Washington Winter Show 2014

47 This page is sponsored by Beth Roberts mixed dishes. This carving set [Figure 4], used for serving meats at the table, descended in the family of Richard Henry Lee and is on generous loan to Stratford Hall. Like much of the documented Lee family silver, the set is engraved with a squirrel crest denoting the Lee family. Further information on the silver used by the Lee family at Stratford can be gleaned from sources such as the recollections of Luke Tiernan Brien, who spent time with some Lee family pieces during his stays at Henry V. Somerville’s Bloomsbury estate in Maryland. Brien recalls that at the children’s table “we used silver which was marked with a Squirrel and the Motto: ‘Non incautus futuri.’ ‘Not unmindful of the future.’” 7 Elizabeth McCarty Storke, sister-in-law of Henry Lee IV (the last Lee owner), lived at Stratford for over 50 years in the 19th century. While we know little of what was served at her table, this covered tureen and ladle [Figure 5] are part of a larger dinner service used by Mrs. Storke and later descended in the Stuart family. According to family recollections, “there was one room on the main floor at Stratford where she kept the best pieces.” 8 The enslaved, indentured, and hired cooks, scullery maids, and other kitchen staff varied throughout the generations. Thomas Lee employed a highly-skilled English cook named Richard Mynatt to supervise meal preparation at Stratford. Mynatt was indentured by Thomas Lee in 1750 and continued his indenture with Thomas’s son, Philip Ludwell Lee, after Thomas’s death later that year. Mynatt probably trained Caesar, who was documented as cook at Stratford in 1782. 9 The 1775 household inventory of Stratford included a list of articles used in the kitchen, including potracks, spits, frying pans, pots, pewter plates, skillets, mortars and pestles, pails, and tureens. 10 Although most of these ubiquitous objects have been lost to time, when the Stuart family sold Stratford, along with the house came a handful of original objects that dated to the Lee family occupancy. Pot hooks [Figure 6] were valuable at a time before gas or electric stoves and this tool was likely used by enslaved cooks in the Stratford kitchen to lift large pots from the fire. Following the death of Elizabeth McCarty Storke, the estate was divided between her great-nephews, Charles E. and Richard H. Stuart. The main house became the property of Richard, who lived at Stratford with his family. Charles Stuart, the son of Richard and last private owner of Stratford, sold the property to the Robert E. Lee Memorial Foundation in 1929. A number of original Stuart family kitchen items also remained on site when the family moved out in the early 1930s and were later donated to the museum for the collection. This oval egg boiler [Figure 7] features lion face handles and hairy paw feet in a combination of tin and brass. Egg boilers in the 19th century came in silver versions as well, often with even more intricate detailing than this one. This particular boiler was used at Stratford when the property belonged to the Storke and Stuart families. Figure 6: Pair of Pot Hooks. Likely America. Iron, 1750-1850. Gift in Memory of Mrs. Charles Edward Stuart. [1988.006] Figure 7: Egg Boiler. Tin and brass, 1830–1870. Gift in Memory of Mrs. Charles Edward Stuart. [1986.018] Figure 8: Wine Coaster (detail), marked with squirrel crest. Maker EA, England. Silver and walnut, 1775-1785. Purchased with funds provided by the General Society of Colonial Wars in Memory of Herbert W. Jackson. [1938.052]