaukett scrub, and cookie cutters.
A bowl of clams (faux, by necessity!) suggests chowder in the offing. Apples on a damaged table, which has been refitted with a stand and built-in tool for peeling, stand ready to be made into pie or sauce. Old kitchen tools throughout the kitchen may seem crude today, but make up for that with their undeniable charm. Antique glassware, ceramics, decoration, and candle stands bring the rooms to life. There may not have been fairy lights or “Grinch” cartoons in 1810, but it’s hard to imagine a more warm and welcoming setting.